Roadtrippin' Colorado Style

Heading down into the Cherry Creek valley.

At the bottom of the drop now.

Nice.

Entering Franktown. That is a butt-ugly sign.

Coming up on SH 86 now.

Standard CDOT signage depicting intersecting state highways.

At the intersection of SH 83 and SH 86. We've been here before when we were testing out this new camera, in case you're interested.

A funked up distance sign. It's on the same sign blank this region uses for cross streets.

Concerns over the Front Range becoming a megalopolis have been abated recently with the acquisition of multiple open space areas along the 25 corridor between Denver and Colorado Springs. This is one of them, the Hidden Mesa Open Space park.

At this point, SH 83 goes back to four lanes. It'll stay four lanes at the least until it's northern end.

Odd patchwork cement and asphalt here.

Tandem bicycle sighting!
Tandem bicycle sighting!

This side street warrants the 83 signs even though the street goes a whopping 200 feet before ending. Thinking ahead or a waste of taxpayer money? You be the judge.

Typical 83 before hitting the massive surburbia that is Parker.

Big sign, little text.

How SH 83 is signed to the cross streets.

More truck route signage sighting. This time, it's punctuated by the no trucks sign, too.

Solar panels for the traffic lights? Interesting.

Parker's idea of landscaping. They do this in pockets of inspiration throughout this stretch.

At the intersection of MainStreet and SH 83. That's not a typo, it's actually MainStreet. We're snazzy here, dontchaknow.

So I had to fill up the r-dub-mobile. This is the sight I was greeted with. As you can see, we hold our uniformed officers in high regard.

Our next intersection. Those of you familiar with 25 know that this is the southernmost major exit to the Denver metro area.

I wonder how tempted these workers are to drop something on an unsuspecting motorist.

Coming up on E-470, Denver's tolled eastern beltway. 70 mph of pure happiness, there.

It's also the quickest way to get to DIA.

Odd box-style street lights. This used to be the intersection to E-470 back when it used to end here, but expansion and development pushed the interchange to the north a bit.

Colorado can patch signs just as well as anyone. Calafornia DOT representatives are heard saying "Bah, we can do better than that."

E-470's bridge style. Red railings, various shades of grey, and the road's name etched into the pier.

Mini-oops. Those arrows should be pointing up.

The other intersection of E-470 and SH 83. Again with those box lights.

We're getting advanced warnings of major intersections now.

Yes, you can get there from here.

Funny scene here. The lady was doing the "I want that rock here... no, here... no, here..." thing, while the guy in the bobcat was backing up, repositioning, backing up, repositioning, and backing up and repositing. Finally, unsatisfied with the way the rock was in the bucket, she reaches in to move it. That's when I stopped laughing long enough to take the picture. This was typical sketch comedy being played out right in front of me. The best part? Look at the expression on his face. I think she's about to get run over.

Looking down Arapahoe Road. This is the BEGIN!ning of SH 88, too. That light in the distance is the right turn movement from SH 83 to SH 86.

The red arrow in the doghouse signal is not normally seen around here.

This is the typical wire span signal installation in the Denver metro area.

"I think we just struck oil!"

Typical sign overabundance. Check out the pole, though, and read literally. No turn on red: use crosswalk. Huh? ;)

Sign makers at CDOT have taken advertising classes.

That's okay. I didn't want to listen to anything about Cherry Creek State Park anyway.

The construction here is to install a cement barrier between the lanes. I guess there's been some "median incursions" here.

Median's clear here.

That dam road.