Small, Heartwarming Things

A while back, I found this small, heavy plaque for sale on ebay. As you drive two-lane highways, you can spot plaques of this sort on bridges across streams, etc. I love to see them and, if it's safe to pull off the road and walk, I take time to photograph some of these plaques. If the stretch of highway is abandoned, walking out and getting a picture is of course easier. North of my hometown, Vandalia, IL, an old alignment of U.S. 51 still lies on the east side of the modern road, and the plaque on the bridge identifies the route with its old name, State Route 2.

This plaque indicates that its bridge was built in 1928, and that the bridge carried State Route 129. The words "Bond Issue" means that the route was one of the "state bond issue" routes undertaken in Illinois in 1918 and afterward. (My own favorite highway, IL 185, was the last of those original SBI routes.) I looked on http://www.n9jig.com and discovered that there is no longer a Route 129 in Illinois, but the route had connected Effingham and Windsor, Illinois. It was renumbered as State Route 32 in 1936, thus lengthening the road that already existed between Decatur and Windsor. I've visited Effingham all my life and have always seen the signs for routes 32 and 33 along I-57/70.

Unusual plaque on an early
U.S. 51 bridge north of Sandoval, IL.

All this made me think of things that we enjoy when we're out driving. Small plaques on highway bridges give me a sense of pleasure, but so do willow trees, streams, cattails and day lilies in ditches, signs for churches down a country road, billboards for upcoming restaurants and motels (like those in Effingham), and other things. The (hopefully) soon arrival of nice weather will have me out driving through familiar and new countrysides.

Old alignment of U.S. 40, disappearing into
the woods, east of Pocahontas, IL