December 5: More from August.
November 18: Iowa Highway Ends is celebrating its sixth birthday by jumping on the Ottumwa bypass.
October 1: Just because this page isn't updated doesn't mean I'm not adding more stuff.
April 15: One more push to catch up with the rest of my backlog.
February 7: The bitter cold of late has offered an opportunity to catch up on a backlog.
December 11: Iowa Highway Ends' fifth anniversary! Notable items since the last update:
September 26: More pictures from June trips on 39, 91, and 182. State lines for I-29, I-480, and US 59. Jason Hancock's pictures of the new highways in Charles City for IA 14, 162, and Business 218. Pictures taken the day of the Avenue of the Saints dedication put on Business 34 and 218 for Mount Pleasant. Extensive coverage of not only IA 9's west end, but of related geographical features: Iowa's northwest corner, the Iowa/Minnesota/South Dakota corner, and the ends of the South Dakota highways that connect(ed) to 9.
September 16-17: Pictures from June trips added to 2, 42, 48, 184, 239, 333, 370, 385, and 925 in the west, and 78, 99, 137, 249, and Business 92 in the east. New pages for 166 and 365, which just get under the cutoff. More pictures of the intersection of Collins Road and 1st Avenue in Cedar Rapids. July pictures for 94, 109, and 282.
August 10: Lots of pictures added to 141, 192, 346E, 385, 988; one or two new pictures added to 17, 83, 145, 161, 165, 347, and Business 218 (Waverly); text update to 401.
July 30: A new index page adds links to US and interstate highway entrances into Iowa, plus out-of-state termini for certain US routes. Comprehensive coverage of IA 272 completes Howard County and northeast Iowa. I have moved 162 to the decommissioned section and changed IA 14 to "one end" because of reroutes in Charles City re-signed in April and effective on May 1.
July 14: Photos from May trips put up: 37, 44, 127, 173, 183, 191, and 301 from western Iowa; also, Business 18 (Mason City) Business I-35 (Clear Lake) and IA 122.
June 25-27: I have taken a trip longer than a thousand miles in order to get new pictures, capture IA 339, travel I-229 in Sioux Falls, get an obscure historical end of US 281 in the middle of South Dakota, and travel the entire length of US 275 in Nebraska, thus clinching my third US route.
June 4: Photos from April trips were put up in May.
May 28: I traveled up to Minnesota and have now clinched US 65 in that state and US 218 not only in that state, but for the entire route. Also, IA 272 in Elma is now photographed, leaving southwest Iowa to go, and also IA 339 up by its little lonesome in Lyon County.
May 21: I realize that as I add photos, though I have the disk space to hold larger images, many readers do not have the bandwidth to see them very quickly. I will try and keep that in mind, but a note to those on dial-up: As I get more perspectives and use better digital cameras, the pages will necessarily get larger in size. Sorry about that.
May 9: Special terminus pages: US 151's south end and US 67's north end.
May 7: From far east to far west, this time I followed IA 44 out to Harrison County and then went north, making a detour to enter Thurston County, Nebraska, and paying $1.50 for the privilege (the toll bridge on IA 175). I also traveled all of IA 37 on this very scenic tour. But one of these days, I will go to western Iowa where two things will happen simultaneously: 1) My digital camera will work and 2) It will not become progressively overcast.
May 1: The 2006 map is out, and a lot of stuff I pointed out has been fixed. This page lists what I see as remaining errors in the map (a much shorter list), and below that copies the list from 2005 and notes what was changed.
April 18: 99 down, 0 to go. My first major trip of the year took me to Jackson County, the only one in Iowa I had never been in. Also on this trip, I traveled all of US 151 and US 67 in Iowa.
February 19: Another rundown of stuff.
November 21: A rundown of everything from the past couple of months:
October 21: I went to southeast Iowa, running against the clock to get pictures before sunset, and was marginally successful. This trip gave me US 34 east of Ottumwa, but one segment would be superseded in November. Because of an SUV bearing down on me, I was unable to get a picture of US 34 exiting from itself where the 1970s freeway in Burlington ended. On the brighter side, I clinched US 136 and got semi-decent pictures of the south end of US 218.
October 9: Since June, I've taken more trips into Iowa and even crossed into northern Missouri. Ends pages have been put on a back burner while I make some maps for Sioux City, Council Bluffs, and Tama/Benton counties. The maps show highway alignments in select years (between 10 and 15 apart).
June 12: Jason Hancock and I went to Sioux City on a photo trip. We visited all the ends in the area. It's my first trip to Sioux City, and I also finished US 20 in Iowa.
June 5: Last month I went to Van Buren and Jefferson counties for the first time on a trip to southeast Iowa. This trip also measured IA 163 and attempted to solve the questions around the east end. The May trip yielded pictures for a good chunk of the area, with pictures for 16, 21, 23, 78, 149, 356, and 389 uploaded. (163 and 102 are forthcoming.) In a separate trip, I clinched IA 152 and have now driven US 69 from Garner to Osceola.
May 1: Attention Iowa DOT (and interested roadgeeks): I have created a page listing what I perceive to be errors in the 2005 state map. Some of the things I pointed out in the past have been fixed, but many others haven't.
April 25: Well, it's good news-bad news time. The good news is, I know part of the problem I've been having with the colors: Safari color management is different than Internet Explorer's (though why it differed from the image editor in the first place I don't know) so if I had been using IE all the time everything would have looked fine. The bad news is, I have to re-save (or re-tone and re-save and in some cases redo) NEARLY EVERY PICTURE taken and posted since January 2004. Needless to say, I am not thrilled. So far, I think I have done every month except for May and June 2004; that still affected 36 pages. And then I found out that I missed putting up new pictures on 346 and 212. Whoops. In the process of redoing pictures, I have added "new" pictures to 4, 90, 160, 223, 311, 976, and a graphic linked from 922. And then, new/replacement shots on 181 and 316, whose pictures coming from my new camera still didn't look right in Safari and got me to find out the problem in the first place. So now the pictures still may have purplish and orangish shades, but much of it should be alleviated.
April 12: New digital camera finally arrived. Same number of pixels (4.0MP), but I'm really hoping that the orange/purple balance problem is gone.
March 29: I have posted a page listing what I perceive or believe to be errors in the 2005 state map. Many of these I mentioned to the DOT in 2004 but still exist, including the continued existence of NE 38 and marking US 30/169 at Ogden as a "partial" interchange.
January through April: Added some new pictures from Jason Hancock to eastern Iowa pages. Added a bunch of new pictures to IA 27, though I have my doubts about how the new version of GraphicConverter handles cropping. Updated notes and added a couple of pictures to IA 46. Added photo taken in 1908 of downtown Clarinda to the business routes there. Corrected note on volleyball interchange at Business US 20 (Sioux City); there's also one at I-380 and IA 100 in Cedar Rapids. (So I guess that makes Business 20/I-29 a tie for "Iowa's Stupidest Intersection"?)
January 5: Updates to the Waterloo area; pictures were taken Dec. 14. (The secret: Facing almost exclusively north and east.) Extensive coverage of both ends of 281, replacing three-year-old (!) pictures at the west end that weren't all that good in the first place. Also a lot more of 187 (including 154), the east end of 939, and a more detailed explanation of 415's alignment changes. Finally, a quasi-dissertation, interrupted by pictures, about the north end of 21. It exists, but the location is a bit uncertain.
December 20: In honor of Iowa Highway Ends' third birthday, I've finally added a page of pictures from my photo trips in western Iowa in June 2003, chock-full of signs that are no longer there.
November 20: Most pictures from the trip to Winfield have been added.
November 13: Two phases of pictures. The first is an assortment of Marshall and Hardin counties, from RAGBRAI (increasing the spandex content of the site by at least 150%) to (FINALLY!) good pictures of IA 96 and IA 330 at IA 14, with a bit of Business 30 and IA 146 mixed in. (The latter is already out of date with the opening of the Le Grand bypass.) Pictures from late October and a couple other maps and things will hopefully be out later this month. I have also removed the interstate and US highway links because Neil moved and has not put up those pages again.
October 29: A football game is always an excuse for a road trip. So to watch North Tama vs. Winfield-Mount Union (a game that would be called in the third quarter because of storms) I hightailed it on IA 92 and then US 61, stomping around in Louisa and Des Moines counties for the first time. And since I was heading east on 92 - quintupling my cumulative mileage on that route - the sun was in the right place to not screw up pictures facing that direction.
August 28: All active Iowa routes have at least one picture for each end. Ta-da! The Second Great Decommissioning accelerated the progress, but it is nevertheless a fantastic feat. Many thanks to everyone who has helped make this possible. New pictures and/or new pages from northwest Iowa are on 140 and 143 (the big ones) and also decommissioned 219, 231, 237, 313 and 977. New pictures from central Iowa are on 4, 5, 28, 90, 144, 210, and 322. Please note that many pages have pictures of sign assemblies that no longer exist. I have tried to make distinctions between pre-decommissioning and post-decommissioning, or past and present tense, on pages where necessary, either by a note at the top of the page or adding years to the direction listing under the photo. Of the ends that remain, all of decommissioned highways, the majority are in southwestern or south-central Iowa.
August 11: Although I changed residences at the beginning of the month, June trip pictures were added while I still had a fast Internet connection. The pages followed (after some snafus with a couple of them): 3, 12, 31, 36, 39, 60, 86 (with moved End sign), 110, 196, 243, 238, 276, 328, and 403. Also added were photos on 117, 147, 162, 223, 224, and 316.
July 11: Down in the southeast corner of Iowa, IA 394 and 27 pages were updated to reflect 394's decommissioning. Also added were the north end of 27, Business US 61 in Keokuk, and finishing last year's pictures by adding a page for IA 42.
June 14-15: I again went to northwest Iowa for pictures, but this time went around a periphery untouched by my March 2003 trip. Construction on IA 3 near Le Mars prevented me from completing that route west of Allison and construction on IA 17 prevented me from completing both that route and all roads in Wright County. I also did some touristy things, visiting the Wells Blue Bunny Visitor Center in Le Mars and riding the Queen II around West Lake Okoboji. This trip hit every untouched spur on IA 9 west of US 59 and got more pictures for other routes, but more importantly, I now have pictures for ends of IA 31 north, 140 north and both of 143!
June 13: Northeast Iowa is complete. Both ends of previously uncovered 139 and old 105 were part of my trip in May.
June 4: Most of my northeast and north-central Iowa pictures are up, including new pictures for the following: 24 51, 56, 93, 116, 157, 188, 193, both ends of 346, and Business 63 (New Hampton).
May 25: Pictures from spring and an April 9-10 trip to Iowa City have been added to 100, 921, 382, and a bunch to 220. Jason Hancock sent one or more pictures for 22, 102, 137, 160, 931, and 965. I updated information on 21.
May 18-19: Good weather (well, it was overcast until I got to New Hampton) - the only such break in about two weeks - let me take a long-planned trip to northeast and north-central Iowa. Watch for photos both here and on Neil Bratney's and Dale Sanderson's sites. We finally have pictures of IA 139 and 105!
May 5-6: All pages are now linked on my sites. Fittingly, the northwesternmost routes were last, in order: 60, 12, 403, 10, 182, and finally the west end of 9.
May 2-4: Steadily working west and north, I've added 36, 86, 91, 110, 140, 196, 236, 243, 327, and 328.
April 27-29: These days added every route southwest of Denison - 127, 183, 244, 300, 30`1, 324, 362, 982, 988.
April 23: It's Pottawattamie County Day 1. This site now has 165, 191, 192, and 347. For good measure I also added 31, 37, 45, 370, 385, and 978. I also added Neil's new pictures of the west end of 333.
April 8: Working my way west, I added the Carroll County highways - 161, 217, and 285.
April 3: All pages have been updated. Now I am starting to add (or, in some cases, re-add) pages in western Iowa that Neil Bratney was kind enough to host since the summer of 2002. The northern ones in this batch are from my Spring Break 2003 trip, and the southern ones have a lot of pictures from my June 15-16, 2003, road trip. Pages moved to my jurisdiction (and which have the links changed on front) are 41, 48, 115, 145, 184, 239, 242, and 333 in the southwesternmost four counties, and 240, 351, 352, and 390 in the north. I also moved IA 384 and added Jason Hancock's pictures of Business US 61 around Muscatine.
March 3: All pages except for the 900s that needed updating have been updated. I will be going through the 900s next. I intend to get this done before March 12, which is when I start spring break.
February 27: The 2004 Iowa DOT official map has been released online. Overall, the map designers have done a great job and made a clean transition after the Second Great Decommissioning, with a lot more county roads tagged and nearly all relevant mileage dealt with. I will update the map goofs page eventually, but I must give credit for the good work already done. I imagine the goofs would be caught up to the 1990s had I caught the split in IA 2 at 25's south end and the split on 148 around IA 95. The only leftover mileage I saw was on IA 229, IA 103, and IA 49 in Taylor County.
February 22: Most pages updated to IA 344, mainly changes to include decommissioning dates and maps.
February 20: Well, obviously I wasn't very good at keeping my promise to update this page. And what a time to do so, too, what with the significant change in the structure of the Iowa highway system. I figure the easiest thing to do is at least write the update listings, without necessarily taking a stab at the links, especially since I change some occasionally.
Since January 1:
