I was hoping the bypass would open in the next couple of weeks so I could go to the ribbon-cutting. The bypass isn’t open yet, but the ribbon has already been cut.
So I’ll need to go down there sometime to travel new 61 and refresh pictures like this one, at the end of IA 2. There will likely be a “Business” sign put above the 61 shield.
A decade ago, I took pictures from the front seat of the van on a couple of trips to Waterloo and Ames. Here’s one of them, taken months after IA 27 was first commissioned.
Although I used few or none of them, it was the beginning of a concentrated effort to document Iowa’s highways and what you see at their endpoints. (Yes, I know this is not an endpoint.) I started setting up the website a couple of weeks later and did a full launch in December.
Ten years and many pixels later — the above photo didn’t need to be shrunk — I alternate between my third and fourth digital cameras and have upgraded computers twice. (However, my newest photo editing software doesn’t seem to be as smooth when scaling pictures.)
As I tried to figure out the best way to mark the event, I also wondered if there was a way I could share some of the photos that otherwise would not appear on this site.
That gave me the idea to set up a new series of timed blog posts. Starting today, and continuing every 12 or 24 hours afterward, a new photo will appear. The photos won’t be random; they’ll be sequential. The first one will include a shield with the number 1, the second will include a shield with a number 2, and so on. Almost immediately, I realized I couldn’t limit the series to Iowa, since Iowa hasn’t had an IA 11 for 70 years, so the entire country is open.
I’m going to sort through my thousands of photos and find out just how far up I can go. I’ll also keep an eye on trying not to repeat dates or counties in the series until I have to.
This also happens to be my 100th blog post. I hadn’t planned on this many by now, but Texas A&M and Missouri “realigned” that expectation.
“If a man wants to divorce me and says our relationship has no value to him, and then he asks me if he can sleep with me, the answer is, ‘No.’ We’re not going to play them any more because they decided that playing us was not important to them.”
— Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey, Oct. 19, when asked about playing Texas A&M in the future
“KU-Missouri is a great rivalry. The University of Kansas is a great Midwestern school, loyal to our Midwestern conference and to our Midwestern roots. The KU-Missouri rivalry belongs in the Big 12 Conference. Should Missouri decide to leave the Big 12, we would wish them well.”
— Kansas AD Sheahon Zenger, Oct. 21
“Missouri forfeits a century-old rivalry. We win.”
— Kansas athletics department, Nov. 6
The 1,000th Iowa State football game was played October 28, 2000, against Missouri. ISU won 39-20. (The ticket above is from four years later, when a missed field goal cost ISU its chance at an outright Big 12 North title.)
The first Big 12 women’s basketball game tipped off at noon on January 4, 1997, in Ames. ISU defeated Missouri 61-50 in front of what was then the 10th-largest women’s crowd in Hilton history (2,134).
In each of Iowa State’s Big Three sports, the same four teams have challenged the Cyclones the most. And now one of them is out the door and one is going.
| Football (1892-2020) | Men's BB (1907-2015) | Women's BB (1973-2015) |
|---|---|---|
| 105 Nebraska | 252 Kansas | 97 Kansas State |
| 104 Missouri | 235 Missouri | 92 Kansas |
| 104 Kansas State | 234 Nebraska | 76 Nebraska |
| 100 Kansas | 233 Kansas State | 74 Missouri |
| 85 Oklahoma | 211 Oklahoma | 70 Oklahoma |
It’s hard to over-emphasize what’s disappearing here. If you tack on the 11 Texas A&M games to the records against Colorado, Missouri, and Nebraska, those four departing/departed Big 12 teams account for one-fourth of the football games Iowa State ever played through 2011. The Big 12 as it existed in 2009 accounts for about 55% of ISU’s games overall. (Another 10% belongs to Iowa colleges that are mostly D-III now.)
Ties binding five universities in four states in the heart of America, with more than a century of shared athletics history, have been torn apart by television and ego.
Ironically, if Missouri does leave next year as planned, the last team from Iowa to defeat Missouri in football will be…the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Ainsworth, Iowa — It’s official.
When I entered Missouri this weekend, it was a Big 12 state. Before I left the state, that future lay elsewhere.
There is still the minor technical detail that Missouri has never left the Big 12, and therefore shouldn’t be able to join another conference. But they’ve been dancing at the door long enough it may not really matter.
Missouri and A&M each play a men’s and women’s basketball game at Iowa State this season. I want Hilton Coliseum to be the northernmost place anyone has ever heard the “S-E-C” chant, and hopefully it will be as the Tigers are being chased out with their tails behind them.
While nobody’s crying about the dead Mizzou-Iowa State series, that’s a whole lot of history to heave out the window in the name of money, prestige and a BCS system that’s not going to be the same anyway after just two more seasons.
*raises hand* Sigh.
I suppose the Telephone Trophy is doomed to end up collecting dust in a storage closet in Columbia.
It’s been closed for four months, but is open to traffic weeks earlier than expected. It had to be completely rebuilt after flooding destroyed the concrete and the roadbed.
Omaha World-Herald story here. Best quote, though, is from KETV/AP and Council Bluffs Mayor Tom Hanafan: “This is the first submerged interstate I know of that was destroyed by a flood. It was the first that was repaired in record time. And last of all, it’s probably the first that will open today and have snow plows on it tonight.”
The DOT has a website of photo galleries. It does not appear that photos are available for individual viewing. There’s also a standalone time-lapse video of I-680 reconstruction. The most interesting/amusing thing: Some of the signs along the road stayed in place the whole time. Even the simple “merge” sign was there until nearly the end.
Getting closer. YR-YS must have been assigned outside of Polk County.
Mason City, Iowa — The defending Class A state champions are out of the playoffs. For the second time in three years, the North Tama Redhawks’ season ended at the hands of the Mason City Newman Catholic Knights.
The results of North Tama’s first five drives: punt, fumble, interception, punt, interception. There was one first down in the first quarter. A drive at the end of the second quarter that ended in a touchdown was the only sustained action for the Redhawk offense. Newman, on the other hand, did not complete a pass in the entire game.
Defending champion Solon lost too.
Some statistics about NT’s second-round/round-of-16 playoff loss:
Congratulations to the Redhawks on their fine season.
What the East Coast just experienced was a throwback to a Midwestern weather event.
In Minnesota, it was the Halloween Blizzard. In Iowa, it was ice. Lots and lots of ice. It wreaked havoc on trick-or-treating and resulted in some high school playoff games being played out of state in the Dakota Dome days later. From the National Weather Service in central Iowa:
A major winter storm pounded the upper Midwest from October 30th into November 2nd with some of the most severe effects occurring on Halloween. Snow moved into southern Iowa on the afternoon of the 30th and changed to mixed precipitation and ice on the morning of the 31st and continuing into late afternoon on November 1st. Total ice accumulations ranged from 1 to 2 inches from southwestern into north central Iowa and 2 to 3 inches across southern and southeastern Minnesota.
In northwestern Iowa the precipitation fell as all snow, with total accumulations of 8 inches or more across the area ranging up to 15.0 inches at Estherville and strong winds producing blizzard conditions into November 2nd. The damage and hazardous travel conditions were so severe and extensive that 52 of the 99 counties in Iowa were declared disaster areas.
Highways and interstates were closed across most of the state and Halloween festivities were cancelled at many locations. As the storm system moved further northeast it dumped 36.9 inches of snow at Duluth which is the largest storm total snowfall accumulation on record in Minnesota.
The Shakopee (MN) Valley News says it was “one of the costliest ice storms in Iowa’s history as utility damage totaled $63 million, and 80,000 homes were without power.”
The Big 12’s website put up a press release welcoming West Virginia around 10:50 AM Friday. Second article here.
But buried at the bottom were two sentences conspicuous in what they didn’t say:
Beginning with the 2012-13 season it is expected that the Big 12 Conference will be comprised of 10 Universities – Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech and West Virginia. The Big 12’s footprint will encompass five states with over 36 million people.
Ten universities, not including Missouri. Five states, not including Missouri.
I really hope that the Big 12 comes to its senses and creates a football schedule that’s not the same set of weeks every year. (Or gives ISU Kansas for Homecoming. Please?) And moves back to 12 teams, but one hope at a time, I suppose.
But that scheduling depends on whether the Big East will actually let WV go:
