California Highways: Route by Route Bonus,History CA RxR 4.14: Bonus: New Idria Road and Hites Cove Road

CA RxR 4.14: Bonus: New Idria Road and Hites Cove Road

July 30, 2026July 30, 2026| DanielDaniel| 0 Comment| 8:30 am
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Episode 4.14 is the first of two bonus episodes. It tells the story of the corridors of New Idria Road and Hites Cove Road. Both of these historic highway corridors lead to mining in Central California. This episode is based off blogs released on Gribblenation during October 2025 and May 2026. New Idria Road is an approximately 21.5-mile rural highway located in the Diablo Range of San Benito County. It branches off of Panoche Road, and winds its way south-ish through the Diablo range to the ghost mining town of Idria, continuing as Clear Creek Road. Hites Cove Road is an approximately seven-mile rural highway corridor located in the Sierra Nevada range of Mariposa County, south of Route 140, and west of El Portal. Hites Cove, and its successor forest and OHV trail roads, leads to the ghost town of Hites Cove on the south fork of the Merced River. Two interesting stories about two interesting ghost towns. Next up: Our second bonus episode to close out Season 4: A roundtable discussion with Adam Prince and Doug Kerr as we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the start of Gribblenation.

Here’s the link to the show:

And here’s the link on Spotify for Creators:

Here are some relevant links (I may edit this to add more links in later):

We encourage you to explore our back catalog through this site or our Spotify for Creators home.

 

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CA RxR 4.11: Route 13: Oakland and BerkeleyCA RxR 4.11: Route 13: Oakland and Berkeley

May 14, 2026May 14, 2026| DanielDaniel| 0 Comment| 9:51 am

With Episode 4.11, our attention turns to Route 13. In this episode, we look at LRN 13, Sign Route 13, and Route 13. LRN 13 was the Sonora and Mono Wagon Road, which became today’s Route 219 and Route 108. Sign Route 13 was short-lived, quickly being renumbered as Sign Route 17 and Route 17, and is today’s Route 17, I-880, and I-580 N of the Bay Bridge. The post-1964 Route 13 of today runs from Route 61 to Route 61 through Oakland and Berkeley, and is best known as the Warren Freeway and Ashby Blvd. As for Route 61, you’ll just have to listen to the episode. Next time: In Ep 4.12, we’ll look at Route 14 and the unbuilt freeways of the San Fernando Valley. Lastly, note that in this episode Tom was having microphone trouble, so his sound is a bit off (and I don’t know Audacity well enough to fix it).

Here’s the link to the show:

And here’s the link on Spotify for Creators:

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CA RxR 4.08: Route 12: Sonoma and NapaCA RxR 4.08: Route 12: Sonoma and Napa

March 11, 2026March 11, 2026| DanielDaniel| 0 Comment| 6:45 am

Episode 4.08 is the first of three episodes focusing on Route 12. We start by exploring LRN 12, which we visited before in our episodes on Route 8, for LRN 12 became I-8 between San Diego and El Centro. We then look at Sign Route 12 and Route 12, which are mostly the same route… except, of course, in the first segment where they differ in routing between Route 1 and US 101. Episode 4.08 focuses on the first two segments of Route 12, which covers the portions between Route 1 near Valley Ford or Jenner through Sebastapol, Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Napa, and into Cordelia. Episode 4.09 will cover Route 12 from I-80 near Suisan City through the Sacramento Wetlands to Lodi and Route 99. Lastly, Episode 4.10 will cover Route 12 from Route 99 to the Sierra Foothill and San Andreas, where it meets Route 49. As usual, we’ll cover historical routings, projects, and names along the route.

Here’s the link to the show:

And here’s the link on Spotify for Creators:

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CARxR 2.01: Route 1 – Orange CountyCARxR 2.01: Route 1 – Orange County

October 16, 2023October 16, 2023| DanielDaniel| 0 Comment| 4:12 pm

Welcome back to season 2 of California Highways: Route by Route. With Season 2 we return to the original premise of the podcast: Going route by route through every state highway. We start with Route 1 and its segment in Orange County. In this episode, we’ll go over what was the first national highway, the first state highway, the first legislative route, and then explore the history of today’s route 1, looking specifically at the segment from Dana Point to Seal Beach. We hope to pick up the pace a little (after all, we have 34 planned seasons to get through), and the next episode will cover Route 1 in Los Angeles County.

Here’s the link to the show:

 

And here’s the link on Spotify for Podcasters:

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