The year in numbers with 2024 values in parentheses:
- 3 (7) = Road trips reported
- 69 (68) = Blog posts
- 20 (72) = Days on the road
- 1110 (2,491) = Pictures posted — 732 (671) in the blog and 378 (1,820) in road trips
The last three years have certainly been interesting ones to look back on, statistics-wise. In 2023, I wrote that everything went up except interest, and by that I meant traffic. In 2024, traffic joined the other statistics in posting increases. This year, interest/traffic is just about the only thing that has gone up. Scheduling conflicts and other issues kept me essentially off the road for the entire first half of the year, which naturally resulted in fewer road trips, days on the road, and pictures posted. Blog posts did increase by one, and pictures posted in the blog also went up a bit, but the bulk of pictures always comes from road trips, so the total went down, and neither blog posts nor blog pictures equaled the 2023 numbers. Three of the top five blog posts are frequent members of the list, including last year. The other two are not only new to the top five list, but both were also newly published in 2025. Three of the top five non-blog posts are also frequent list members, but only one appeared last year. Both of the newcomers to the non-blog list were published in 2024. That’s quite a shakeup from last year, when both lists contained four repeats from the year before.
Top Blog Posts:
- Scoring the Dixie
This post moves from fifth to first for its ninth top-five finish. It described my tracking of multiple outings on the Dixie High that eventually led to clinching it. - Twenty Mile’s Last Stand
After two consecutive first-place finishes, this post drops slightly for its eleventh appearance in the top-five list. Its subject is a nineteenth-century stagecoach stop destined for destruction by developers. - My Wheels – Chapter 1 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner
Back for the twelfth time; the only time this post did not appear in the top five was 2022, when it was sixth. - Book Review – Route 66: The First 100 Years – Jim Ross and Shellee Graham
This review did OK on its own, and posting a link on my Facebook page helped a little, but there is no doubt that the reason it made this list is that both Jim and Shellee posted links to it on their own Facebook pages. It’s a great book, and I’d like to believe I helped sell a copy or two, but I think it is mostly selling itself. - An Auto Park Turns Two
This one got plenty of help, too. It’s about my visit to an Indiana diner and associated car museum during its second anniversary celebration. I posted a Facebook link, and the diner shared the post to its own page.
Top Non-Blog Posts:
- Alaska
After a three-year absence, this nearly six-week-long trip makes its sixth top-five appearance with its second first place. - My Fiftieth: Hawaii
It’s a little hard for me to believe that this is only the second time that the trip where I celebrated my fiftieth state and my seventieth birthday made the top five. It ranked third in 2018. - NOTR and PPOO Part 2
In 2024, I drove the full length of the National Old Trails Road and the Pikes Peak Ocens to Ocean Highway. For reasons not worth repeating, the drive was divided into two parts. Part 2 involved the two named auto trails west of the Ohio-Indiana border. Part 1’s traffic placed it well down the list, but the combined total would top it. Of course, that doesn’t mean that an undivided trip would have garnered the same numbers, but I think it does mean NOTR and PPOO Part 1 deserves a shout-out. - Route 66 Miles of Possibility 2024
This and NOTR and PPOO Part 2 are the newcomers. In real life, the end of the NOTR drive morphed into the start of the drive to the 2024 MOP without a break. - Sixty-Six: E2E & F2F
The only returnee from the 2024 list is my 2012 end-to-end and friend-to-friend drive of Historic Route 66. It was number one last year, and this makes its ninth top-five appearance.
All three of the main traffic measurements were up again this year. Overall site visits grew from 164,460 to 356,700, blog visits rose from 5,236 to 7,268, and page views went from 815,886 to 2,596,26. I said I didn’t think last year’s increases were anything to get excited about, and the same is true this year, but there’s nothing wrong with being mighty pleased.
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This book, just like its subject, is bright, colorful, eye-catching, and informative. That subject, quite obviously, is the 25-year-old 
Museum founder Tod Swormstedt provided a welcome page and an introduction, and his influence is evident throughout. It’s a given that some of the information presented in Roberts’ text came from Tod and others. To me, it seems almost as obvious that a guy so adept at organizing walls, rooms, and buildings filled with signs would have a hand in organizing sign-filled pages, and I have a strong hunch that he might have suggested a few targets for Grilli’s camera.
As Tod describes in the introduction, the book consists of three sections. The first describes what the museum is. It begins with some statistics, such as size (40,000 sq ft), oldest sign (155 years), and tallest sign (21 ft). That is followed by “A Founder’s Vision” (written by Tod), some words about the museum’s mission and its relationship with the community, and recognition of some of the many individuals who have been instrumental in the museum’s development and ongoing operation.
The second section concerns signs in general. There is a condensed history of signs in America that starts with carved and painted signs and progresses through materials like glass and plastic. The major changes electricity brought and the development of various illumination methods are covered. The section concludes with a glossary of sign types and the techniques and materials used in their construction.
I first became aware of the museum with the 2005 opening of its original Walnut Hills location. To someone not involved with the sign business in any way, it seemed to me that this wonderful new attraction had magically appeared, fully formed, in my city overnight. However, we all know that’s not how things work, and I soon learned about some, but far from all, of the work behind that magic. The first part of section three nicely covers the period between forming a board of directors in 1999, incorporating as a non-profit in 2000, and that delightful grand opening on April 28, 2005. This is also where I found more photos of Tod wearing a tie (3) than I’d ever seen before.
That first home in Essex Studios in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati was outgrown before it was occupied. Behind-the-scenes coverage continues as the current location in Camp Washington is acquired and made ready for another grand opening in June 2012. Central to “A Founder’s Vision” was the desire to not just display signs but to tell the story of American signage. Two envisioned methods for doing that were a Letter Wall showing the evolution of sign lettering and a faux street where signs were displayed in period-appropriate settings. A short Letter Wall existed at Essex, and some signs were sort of arranged as if they were on a street, but the backing was mostly plain white walls. In the new location, there was room to create proper versions of these two features. A much longer Letter Wall was constructed at the entrance to the main display area, and a Main Street was built with various storefronts lining both sides. To add another layer of realism, a diverse group of sign painters known as Letterheads descended on the museum to add signs to windows and doors to augment the big signs hanging on the storefronts and standing in the street. The store windows serve as natural display locations for items like painter kits and books.
The Letterheads and the museum have a wonderful relationship that is well documented in the book. The museum hosted the group’s 40th and 50th reunions in 2015 and 2025, and the group added murals and other features to the museum each time. When the museum expanded and Main Street doubled in length in 2024, the Letterheads returned to work their magic on the new storefronts. The Letterhead story is just one of many that show how the museum is appreciated by sign makers as well as sign fans.
There is something akin to a fourth section spread throughout the book. It is made up of things called “Sign Stories”, which are like sidebars in that they are standalone and not tied to the main flow of the book. But each is at least one full page, and some fill a two-page spread. Most describe a sign or group of signs in the museum’s collection. They typically provide a date and original location and identify the sign material and type. Then the page is filled with details about the sign’s original owner, its acquisition, or some other truly interesting aspect of the sign. I didn’t count them, but there’s a bunch. Enough to believe that some people might think the book worthy of purchase if these were all it contained.
Back in 2018, I noted this blog’s 500th post and figured I ought to note the 1000th as well. But, as it neared, I decided to be a little perverse and mark the 1Kth (1024th) post instead. The 500th post was noted in the regularly scheduled Sunday post that followed. That was more or less the plan for this post. However, when the 1Kth post went up last Sunday, I quickly realized that a post was already planned for the next Sunday. That’s why I’m taking Wednesday, the day normally reserved for reviews, to wish this blog a Happy 1Kth.
