NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY
Oct. 22 2020
Highland Heights, Ky.! My hometown! It's also the location of Northern Kentucky University, which was by no means immune to the mind-blowing collapse of the entire American education system in the early 2020s. Come on, did you really think it would be?
West on Louie B. Nunn Drive (KY 2238) approaching NKU. I actually remember before this became a divided highway. In fact, I remember it being called College Road. I even remember the school being called Northern Kentucky State College. The highway department had money to spend on social distancing signs along roads, but it wouldn't fix the shoulder here? The narrow shoulder had crumbled to just a pile of rocks here.
Approaching the roundabout at University Drive. KY 2238 turns right onto University. There was a time when the name of parts of Louie B. Nunn Drive and University Drive were swapped with what they are today, before an earlier rebuild of this junction.
The former Nunn Drive reaches this dead end on campus. It used to go straight through, at least into the 1990s when I was in college. I think the yellow barrel at lower left is the same kind the school used to use for a recycling bin. I rescued so much blank paper from those barrels!
We had fine weather that day, but very few students were congregating on campus, for some reason. There were some walking around, but colleges were built for socializing, not moping around alone with sad faces. However, I did bike past a middle-aged woman who smiled widely at me as I sailed by! This is south on Kenton Drive.
Johns Hill Road (KY 2345) had been rebuilt a bit in recent years.
Southwest on Norse Boulevard (KY 2405) to where it ends in preparation for future construction. According to legend, this little stinkpot is gonna someday run parallel to I-275 all the way down to KY 9.
Johns Hill Road has this 1975 bridge over I-275. I may have a photo of this, but probably before they erected this KY 2345 marker. With a little imagination, route markers have personalities embodied in the shape of the shield and the size and dimensions of the numbers. The unusually squat font on this sign contrasts with the uptight but oddly appealing personality of the tall, skinny numerals on some circular shields of a half-century earlier. Think of it as Ernie compared to Bert.
North on the recently built Norse Boulevard.
Norse Boulevard has a roundabout at University Drive. Roundabouts have spurred the invention of oddly shaped arrows, like those denoting left turns on the signage ahead.
Now we're in Fort Thomas, and this is north on Fort Thomas Avenue at Grandview Avenue. I didn't realize how old these route signs were until this. These are probably late 1970s, as I remember circular shields being here before then. The KY 1120 marker is especially faded. This shows once again how route markers can have personalities. The layout of this KY 1120 sign is evocative of a charismatic, trusted news reporter.
Continuing on Fort Thomas Avenue, this is another very faded KY 1120 shield, probably also from the late 1970s. I remember a lot of route markers through here being replaced in unison in the late 1980s, but this one was probably held over from before.