The Corona na Freeway

Heading south on the 57 Freeway from the 210 through San Dimas, you’ll see a mileage sign that may make you do a double-take — which is appropriate since it’s got a redundancy: “Corona na Fwy.”

I noticed this a while back on my first drive on that route in quite some time and thought, Did I really see that? Then last week, a local official who commutes daily on the 57 happened to email me about it.

He says Caltrans closed the offramp to the 71 (Corona) Freeway a year ago for some work and covered the exit sign. When the offramp was opened and the sign uncovered, “lo and behold, the sign read ‘Corona na Fwy.’ It looks like they put a new Corona sign over the old Corona sign, but didn’t cover the last ‘na’ in the sign underneath,” he says.

That’s the sort of attention to detail we expect from Caltrans. I wonder, though, why the new “Corona” takes up so much less room. Maybe the sign read differently, like “71 Corona Fwy”? Whatever the reason, it’s amazing, but dispiriting, that the mistake has stood there for a year, give or take.

“I keep thinking that one day some Caltrans worker will notice it and tell someone to fix it,” my source says. “But in reality I like it because every time I drive under that sign, I can’t help but giggle thinking that it is a Caltrans tribute to Sha Na Na: Coro Na Na. I also wonder if I’m the only one who notices the sign typo as I’m whizzing by at 75 mph.”

Doubtful. For one thing, traffic rarely moves that fast.

Google Street View, rather hilariously, documents the misspelling, from whence the above image came.

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Fireworks and fantasy

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If you own a unicorn in Rancho Cucamonga, you’re on the horns of a dilemma and might face a downward spiral. This sign at 19th and Haven was altered; you can see “unicorns” is pasted over the word “fireworks.” The photo was posted to a Facebook group and shared with me by reader Elizabeth Peterson Rynear, who said the sign had been removed by July 4. So if you do own one or more unicorns, it’s hard to say if animal control will be after you or not.

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Beloved children’s character seeks your vote

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I can’t be the only who sees these campaign signs for Grover Merritt (above) and immediately thinks of the “Sesame Street” character (below).

I’m unaware of any political aspirations on the part of the blue Muppet, but people of a certain age will recall that he often daydreamed he was a crimefighter, Super Grover (bottom), a role that may not be so distant from being a district attorney. (Super Grover, whose alter ego was doorknob salesman Grover Kent, was described in the opening as “smarter than a speeding bullet.”)

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Spy pies

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At a Coco’s in Rancho Cucamonga the day before Thanksgiving, reader Tony says he and his wife were surprised to see pies stacked up everywhere for pickup, including a couple that he concluded might be for the National Security Administration. “I wondered why there was a black helicopter in the parking lot,” he joked.

(NSA would, of course, really stand for No Sugar Added. At least, that’s what the NSA would like us to believe.)

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Farewell to arms?

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On Merrill Avenue near Chino Airport, motorists appear to enter a zone in which they may donate unused shoulders. (Perhaps the repository is the convenient ditch to their right.) It’s probably okay to slow down for the drop off, but as the second sign warns, don’t come to a full stop.

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