driving in MN

After driving in MN for a few months I have noticed some interesting things. Some of them are merely puzzling, some I just don't like. My most recent discoveries come from driving through rural Minnesota this past weekend. Out there, for whatever reason, they decided numbers would be good for naming roads. A girl told me today that apparently there was a big legislative change some years ago that actually changed names to numbers. Anyway, you'd be driving through cornfields, and suddenly come across, say, 468th Street. Or, the intersection of 150th Street and 170th Avenue. Where the other 467 streets were, we'll never know. That was the only road for miles, except the county road I was driving on. Unfortunately the counties also seem to like to all use some of the same numbers, so it seems like it might be easy to get confused (I think I passed a 150th street in about 3 different counties).

Then, I was driving down this one road, and I passed a sign that said 'End Speed Limit 45'. Which was all well and good, but there was no sign that then informed me which speed I should be driving.

Lastly, what I hate most about driving in Minnesota (though I imagine this might be a problem in other states, too) is the idiotic cloverleaf design of entrance and exit ramps. They are so tight that they are almost homicidal. Exit, slam on brakes so you don't fly off the side of the loop, then have cars coming at you at 65mph trying to exit as you are trying to enter, all trying to share the same space. Oi.

There are perhaps quirks in Texas that I am just used to, I'll grant that. The cloverleaf thing still seems stupid, though, even as I grant it's space saving nature.