Farewell to 2020! Hello to 2021!

We want to thank our fans and readers of Gribblenation for your support during the past year. 2020 has been a challenging year for most. While not everything we hoped to see or travel to went as planned, we made the most of it and still have a lot of fun exploring and sharing our stories with you.

Thank you for your continued support of our blog, our Facebook page (now with over 2000 likes!) and our Instagram account. It has been a great 2020, with such things like the recent addition of a new columnist Dan Murphy, who also runs the popular roadwaywiz channel on YouTube, learning about possible alternate routes for I-77 in Closing the Gap - How Interstate 77 in North Carolina and Virginia Came To Be, visited the glorified highway stopover in Breezewood, Pennsylvania, checking out some great drives in the Sierras, such as Horseshoe Meadows Road; former California State Route 190 and the legacy of the Lone Pine-Porterville High Sierra Road and Onion Valley Road; former California State Route 180 to Kearsarge Pass, explored the old Route 75 Tunnel in Ironton, Ohio, and was clinging to the edge of a cliff with a drive down the Storm King Highway.

What's on tap for 2021, you may ask? Given that a lot of what we wanted to do in 2020 never got off the ground, well, because it was 2020, we want to leave what we have planned for the next year as a surprise. We will leave you with a teaser that a podcast series is in development.

Once again, we wish you and yours a Happy New Year and a great year ahead! In the meanwhile, enjoy some great photos from Dan.

Update Log:
December 31, 2020: Added to gribblenation.org.

Comments

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926. Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California. The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant. However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes. The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield. In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range. ...

Hawaii Route 50

Hawaii Route 50 is the longest Sign Route on the island of Kauai at 32.6 miles. The entirety of Hawaii Route 50 is overlaid atop Kaumualii Highway from Lihue west to the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands. Hawaii Route 50 is one of the original 1955-era State Highway designations on Kauai. Much of the Kaumualii Highway corridor was constructed during the sugar plantation boom of the late Hawaiian Kingdom. The first tee beam bridge in Hawaii would be constructed along the Kaumualii Highway in 1911 at the Hanapepe. Much of this highway would be modernized to two-lane standards through the 1930s and 1940s. This page is part of the Gribblenation Hawaii Roads series. A compellation of all Hawaii-related media from both Gribblenation and RoadwayWiz can be found by clicking here . Part 1; the history of Hawaii Route 50 and Kaumualii Highway Hawaii Route 50 is the longest highway on Kauai at 32.6 miles. The highway begins at Rice Str...

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

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 "possibl...

Gribblenation

Search This Blog