Great Northern Iowa Road Trips

Early 2004 Road Trips

Click on each thumbnail to see a larger 600x450 image.

You can see a map of the route for the May trip here. Black circles are new termini, black squares are supposed future termini, gray circles are secret/business route termini, and gray squares are new pictures of termini we already have. Smaller versions of many of these pictures are sprinkled throughout the site on their respective terminus pages.

April 9-10, 2004

I was asked to help moderate a quiz bowl match at the University of Iowa in April. It gave me a chance to take a little time for pictures along roads I've been on many times.

This exit on US 30 has been around since the road was realigned in 1963, but did not get an exit number until the 2000s, when another sign for Collins and Zearing was added. And then the tab was put on the wrong side - it should be on the right, for a right exit - and remained wrong throughout 2005.

This one-piece sign on northbound 65 actually has shields for 65 and 30 pasted on. A similar sign on southbound 65 incorporates the shields into the panel. I think the one-panel thing was tried out in a few places in the 1960s but the standard three-separate-piece setup won out.

Many of the flags displayed in Brooklyn, the Community of Flags, are near the fire station and what used to be the south end of IA 398. In 2004, the town tried to sell the original bridge that carried US 32, later US 6, across the Iowa River. So yes, the Brooklyn Bridge was for sale.

This is the first shield heading north on US 151. Half a mile south of this point, the road goes to gravel - or did until 2005, as the 2006 map and RAGBRAI route now indicate. I'm not quite sure what's up with the scale here, as either the numbers are smaller or the interstate shields bigger than usual. Probably the former since the 151 shield is the same size.

This four-way stop in Amana has been the east end of IA 220 since 1980. The road used to continue through town along the main street and then end in East Amana.

I took a picture of this because I thought it was interesting that they put up such a sign for a construction project. The blue line is along 220th Trail, which used to be IA 220 through Amana.

May 18: North-central Iowa Day 1

When the Denver bypass was built in the early to mid-1990s, it was the only exit anywhere on US 63 in Iowa. Apparently this meant that the signs were done by someone who hadn't seen any recently, because the only way to describe the BGSs here is "weird". The mileage signs after the interchange in each direction are equally weird. Southbound, there are two of them: The first, probably the old one moved from old 63, lists Waterloo, Hudson, and Oskaloosa; the second subtracts one mile from Waterloo's mileage and then lists Traer and Ottumwa.

This is a prime example of what signage should be like in Iowa. Highways are listed with cardinal directions, the exit tab is attached to the dominant highway despite a lower number duplexing from this spot, and it isn't Butt-Ugly Kansas-Style Signage. Unfortunately, the signs along new 63 in 2002 on the New Hampton bypass, including this one at IA 346, may be the last good ones put up, as newer signs display the larger initial letters.

Doesn't this seem like an optical illusion? The sign says "Road Ends Ahead," and there's a barrier, yet we can clearly see a road ahead of us. Of course, the position this photo was taken is on a diagonal piece of 63 left behind when the New Hampton bypass was built, and now sticks out from the north-south road built northward from old 63.

Here's the counterpart to the IA 346 exit picture above, on the other end of the US 18 duplex and IA 24. I think the DOT did the right thing here by assigning 63's mile markers to the exit numbers while using 18's mileage to mark the five-hundredths-mile poles.

The four-destination LGS is somewhat rare in Iowa. Both directions of US 18 have one at IA 150 on the west side of West Union. Notice the "To 56" in the background; the original alignment of 56 ended facing north at 18 near downtown while the modern end faces west at IA 150 on the south side of town.

US 18 and 53 stay in Allamakee County just long enough to get through Postville and serve as IA 51's south end. US 18 actually enters Clayton County twice, once clipping the northwest corner after straddling the Fayette/Clayton line and just before joining US 52, and then re-entering a fraction of a mile east of this photo's location as the highways leave Postville. This photo is facing west in Allamakee County, in Postville.

My trip was a combination photo tour and tourist trip. I stopped at Vesterheim, the Norwegian museum in Decorah. It had many exhibits, including this hand-crafted altar by Lars Christenson. Northeast Iowa had a large contingent of Norwegian immigrants come in the 19th century - and, as a result, the area has a large contingent of Sven and Ole jokes today. :-)

Barely a mile into Minnesota, US 52 meets MN 44. The state highway used to continue west, and joined the northernmost part of MN 139 before heading west to US 63. The "Welcome to Minnesota" marker for US 52 is at the southeast corner of this intersection; this photo is facing west-northwest.

May 19: North-central Iowa Day 2

Waterloo is the biggest city on US 63 in Iowa, and the biggest between Rochester and Columbia. This sign serves as the leaving-town LGS for Chester and the first LGS heading south in Iowa. We're about 40 miles south of Rochester at this point, making the halfway point somewhere around County Road A46 in Howard County. (That means the IA 9 junction is closer to Rochester than Waterloo, and closer to I-90 than US 20!) This is also only about 15 miles south of old US 16 but 31 miles north of US 18.

Only half a mile from the state line is 63's first junction with a Minnesota highway, MN 56. You can see the curve into Iowa in the background, and Chester's elevator on the far left.

The Cedar River starts in Minnesota, and flows into the Iowa River near Columbus Junction. This is what it looks like as it crosses the state line. This photo was taken on the road stradding the state line, looking south.

What is the meaning of MN 105's existence? The question has taxed the minds of prominent Midwestern roads scholars for some time. It connects to no Iowa route - certainly not old IA 105, an east-west road a few miles south - and parallels US 218 coming south from Austin.

The Jefferson Highway was the Minneapolis-to-New-Orlenas auto route that later became US 65. The Jefferson met the Lincoln Highway in Colo, and then went west together to Ames, where they split and the Jefferson went south to Des Moines. (From US 30 to IA 2, then, the Jefferson originally followed what today is US 69.) This marker still stands on 65 at the state line to mark the date that the road was paved or at least blacktopped from Minneapolis to the Missouri. Since the 65 designation was only about four years old at the time, referring to it as the Jefferson would not be out of the question.

Shields that retain the Minnesota name are posted at the southernmost Minnesota interchange and only the second south of Albert Lea.

This is the last mileage sign in Minnesota, with a shield for former IA 105. Based on the mileage on this sign and at former IA 105, the halfway point between Des Moines and Minneapolis on I-35 (I-35W) is near IA 9.

This eastbound setup is a reminder of when IA 105 was here, signed in the middle. This interchange is now the site of the Top of Iowa Welcome Center and the Burger King in the Middle of Nowhere. In 2005, as a way to ~~part Minnesotans from their money~~ increase the county's economic base, Worth County applied for and got a license for a new casino here.

Just before entering Minnesota, US 69 nicks the northwest corner of Worth County. Ahead is the elevator for Emmons, Minnesota...

...which, despite being in Minnesota, apparently extends city limits into Iowa and gets an Iowa DOT sign. The county road running to the left, whose northbound junction signs are in Iowa, runs on the state line.

The "End" sign that isn't there: US 69 ends abruptly at a county highway in Albert Lea. This wasn't always the case; the road used to be US 16. But instead of extending 69 north to I-90, the logical solution, Minnesota just let 69 end here. Going straight ahead to reach I-35 involves getting onto I-90 first.

Alternately, Minnesota could have extended 69 eastward to end at US 65. But that didn't happen either; instead, MN 13 starts here, goes east to US 69, and then north to I-90. This is facing west, a short distance south of US 65's north end.

Just south of the I-35/I-90 cloverleaf, whose east-west BGSs are for La Crosse and Sioux Falls, is the offramp for US 65, a partial interchange. There is no access from northbound 35 to southbound 65 here, but there is where 65 crosses 35 a bit to the south.

Halfway between Albert Lea and Austin, old US 16 switches from being on the south side of I-90 to being on the north side. It's now Freeborn County Road 46.

Since the three shields aren't centered, I would guess that the Business Loop I-90 is a later addition. MN 105 takes part of US 16's route through Austin but then turns south to serve no purpose whatsoever.

Lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM...the world-renowned SPAM museum in Austin MN. Some people go to beaches. I take road trips and stop at museums.

Austin barely beats out Owatonna as the largest Minnesota city on US 218. This is the second of four interstates 218 interacts with, the others being I-35 (218's north end), I-380, and I-80.

US 218's stairstep alignment in northern Iowa takes another turn after a duplex with IA 9 in Mitchell County.

Right about the time that larger county road signs began popping up in random places in Iowa, the US 218 four-lane and bypass of Nashua opened. Included in the project, it appears, were larger but mixed-case county signs for 218 on the Chickasaw/Floyd line and Chickasaw/Bremer lines (218 spends very little time in Chickasaw County). In the distance is the exit for IA 346, extended a bit west for the 2nd time in its history but still (barely) contained inside the county.

To Iowa Highway Ends Annex

To Iowa Highway Ends Index

Page created 4/9/06

April 9-10, 2004
	I was asked to help moderate a quiz bowl match at the University of Iowa in April. It gave me a chance to take a little time for pictures along roads I've been on many times. This exit on US 30 has been around since the road was realigned in 1963, but did not get an exit number until the 2000s, when another sign for Collins and Zearing was added. And then the tab was put on the wrong side - it should be on the right, for a right exit - and remained wrong throughout 2005.
	This one-piece sign on northbound 65 actually has shields for 65 and 30 pasted on. A similar sign on southbound 65 incorporates the shields into the panel. I think the one-panel thing was tried out in a few places in the 1960s but the standard three-separate-piece setup won out.
	Many of the flags displayed in Brooklyn, the Community of Flags, are near the fire station and what used to be the south end of IA 398. In 2004, the town tried to sell the original bridge that carried US 32, later US 6, across the Iowa River. So yes, the Brooklyn Bridge was for sale.
	This is the first shield heading north on US 151. Half a mile south of this point, the road goes to gravel - or did until 2005, as the 2006 map and RAGBRAI route now indicate. I'm not quite sure what's up with the scale here, as either the numbers are smaller or the interstate shields bigger than usual. Probably the former since the 151 shield is the same size.
	This four-way stop in Amana has been the east end of IA 220 since 1980. The road used to continue through town along the main street and then end in East Amana.
	I took a picture of this because I thought it was interesting that they put up such a sign for a construction project. The blue line is along 220th Trail, which used to be IA 220 through Amana.
May 18: North-central Iowa Day 1
	When the Denver bypass was built in the early to mid-1990s, it was the only exit anywhere on US 63 in Iowa. Apparently this meant that the signs were done by someone who hadn't seen any recently, because the only way to describe the BGSs here is "weird". The mileage signs after the interchange in each direction are equally weird. Southbound, there are two of them: The first, probably the old one moved from old 63, lists Waterloo, Hudson, and Oskaloosa; the second subtracts one mile from Waterloo's mileage and then lists Traer and Ottumwa.
	This is a prime example of what signage should be like in Iowa. Highways are listed with cardinal directions, the exit tab is attached to the dominant highway despite a lower number duplexing from this spot, and it isn't Butt-Ugly Kansas-Style Signage. Unfortunately, the signs along new 63 in 2002 on the New Hampton bypass, including this one at IA 346, may be the last good ones put up, as newer signs display the larger initial letters.
	Doesn't this seem like an optical illusion? The sign says "Road Ends Ahead," and there's a barrier, yet we can clearly see a road ahead of us. Of course, the position this photo was taken is on a diagonal piece of 63 left behind when the New Hampton bypass was built, and now sticks out from the north-south road built northward from old 63.
	Here's the counterpart to the IA 346 exit picture above, on the other end of the US 18 duplex and IA 24. I think the DOT did the right thing here by assigning 63's mile markers to the exit numbers while using 18's mileage to mark the five-hundredths-mile poles.
	The four-destination LGS is somewhat rare in Iowa. Both directions of US 18 have one at IA 150 on the west side of West Union. Notice the "To 56" in the background; the original alignment of 56 ended facing north at 18 near downtown while the modern end faces west at IA 150 on the south side of town.
	US 18 and 53 stay in Allamakee County just long enough to get through Postville and serve as IA 51's south end. US 18 actually enters Clayton County twice, once clipping the northwest corner after straddling the Fayette/Clayton line and just before joining US 52, and then re-entering a fraction of a mile east of this photo's location as the highways leave Postville. This photo is facing west in Allamakee County, in Postville.
	My trip was a combination photo tour and tourist trip. I stopped at Vesterheim, the Norwegian museum in Decorah. It had many exhibits, including this hand-crafted altar by Lars Christenson. Northeast Iowa had a large contingent of Norwegian immigrants come in the 19th century - and, as a result, the area has a large contingent of Sven and Ole jokes today. :-)
	Barely a mile into Minnesota, US 52 meets MN 44. The state highway used to continue west, and joined the northernmost part of MN 139 before heading west to US 63. The "Welcome to Minnesota" marker for US 52 is at the southeast corner of this intersection; this photo is facing west-northwest.
May 19: North-central Iowa Day 2
	Waterloo is the biggest city on US 63 in Iowa, and the biggest between Rochester and Columbia. This sign serves as the leaving-town LGS for Chester and the first LGS heading south in Iowa. We're about 40 miles south of Rochester at this point, making the halfway point somewhere around County Road A46 in Howard County. (That means the IA 9 junction is closer to Rochester than Waterloo, and closer to I-90 than US 20!) This is also only about 15 miles south of old US 16 but 31 miles north of US 18.
	Only half a mile from the state line is 63's first junction with a Minnesota highway, MN 56. You can see the curve into Iowa in the background, and Chester's elevator on the far left.
	The Cedar River starts in Minnesota, and flows into the Iowa River near Columbus Junction. This is what it looks like as it crosses the state line. This photo was taken on the road stradding the state line, looking south.
	What is the meaning of MN 105's existence? The question has taxed the minds of prominent Midwestern roads scholars for some time. It connects to no Iowa route - certainly not old IA 105, an east-west road a few miles south - and parallels US 218 coming south from Austin.
	The Jefferson Highway was the Minneapolis-to-New-Orlenas auto route that later became US 65. The Jefferson met the Lincoln Highway in Colo, and then went west together to Ames, where they split and the Jefferson went south to Des Moines. (From US 30 to IA 2, then, the Jefferson originally followed what today is US 69.) This marker still stands on 65 at the state line to mark the date that the road was paved or at least blacktopped from Minneapolis to the Missouri. Since the 65 designation was only about four years old at the time, referring to it as the Jefferson would not be out of the question.
	Shields that retain the Minnesota name are posted at the southernmost Minnesota interchange and only the second south of Albert Lea.
	This is the last mileage sign in Minnesota, with a shield for former IA 105. Based on the mileage on this sign and at former IA 105, the halfway point between Des Moines and Minneapolis on I-35 (I-35W) is near IA 9.
	This eastbound setup is a reminder of when IA 105 was here, signed in the middle. This interchange is now the site of the Top of Iowa Welcome Center and the Burger King in the Middle of Nowhere. In 2005, as a way to ~~part Minnesotans from their money~~ increase the county's economic base, Worth County applied for and got a license for a new casino here.
	Just before entering Minnesota, US 69 nicks the northwest corner of Worth County. Ahead is the elevator for Emmons, Minnesota...
	...which, despite being in Minnesota, apparently extends city limits into Iowa and gets an Iowa DOT sign. The county road running to the left, whose northbound junction signs are in Iowa, runs on the state line.
	The "End" sign that isn't there: US 69 ends abruptly at a county highway in Albert Lea. This wasn't always the case; the road used to be US 16. But instead of extending 69 north to I-90, the logical solution, Minnesota just let 69 end here. Going straight ahead to reach I-35 involves getting onto I-90 first.
	Alternately, Minnesota could have extended 69 eastward to end at US 65. But that didn't happen either; instead, MN 13 starts here, goes east to US 69, and then north to I-90. This is facing west, a short distance south of US 65's north end.
	Just south of the I-35/I-90 cloverleaf, whose east-west BGSs are for La Crosse and Sioux Falls, is the offramp for US 65, a partial interchange. There is no access from northbound 35 to southbound 65 here, but there is where 65 crosses 35 a bit to the south.
	Halfway between Albert Lea and Austin, old US 16 switches from being on the south side of I-90 to being on the north side. It's now Freeborn County Road 46.
	Since the three shields aren't centered, I would guess that the Business Loop I-90 is a later addition. MN 105 takes part of US 16's route through Austin but then turns south to serve no purpose whatsoever.
	Lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM...the world-renowned SPAM museum in Austin MN. Some people go to beaches. I take road trips and stop at museums.
	Austin barely beats out Owatonna as the largest Minnesota city on US 218. This is the second of four interstates 218 interacts with, the others being I-35 (218's north end), I-380, and I-80.
	US 218's stairstep alignment in northern Iowa takes another turn after a duplex with IA 9 in Mitchell County.
	Right about the time that larger county road signs began popping up in random places in Iowa, the US 218 four-lane and bypass of Nashua opened. Included in the project, it appears, were larger but mixed-case county signs for 218 on the Chickasaw/Floyd line and Chickasaw/Bremer lines (218 spends very little time in Chickasaw County). In the distance is the exit for IA 346, extended a bit west for the 2nd time in its history but still (barely) contained inside the county.