Gribblenation

While looking for a way around the closure in California State Route 49 north of Bear Valley I stumbled about a couple historic markers for the Agua Fria ghost town on CA 140. Agua Fria was located just north of modern CA 140 along Agua Fria Road in Mariposa County.  Agua Fria is significant in that it was the first County Seat of Mariposa County between 1850 to 1851 before it was moved to Mariposa.  Agua Fria apparently had two sections called "Upper" and "Lower" Agua Fria which were centered around two springs.  Apparently the gold claims in Agua Fria quickly exhausted and frequent fires in the 1850s did the town in.  Agua Fria apparently had Post Office Service until 1862.

Back in 2013 I took Highlands County Route 634 approximately 4 miles west from US 27/98 to Highlands Hammock State Park. CR 634 is an interesting County Route due to the fact that it may actually continue west of High Land Hammock State Park as a dirt surface part of Hammock Road.  The dirt segment of Hammock Road begins near the eastern entrance of Highlands Hammock State Park which continues as dirt westward to the western park boundary.  The only publication I've seen showing CR 634 continuing west of Highlands Hammock State Park is on the park on park brochure.  If the brochure is accurate then CR 634 is one of the few dirt Signed County Routes in Florida. Highlands Hammock State Park Brochure CR 634 was once Florida State Road 634.  The only year I can find a reference for a Florida maintained route 634 was in 1956 when it was signed as Secondary Florida State Road 634. 1956 State Highway Map On the 1964 State Highway Map I don't see a FL 634.  The map might n

Typically my posts tend to be about an entire segment of a highway or things located on them.  To that I haven't done any shield only posts so I figured that I would change that.  From 2012 to 2018 I've had at least some interaction with the southern terminus of US Route 1 in Key West, Florida which is known as Mile Marker 0. The Mile Marker 0 US 1 shield is frequently stolen and vandalized.  Some of my pictures capture the evolution of the above shield and sign assembly between 2012 to 2017. At some point something happened to the "end" placard which resulted in the replacement shown above as headline photo for this blog. Of course I did do a much longer blog post on the Overseas Highway last year which included maps showing the difference between modern US 1 version versus the Florida State 4a alignment from 1928: US Route 1 the Overseas Highway and the Legacy of Florida 4a

While traveling through Roswell, New Mexico back in 2012 I stopped at the International UFO Museum and Research Center.  The museum is located on US Route 285 a couple blocks south of US 380 in an old movie theater from the 1930s.  The street light designs are suffice to say somewhat unique. Really the UFO Museum is pretty absurd and as one might expect it is dedicated towards the 1947 Roswell Incident (interestingly the crash sight is very far northwest of Roswell being more than halfway to Corona).  The UFO Museum was apparently founded in 1991 as a non-profit.  There are various odd display pieces that are alien oriented and a couple news articles of interest.  There isn't much to capture the interest aside from maybe a 30 minute stop but it was probably worth it just to get a photo of the above marque and street lamp.

Although I have attended several events at Indianapolis Motor Speedway over the years it wasn't until 2012 when I was finally able to visit the infield and Speedway Museum. Indianapolis Motor Speedway ("IMS") is a 2.5 rectangle shaped raceway located west of downtown Indianapolis.  IMS was constructed back in 1909 and the first race was oddly a motorcycle event.  IMS is considered the largest sporting venue in the world with a expanded seating capacity of close to 400,000. The first Indianapolis 500 was in 1911 which has become the likely the most known race in the world with the Daytona 500 and Monaco Grand Prix really being the only other events near the same level in motorsports.  NASCAR currently races at the facility in the Brickyard 400 which has been run since 1994. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum dates back to 1956 but has been in the current facility in the center of the Speedway since 1976.  The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum disp

Vermont once had a series of route numbers that were specific for roads leading to ferries across Lake Champlain to New York State's Adirondack Coast. One such route remains, Vermont Route F-5, which spans from US 7 to the Charlotte-Essex Ferry landing, all within the Town of Charlotte. The first time I had the opportunity to drive on VT F-5 was in May 2005, when I snapped this photo.

Back in 2012, I visited Meteor Crater a couple miles south of where US Route 66 used to traverse between the Two Guns Trade Post and Meteor City Trade Post. Meteor Crater is an approximately 0.74-diameter crater that is approximately 560 feet deep.  Meteor Crater was approximately 50,000 years ago when a 160-foot wide nickel-iron meteorite struck Northern Arizona.  The blast that formed Meteor Crater is estimated to be 10 megatons which is on par with most nuclear weapons. Meteor Crater was originally named the "Canyon Diablo Crater" after a rail siding on the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad located on the rim of Canyon Diablo.  Meteor Crater was originally thought to be part of the San Francisco Volcanic field which forms the high peaks of the San Francisco Range near Flagstaff.  In 1903 Daniel Barringer's Standard Iron Company struck a mining claim at Meteor Crater.  The Standard Iron Company believed that Meteor Crater was formed by an impact event and that a la

A popular pastime within the roadgeeking hobby is county collecting.  In a nutshell, you keep track of all the counties in the US - and now Canada and Mexico - that you have been in.  It is one of those quirky little things that not only roadgeeks enjoy but also pretty much anyone that likes to travel.  Mob-Rule.com is the home for most county collectors and it is an interactive site that allows you to track your counties and label them however you wish.  You can label them by year visited, by if you have resided or spend the night there, how you visited them and even with whom.  Others even have rules for the counties to count, they or their spouse has to actually be driving, must visit the county seat, must do some sort of activity or transaction within the county. I started keeping track of my overall counties about 15 years ago.  It was a lot easier to remember where and when you went there when you were 26 then now at 41.   County collecting can easily be a family affair.  I k

A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibly" be acce