Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

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Roads I’ve been down

Jim Grey
13 comments on Roads I’ve been down
2 minutes
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Do you ever notice the road images at the top of this page, just above my blog’s name? If you click your browser’s refresh button, eventually you will see them all. But today there will be no need for that: I’m going to share all 13 images with you and tell you where these roads are located.

I’m doing this on the occasion of adding a new road image to the rotation: this one. I made it on my October road trip. It’s State Road 45 in Brown County, Indiana.

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The rotating header images are a feature of the WordPress blog template I use. (It’s the Ryu theme, in case you’re curious.) Using road photos I’ve taken, I shrink and crop them to 350×150 pixels, upload them, and link them to the header. The template and WordPress take it from there.

Here, then, are the rest of the roads in rotation.

US 40 in Putnam County, Indiana. From my 2009 road trip of the National Road in western Indiana.

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Route 66 near Auburn, Illinois. From a 2013 Spring Break trip my sons and I took along Route 66.

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Route 66 over the South Canadian River near Caddo, Oklahoma. From the 2013 Route 66 trip.

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State Road 45 in Brown County, Indiana. From a long drive in 2013.

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Peacock Road, former National Road, in Guernsey County, Ohio. From my 2010 trip across Ohio’s National Road.

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Old State Road 37, former Dixie Highway, in Morgan County, Indiana. From my series of 2012 road trips exploring the Dixie in Indiana.

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Old State Road 37, former Dixie Highway, in Morgan County, Indiana. From the 2012 Dixie Highway tour.

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Route 66 at Devil’s Elbow, Missouri. From the 2013 Route 66 trip.

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Route 66 west of El Reno, Oklahoma. From the 2013 Route 66 trip.

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R344 in County Galway, Ireland. From my 2016 Irish honeymoon.

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N59 near Connemara National Park, County Galway, Ireland. From my 2016 Irish honeymoon.

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Unmarked road, Lettermore, County Galway, Ireland. From my 2016 Irish honeymoon.

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Comments

13 responses to “Roads I’ve been down”

  1. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    Hey Jim perfect shot!

    Reply
  2. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    Actually I only saw the thumbnail at first, but the rest are also great! 😊

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Thanks Sam!

      Reply
  3. Dan Cluley Avatar
    Dan Cluley

    They are all nice, but I think my favorites are the new one, the very green route 40, and the yellow truss bridge on 66

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I will always love the very green Route 40. I can clearly remember the moment I made that shot. The yellow Route 66 bridge is a joy, and if you can, get out and see it. They’re planning to close it and build a new bridge. Not clear whether this bridge will be left in place or be demolished.

      https://blog.jimgrey.net/2016/07/18/endangered-the-38-span-william-h-murray-pony-bridge-on-route-66-in-oklahoma/

      Reply
  4. Heide Avatar
    Heide

    Why yes … yes, I have wondered where that road at the top of your blog was (because apparently I hadn’t clicked “refresh” enough times to collect them all). Great images, Jim!

    Reply
  5. dan james Avatar
    dan james

    Well an interesting and timely post for me. I’ve just changed the theme of my blog, and am debating about whether I need a graphic header for the main page, or just text. Or something that cycles through a set of images like yours… At the moment I quite like having just text for the blog name then on each individual post the first image in the post automatically displays at the top. But maybe a consistent image on every page would be better to make the blog more familiar to people. What are your thoughts Jim?

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Just checked your site. The new layout is good — it’s clean and brings your images out front and center. I chose this theme for many of the same reasons.

      My advice is don’t fret over stuff like header images too much. Most people don’t really pay attention to that stuff anyway.

      Reply
      1. dan james Avatar
        dan james

        Thanks Jim. Yes my old theme had a left column with too much in that squashed up the width of the main body and made it off centre. I wanted to put all the extra stuff at the bottom and just have the main content (words and pictures) central and with nothing else cluttering it.

        Also this theme lets me on the main page have an image plus excerpt of text for each post rather than the full content of each post. Hopefully this makes it easier for people to scan down through a number of posts more quickly then click through to any they want to read more.

        I think I’ll just leave the main header as text only. You’re right, most people aren’t nearly as concerned about the minor detail of the look of our blogs as we are!

        Thanks Jim.

        Reply
  6. Marcus Avatar
    Marcus

    I keep forgetting to change the photo on my home page because I never look at the home page.
    Nice roads. I was surprised to read there is a South Canadian River in Oklahoma. Is there a North U.S. Lake up in Nunavut somewhere, I wonder?

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I’m not sure why I bother too much with my main page; most people never see it!

      Reply
      1. dan james Avatar
        dan james

        Jim, I’m surprised and curious why you say this? Is it because you believe/know most readers are already subscribed so read individual posts directly in their email (or WordPress app) and/or click through to read just that one post on your blog?

        If I look at my stats over this year in my WordPress dashboard, it says over 72% of views have been of the home page/ archives. Which mean only 28% are of individual posts (all combined).

        This suggest to me it’s fairly important to spend a bit of time and attention on how your home page looks, and how it encourages people to explore elsewhere on your site.

        What do your stats say?

        Reply
        1. Jim Grey Avatar
          Jim Grey

          I get most of my visits to the home page, as well. I assume they’re coming here for something and aren’t primarily interested in the window dressing. I try to make the site’s visage interesting and attractive but I don’t stress out over it.

          Reply

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