New Travels and Stats Discussion

[froggie]

Spent the bulk of today in the Montreal area....primarily to check out the new Champlain Bridge (which as of late morning is open in both directions), but I also took the opportunity to clear out some of the regions Autoroutes.  Managed to clinch A-13, 440, 640, and 720 today as well as add mileage on A-15, 20, 25, and 30.

Added some QC mileage as well both on the way there and on the way back, but got stymied and detoured off of QC 202 between Venise-en-Québec and Pike River due to a crash that shut down the road.

I'm also down to two border crossings remaining before I have all of Vermont clinched.

(EDIT):  After reviewing my travels, looks like I also clinched QC 104 (1st to do so), QC 134, and QC 217 (only one to travel on it), and am apparently the first to have traveled on QC 227.

[Bickendan]

Pulled a doozy of a 20 hour in-state trip yesterday/this morning clinching and field checking the rest of western Oregon's routes, with the exception of OR 227 and 230, and added some mileage on OR 138 and 66.
Snagged the Oakland-Winston section of OR 99, then the eastern most fringe of OR 42. Headed west to 542, down to Powers and back, then up to Coos Bay and grabbed 241. Grabbed gas and dropped in at the most unique Fred Meyer I've seen, then back down 42 and clinched 42S. Jaunted over to Cape Blanco on 250, the westernmost fringe on the Lower 48, then the length of 255 into Brookings.
Got lit up by the CHP heading toward Crecsent City despite carefully watching my speed, got off without ticket because of it, reclinched CA 197.
Followed 260 into downtown Grants Pass, then picked up more mileage on 99 along the Rogue River into Gold Hill, and 234 out toward Eagle Point.
140's western extension to I-5 is signed, so I took it, then up the newly opened OR 62 expressway and back into Medford along the old route and through downtown on 99.
Took I-5 down to 66, added some mileage to 273, and 273 down (up) into California, turned around, and came down I-5 and 99 into Ashland, followed 99 into Medford, I-5 to Gold Hill to pick up the 99 into Gold Hill and the 234's westernmost segment back to I-55, and followed 99 through Canyonville, Tri City, and Myrtle Creek, finally clinching 99. Maybe.

[yakra]

ME226: 0% -> 100%

[clong]

Trip to Kansas City from Birmingham around the July 4th holiday:
I-22 (previously clinched) to I-269 (new mileage) to I-55/69 (pc) to I-40 (pc) to I-55 (pc) to I-555/US63 (nm) to US60 (nm) to US65 (nm) to I-44 (nm) to MO13 (nm) to MO7 (nm) to I-49 (pc)

While in KC, clinched some missing chunks of US 40, 69 and 71. Also added onto I-70, I-335 and I-470 to Topeka and K10 and US59 in Lawrence.

Return trip included I-49 to I-44 (nm) and I-44 back to US65 (nm). Added a small section of US65B in Springfield, MO and more of I-269 in Memphis.

22 new counties on the trip as well.

[yakra]

When I finished off York County back in September, I neglected to continue on north and finish off ME160 south of ME113. Remedied that yesterday. Closing the door on easy new mileage I can do in a spontaneous round trip from home in 2 hrs, this puts me in the lead, mileage-wise, in my home state by a modest 1.53 mi.
If I want to take the lead in the usame system though, i still have 154.27 mi to catch up to deathtopumpkins.

[si404]

After several trips to Milton Keynes to help my parents move a friend of theirs (that they know through me as I went to primary school with their kid) canal boat and racking up tiny little increases around the 'New City' I then scored the best since the first trip on an errand run to the town that got couple with a shopping trip to make it worth it. Nothing is quite as irritating as spending 6 hours travelling to somewhere you haven't been before, and getting maybe a mile in TM a couple of times a week, and then having just tiny gaps in your travelled map that you know you won't get...

Bad traffic on the M25 meant I was able to persuade with little effort a trip via a more direct, but supposedly slower route via couple of B roads I'd apparently not been on, clinching one fully. Said route was declared by my parents (who have a low tolerance to me trying to take routes that don't seem as fast in their eyes when in the car - damn sat nav makes it very hard to do the route I want to take) to be probably faster anyway - giving potential for not doing the same familiar roads again and again.


PS - canals as a future project? What can be more annoying to clinchers than routes that you have to do really slowly! I now have about 20 miles (mostly covered twice: on foot and on boat - and the boat is barely faster) from last month, plus a few miles walking alongside in London, plus a good bit from a holiday that dates to before I could lift myself up and be in danger of falling overboard.

[ntallyn]

Picked up a surprising number of new miles of routes around Chicago over the holiday weekend (~50). Surprising, as I grew up in the Chicago suburbs.

Added pieces of I-55 (including that annoying piece between the Dan Ryan and Chinatown exits, I-88, I-290 (which I think I already had, but never marked), I-355, US 6, US 12/20/45, US 34, IL 53, IL 56, IL 83, and IL 171.

Included on the trip was a first-ever visit to the Morton Arboretum, as well as return visits to the Field Museum and Brookfield Zoo (for the first time in ~25 years on both). My grandson really enjoyed all of those.

[dave1693]

Since my last update I've made multiple trips from eastern PA down to the DC FedroSplat, including one that extended to the Northern Neck... but no new mileage in MD or VA resulting. Plenty of new mileage in PA though. Also, two weekends ago I went to a HS graduation (with parties following) near Syracuse NY, and followed on with a pilgrimage to Thousand Island Park since it had been more than a decade since my last visit... and in the meantime the Town Building had burned down and been replaced with a smaller edifice, which of course required a visit.

New clinches: I-781 in NY, NY 342, PA 106, PA 234, PA 443, PA 895, PA 902, Central Scranton Expressway in PA.

Non-clinch new mileage: US 6 in PA, US 11 in PA and NY, US 30 in PA, a lot of US 209 in PA, NY 3, NY 31, NY 37, NY 80, NY 173, NY 281, NY 481, PA 25, PA 115, PA 125, PA 374.

Almost 200 new miles all told. Next major trip will be the annual camping trip in western PA starting two weeks from today. (PACKING PANIC TIME!!!!)

[si404]

Panic at two weeks out? Two days maybe!

[oscar]

Two trips since my last post here.

First was a two-day trip to southern Virginia, with a focus on snagging short 3xx and 4xx state routes (mainly access routes to state parks, colleges/universities, and prisons), and also clinching my last usanp route in Virginia (Siege Rd. in the Petersburg Nat'l Battlefield). The most interesting one was VA 361 in southwest Virginia, a scenic route to the remote Red Onion prison. It's a supermax prison full of inmates sentenced to life terms, so odds are their view of the scenery was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

The other was a four-day trip to Montreal. I got to see the new Champlain bridge carrying A-10. A-15, and A-20 across the St. Lawrence River, which recently opened to traffic but still is being worked on (lots of roadwork in Montreal, making traffic that weekend a real mess). I also snagged the west ends of QC 132 and QC 138 at the U.S. border. I had previously covered the east ends of both routes, but they are very long routes with lots of uncovered km-age in the middle (plus much of QC 138 in eastern Quebec is unbuilt, and probably won't be finished in my lifetime). On the way to and from Canada, I clinched PA 309 and PA 309 Business in Pennsylvania, and in New York NY 11B, NY 122, and NY 374.

[Jim]

A ride from New York to Florida over the last few days was surprisingly productive, with over 400 of my 1400+ miles traveled taking place on new roads.  We set aside 3 days for the ride we often try to do in a straight shot, which allowed for a ride across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel (my 3rd time, I believe) and a side trip to Myrtle Beach.  I'd been through there before but this was my first overnight.

TM highlights:

I only picked up about 5 new usai miles, but those were enough to finish off I-264 in Virginia and add my first segment of I-664.

The big gains were in usaus with about 390 miles added.  I went from having about a mile of US 113 to a full clinch.  I picked up the part of US 58 between I-664 and Emporia.  I picked up my first 136 miles on US 701 by taking it from I-95 to Conway, SC.  I filled in a small gap in US 17 in Myrtle Beach that gives me all of that between Jacksonville, NC, and Jacksonville, FL.  Then finally all of US 378 east of I-95 on the way out.

[mapcat]

A 10-day, 6200-mile work-related trip to the northeastern US & Canada gave me the opportunity for a few clinches as well as an entertaining evening with yakra. I focused on Maine, where I was doing research, but managed to arrange my trip to pick up some mileage in both countries. Weather was great, scenery was scenic, traffic was bearable, and donuts were mostly good.

I finally passed the 250,000 miles mark, and clinched 159 highways including all the usaus and usausb routes in New England. US 3, 4, 5, 7, 201, and 202 are now done, as is the eastern segment of US 2.

My ranking in Maine spiked from 18 to 3, and I rose from 8th to 2nd in New Brunswick and from 9th to 4th in Quebec. I also entered or re-entered the top-10 in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.

Now I need to rest up, because mapkitten wants to go to California.

[SSOWorld]

My 1.75 week trip has 1 day left but all new highway collection is pretty much done.  The update tonight (barring any errors) will confirm I-90 and I-94 100% done nationwide.  The remaining was in Montana, South Dakota and Wyoming.   Add also I-82 and Washington (Seattle and Richmond) and Portland (OR) 3dis. This also finished South Dakota and Washington State's interstate systems. It also took a good bite out of North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho for the same.  Very little other systems were done on the transits though.  I did finish a few national park roads - including Yellowstone's (but that wasn't why I went there ) and got the Beartooth Highway portion of US 212.

[US 89]

On my way back to SLC from a family trip to Steamboat, I got around 120 new miles that I hadn’t been expecting because of a major accident that had closed US 40 west of Hayden, CO for several hours. It turns out there are no paved roads between Hayden and Craig that aren’t US 40, and since it was raining pretty hard we weren’t about to chance any of the area’s dirt roads. As it turned out, the quickest detour was to go back through Steamboat, then follow CO 14, CO 125, and WY 230 to I-80.

In addition to that, the ramp to westbound I-80 from east Rawlins was closed for construction, so I also reclinched the I-80/US 30 business loop there.

For now, this puts Colorado into second place in my highway stats, bumping Texas back to third. Utah of course is still in first.

[Jim]

My return trip up the east coast was not as interesting for clinching purposes as the ride down was, but I did manage to pick up some usaga, usasc, and usava mileage, a few usaus segments that put me over 400 new miles in that system on the trip, got my first miles on the GW Memorial Parkway in Virginia and DC, and finished off I-526 (191st clinched usai connected route).