Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

…but this is ridiculous.

I hope the mailman was in error.

July 15, 2013: One of the highlights of my Upper Midwest trip was visiting the north end of “my” highway, US 63. However, construction prevented me from clinching the entire route in Wisconsin.

As 2013 comes to a close, here are some of my state and highway accomplishments from this year:

• Starting on New Year’s Day in Tennessee, I added 77 counties in 11 states, including my last ones in Illinois. The flip side of this, though, is that my nearest unvisited county is six hours away.
• In all, I traveled in 14 states, but in both Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas.
• Still close, but not quite, on every numbered road in Iowa. A few segments remain elusive for me.
• I traveled the entire signed Lincoln Highway in Iowa (and will put up photo galleries at some point, I hope).
• I went to my first SEC and Big Ten football games.
• I’ve added somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,600 miles of interstate highways in the past four years. I’m still not quite to half of the system, though, because miles keep getting added. (I-22 in the South will knock me down a lot.)

July 6, 2013: 1921 Lincoln Highway bridge near Calamus

I closed some gaps and clinched some states. More details are on my page at Clinched Highway Mapping.

• I’ve traveled every mile of mainline I-35. (I-35E in Dallas is still waiting.)
• I’ve traveled every interstate in Minnesota and Wisconsin (at least until Wisconsin signs I-41), for five total states with that distinction. A change to I-40 in Oklahoma City means I’m five miles short in the Sooner State.
• I’ve traveled all of I-94 east of Bismarck.
• I’ve traveled US 30 from Grand Island NE to Pittsburgh — and in all, I’m just shy of half of the entire transcontinental route.
• I closed my gap on I-90 in Cleveland, giving me that interstate from the middle of South Dakota to Albany, about 60% of the total.
• I’ve traveled I-70 from west of Denver to Frederick MD, after adding the I-55-to-Indianapolis stretch this year, but there will be a new part of that opening across the Mississippi River soon.
• Ohio is now the state with my third-highest interstate mileage — but even unfinished, I have 275 more miles there than in any Midwestern state I’ve clinched because there are more interstates there.

October 1, 2013: The only duplexed 3-digit interstates in the nation, I-271 and I-480 in southeast suburban Cleveland.

There was one other little milestone: I finally filled up the notebook I had been using to keep track of my travels since shortly after my car was stolen in 2003. That was back when gas was under $1.50 and it didn’t routinely cost six bucks to eat at Burger King.

I had two big vacations this year, but at the moment it appears unlikely I’ll repeat such a feat on that scale in 2014. We’ll see.

Is there a relationship between the increasing restrictions imposed on teenage drivers, which have been going on for a decade or so, and the “trend pieces” that say millennials are not as interested in getting drivers’ licenses or driving cars as previous generations? Or is the latter part based on increased car prices, or the inability to peel them away from their screens?

Or is there no correlation between any of the above at all?

As someone on the leading edge of the “millennial generation”, I have thought for a while now that it is too large in scope. The very fast changes in technology have a lot to do with that. There is a divide within the generation, not solely on age, but also on what you got first: a full-fledged driver’s license or a cell phone. (In addition, we’re reaching the point where the newest drivers are not millennials, but the generation after.)