US Route 218 runs north-south in southern Minnesota and across the eastern half of Iowa. At its northern end in Owatonna, Minnesota, US Route 218 connects to Interstate 35 by joining US Route 14 west for a bit.  US Route 218 runs from there south-southeasterly through Austin, Minnesota, into Iowa.  In Iowa, US Route 218 joins the Avenue of the Saints, which is actually an expressway, until Waterloo.  From Waterloo to Cedar Rapids, Interstate 380 provides a more efficient connection, but US Route 218 provides the original highway connecting them.  At Cedar Rapids, US Route 218 joins Interstate 380, and continues as the main expressway carrying the Avenue of the Saints beyond Iowa City and Interstate 80, where Interstate 380 ends.  (The Avenue of the Saints is marked as State Route 27 in Iowa, for reference; this can be seen in the photo below.) As US Route 218 continues into the southeastern tip of Iowa, it splits from the expressway carrying the Avenue of the Saints and Iowa Route 27, to divert southeasterly to Keokuk.  In Keokuk, US Route 218 ends at US Route 136, across the Mississippi River from Illinois and across the Des Moines River from Missouri.

My photo of US Route 218 comes from Janesville, Iowa. The interchange home to this sign assembly, along the expressway carrying US Route 218 and Iowa Route 27, leads to a local unmarked road into the town of Janesville.  The sign assembly faces west to traffic approaching the western set of interchange ramps. I snapped this photo during a pit stop on the way home, from the drive to the Pacific Ocean in August 2018.  I was delighted to find these widened shields for the three-digit US highway number in Iowa, because Iowa has only recently begun using widened shields and wider fonts, for US route symbols and state route symbols.
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