the southern figure-8 tour
Looking back at the trips I've taken, I noticed something. I have gone north, west, and east of Colorado Springs, but I haven't headed south. I decided I needed to fix that. One eight-hour car trip later, I came back with a fistful of pictures. Here they are!
Let's get started, shall we?
Okay, after getting some snaps for COSMIX Update 16, I start to head south.
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First up: get the r-dub-mobile a bath. The wavy lines are from the water running down my windshield, not crappy photography. (You'll see crappy photograpghy laterz)
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Hopping on I-25 south now. This is the first distance marker we come across.
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Approaching the SH 16 interchange. As I explain on my SH 16 page, this is a horribly underpowered state highway. With the passing of Referendum C in the 2005 election, this interchange is slated for a massive upgrade.
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During shift changes at Fort Carson (To the right in this picture), traffic on the offramp backs up before you ever get to this sign. Surprisingly, there's no signs telling through traffic to stay left.
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Interesting center pier on the SH 16 overpass.
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US 85 has been snaking over and under 25 since pretty much northern Denver. This interchange is the point where southbound silently merges onto the interstate, never to leave again until after Raton, NM.
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Here's a rarity nowadays. There's no business logos anywhere to be found on this sign. The one just down the way, however...
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That is the biggest Park and Ride symbol I've ever seen. IRL, you can tell there's arms wrapped around people. I'm not kidding.
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Approaching Exit 128. That sign just looks off with the arrow placed where it is. Also, that's a different sized "o" in Fountain. This sign was installed just a few years back.
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I have no idea why the powers that be decided on installing guardrails from offramp to onramp here.
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Yes, Virginia, bicycles are allowed on the interstates out here. Where else are they going to ride?
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The backs of the new Exit 128 signs are black. I haven't seen this anywhere else but here.
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Our next distance sign.
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Ray Nixon Road leads you to (surprise!) the Ray Nixon Power Plant, which services Colorado Springs with about 1/3 of its power. The bridge in the background is for the railroad tracks that leads to the plant. Interesting thing with these tracks: right after the east side of the bridge, the tracks split and join the main track that parallels the interstate in each direction. Trains can go south or north on the tracks without having to back up.
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The exit to Ray Nixon.
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A shot of the power plant.
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This is the exit to the former PPIR. The track was recently sold, and the new owners flat out said that this track "will never see auto racing again." Ouch.
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The PPIR exit is really subpar. When the races were over, the backups here were about as long as the race. You'd often see people making their own roads through the fields trying to get to the exits on either side of this one.
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Interesting spot for the height marker. Forgive the picture quality for a while: I'm going under some heavy cloud cover: it's messing with the camera.
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This guy went flying by me about a mile earlier. Looks like he went flying by someone else, too.
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Approaching County Line Road. Funny thing here is that the county line (and subsequently County Line Road) is right at this point. The exit leads you onto a frontage road that doubles back.
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This sign is necessary here because the northbound rest area is located at this point.
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Speaking of rest areas, let's check it out!
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This rest area was recently rebuilt from the ground up.
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I wonder what this rest area is called? :)
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A shot of the new building. All that is in the building is a map of Colorado (up to date!), a drinking fountain, and some bathrooms. The vending machines are outside.
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One of the new "Colorado Information Presenter 4000" models in action.
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The service entrance of the rest area. This building is quite small, but large enough for the purpose it serves.
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Cars don't yeild to the oncoming trucks, they stop for them. Interesting.
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Approaching some construction. I promise the pict quality will improve once I get past all these clouds.
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Whoops. Gotta idle 'er back a little more.
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Slowing even further.
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Fugly dancing arrow sign. And yes, that's a no-light (but otherwise marked) smokey sitting there waithing for the errant speeder. Lucky for us I'm chillin' at 45 right now.
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A detour route made for the drunk drivers. No straight lines anywhere here!
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Road, meet billboard. Billboard, meet road.
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Curving back onto the original alignment. The frontage road always ended there, so this didn't take over that road. Looks like some people are using the frontage road instead of the exit now, though.
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We're through the construction, but the speed limit doesn't go back up to 75.
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An abandoned frontage road lies off to our right.
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Now we see why the speed limit didn't go back up.
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This looks like this used to be an exit here, but research is saying nothing. Plus, there's a railroad bridge straight ahead, so the frontage road doesn't last too much longer anyways. Interesting.
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Speaking of railroad bridges, here it is!
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A close-up of the bridge pier. I like how someone decided to swith the direction of the stripes.
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Approaching Exit 106, Porter Draw. Note that the merge sign is before the exit.
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Awww, it's a baby exit. How cute! Good thing this doesn't go anywhere.
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Proof that Porter Draw doesn't go anywhere. In fact, because of the construction, the exit should be closed. The interstate takes over the frontage road ahead and does not allow Porter Draw traffic to continue.
- Where to next?
- This trip's Index
- Page 2
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with any of the orginizations listed within this site. I'm just a bored roadgeek with way too much time on his hands. All of the picts in this page are mine and mine alone unless otherwise noted. Remember, kids: stealing is bad, mmmm-k? I get quite pissy if things are taken without telling me. I don't like to be pissy. You won't like it either. If you want to link to this page, that's fine. Please shoot me an email beforehand so I can link to your page as well. K? Thanks. --Ryan
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