491 - The Number of the Beast

US Route 666 -- nicknamed "The Devil's Highway" -- running north-south through the Four Corners area of New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, has been renamed to the far less diabolical-sounding US Route 491. We passed this sign denoting the change in Monticello, Utah, near Moab:

While this is excellent news for hexakosioihexekontahexaphobes, it saddens me. You see, while this spur of Route 66 (the sixth spur, of course) was named one of the "20 Most Dangerous Highways in the US" and believed by many to be cursed, what prompted the government to change the name was less supernatural than financial. People kept stealing the signs.

So my concern is, what will all those highway marker thieves do for entertainment now? If they want to rename Interstate-40 the "Old Scratch Turnpike," they better get a petition going, pronto. The change from 666 to 491 took about 77 years.