“Man in the front got a sinister grin,
careen down Highway 666.” – Marilyn Manson
Technically it’s US-666, and it’s in the middle of New Mexico. This picture is 17 years old and that’s me standing at the base of the sign. Susan and I ran across this during our first road trip together.
Rumor has it that the signs are placed really high to keep people from stealing them — which makes total sense, as I would have stolen the sign had it not been placed so high.
The roadgeek in me says that US 666 was replaced a few years ago with US 491 to appease the religious crowds, and also because US 66 was retired in 1984 which prevented it from ever reconnecting to its ‘parent’ rouote.
Brian is correct. They did replace 666 with 491 some years back. I remember when they announced it and it made me sad. Hang on to that picture, it’s a record of days gone by.
The road was cursed, in one sense: up in the Farmington area there were a lot of deaths on the road. Many pedestrians were hit by cars every year in a busy yet dimly lit part of the road (most of the deaths were at night). The number of deaths went down significantly when they installed a large number of light towers along that stretch of US 666.