Dec 10

Photos by the numbers: 38

Posted on Saturday, December 10, 2011, at 7:09 AM by Jeff

July 6, 2008: For a short time in 2000-01, this was the only state highway signed with an interstate. The shields are extra-large. This segment of IA 38 went straight from gravel to interstate in 1960.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 38
Dec 09

Photos by the numbers: 37

Posted on Friday, December 9, 2011, at 7:00 AM by Jeff

August 8, 2010: This half-mile route running north from US 62 was my connecting route to touch Barry County, Missouri. I crossed the state line, turned around, and went to Pea Ridge National Military Park.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 37
Dec 08

Photos by the numbers: 36

Posted on Thursday, December 8, 2011, at 7:00 AM by Jeff

October 21, 2007: Cameron, Missouri, on US 36. This photo also serves as a 35/36 combination, south of the 34/35 in Osceola (although one number is a US route and the other is an interstate). Business 36 runs very close to the four-lane. Turn around to go back to I-35, and you’ll see the proposed future end of I-72. Why MoDOT would end I-72 at I-35 instead of I-29 is unknown, unless the prospect of grade separations and upgrades to interstate standards farther west are simply not feasible.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 36
Dec 07

Congressional district tables updated

Posted on Wednesday, December 7, 2011, at 10:23 AM by Jeff

I updated the Iowa congressional history maps online soon after they were approved, but had to take some time tweaking the lists.

But now, the color-coded county-by-county chart of Iowa’s districts has been updated for the 2010s. The 5th District is gone. Counties in the north-central part of the state stayed in the 4th. The only county to stay in the numerically 3rd District is Polk, as that changes places completely from central to southwest Iowa. The southeast, historically in the 1st until the 1990s, remained in the 2nd. Some counties around Dubuque will still be in the 1st.

As what might be expected from losing a district, no county is in the same numbered district in the 2010s as it was in the 1990s, when long-time patterns were reworked after losing a district in the 1990 census.

One of the more notable trivia bits of this redistricting: For the first time in Iowa history, Black Hawk and Butler counties are separated. Chuck Grassley’s farm and the nearest large city will now have different U.S. representatives.

As another illustration of how much Iowa’s congressional power has diminished, counties in northwest Iowa that once were in the 10th and 11th Districts are now in the 4th — the highest-numbered district left.

Posted in Geography | Comments Off on Congressional district tables updated
Dec 07

Photos by the numbers: 35

Posted on Wednesday, December 7, 2011, at 7:00 AM by Jeff

December 25, 2001: Entering Texas on Christmas Day. But I-35 in Texas is long, containing nearly a third of its entire route. The visitors center where this was photographed is closer to downtown Kansas City than I-35’s south end in Laredo.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 35
Dec 06

Still the whipping boy, Part 2

Posted on Tuesday, December 6, 2011, at 10:20 AM by Jeff

Yahoo Sports’ Pat Forde manages to be both an SEC apologist and Boise State booster at the same time, while slamming anyone who isn’t (bold below is italics in original):

People say Alabama had its shot? Well, Oklahoma State had its shot, too. All the Cowboys had to do was win their final two games and they were in the title game. Then they went to Ames and were shocked by 29-point underdog Iowa State.

That invoked a little-known BCS bylaw, rule 10.3.1.14, which reads thusly: Any team that loses to Iowa State is automatically ineligible to win the national title.

Alabama lost by three to the undisputed No. 1 team in the land. Oklahoma State lost to a Cyclones team that finished 6-6. There is no comparison.

That is the image the national media has of us. As we saw earlier this year, that image is  fatal should the real Conferencepocalypse occur.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on Still the whipping boy, Part 2
Dec 06

Photos by the numbers: 34

Posted on Tuesday, December 6, 2011, at 7:00 AM by Jeff

June 1, 2002: One of two Business US 34 shields on the route in Chariton. Despite being around for 50 years, Business 34 is nearly unmarked and unknown. Its official route uses IA 14 down to 34 instead of continuing on the old alignment east, but you wouldn’t know that by just looking.

This shield is also a throwback to the time business routes were marked in green either by the color of the shield itself or at least the tab.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 34
Dec 05

Oops?

Posted on Monday, December 5, 2011, at 10:38 AM by Jeff

A decade ago, Iowa State gift-wrapped a bowl game for Alabama when a field goal attempt went directly over the upright with 45 seconds remaining. The Independence Bowl trophy is probably gathering dust behind Alabama’s national championship hardware.

This year, another Iowa State game yielded an ultimate result of sending Alabama to the BCS championship game in a regular-season divisional rematch with LSU. (Ironically, or naturally, it was because of another missed field goal directly over the upright, this time on Oklahoma State’s part.)

Iowa State’s reward for breaking the system? The Big 12’s booby prize of the 2010s, a trip to cold and expensive New York City for a game in Yankee Stadium — to be precise, New Yankee Stadium, without even the football mythos of the Army-Notre Dame or early NFL games.

There are, of course, many other things to be said about this year’s BCS matchups and the positioning of the Big 12 as a whole, nearly all of them bad. But there’s no need to go into those here. None of this, though, helps the conspiracy theory that some entities may have a vested interest in seeing the Big 12 disappear.

UPDATE: Rutgers fans already hate this game.

Posted in Sports | Comments Off on Oops?
Dec 05

Photos by the numbers: 33

Posted on Monday, December 5, 2011, at 7:10 AM by Jeff

July 1, 2007: Rochester, N.Y. For a while there, I wasn’t sure I had any 33 shields in my photo collection at all. IA 33 was replaced by IA 60 in 1969. I have traveled on less than a mile of US 33.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 33
Dec 04

Photos by the numbers: 32

Posted on Sunday, December 4, 2011, at 7:00 AM by Jeff

September 2, 2008: North end of IA 32, the only new (signed) designation created in Iowa in the 1990s.

Posted in Sequences | Comments Off on Photos by the numbers: 32