Okay, so I'm starting up a new section for 212 Degrees--Boiling Point...a humor section! Let me know what you guys and gals think of it, k? Send me feedback!
I just returned from a road trip across several states...starting with California and ending up in Missouri. We travelled through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma in between the two states I already mentioned. Well, the scenery in most of the parts we went through wasn't all that great...especially since it was so repetitive...over and over and over, the same desert or plains! But don't worry, I found entertainment in a different way...the road signs all throughout Interstate 40! Now, you may not find some of these funny, but I sure did...Here's a few I copied down with this section in mind:
***At a rest-stop in New Mexico, "No dumping domestic trash." --I didn't know trash could be domesticated...is there such thing as wild trash too??
***Here's one of my favorites...we saw it all throughout Oklahoma and Missouri. "Do not drive into smoke." My first reaction after seeing this sign was, "Hmmm...if they really thought we were that dumb, maybe they should tell us not to drive into the flames as well..." But then I found out that they were actually referring to fog! Still, they say do not drive INTO it, rather than saying IN it...
***In Oklahoma we were actually charged to drive on their highway...the turnpikes at least. As we pulled up to the place where we were supposed to pay, we noticed a sign up that said, "Oklahoma toll, friendliness our goal." --Doesn't that sound something like a line from the story of Robin Hood? The Sheriff of Nottingham and all that...hmmm...
***There were numerous signs along the road that said, "Keep off median." Well, that in itself wasn't funny...but how about all the times that there actually wasn't a median, but a guardrail wall instead?!!
***I found that it isn't just California that seems to always be doing roadwork all over the place...every state we went through had roadwork going on in various places along the highway. Several times we were down to one lane, part of the time being when we were on the turnpikes that we had to pay to travel on. We figured that we should only have to pay half the toll since we only got to drive on half the road, don't you all think so?? Anyways, there were a few pretty funny, or at least interesting, signs that had to do with the construction taking place. I especially liked the sign that read, "End of roadwork." --Of course, this sign appears almost a mile after all the roadwork has actually stopped. Hey, I guess it's better late than never! And then there's the "Do not enter" sign directly in front of a shallow pit that was being dug in the middle of one of the roads that was under construction. --Need I comment on this one??
***Oklahoma is really into keeping things nice and clean. About every ten feet it seems there was a sign that said, "Keep our land grand." The sign had a picture of a piece of trash falling into a trash can. Then, at the rest stops or "picnic areas" right off of the road, there were trash cans lined up along the edge that were tilted at an angle so that you could actually drive up and throw away your trash without even getting out of the car! Hmmmm...I wonder if that's domestic trash or wild trash?
***Here's a sign that I'm sure you'll all find humorous. "Free Restrooms, 26 miles ahead." --Yep, that's right...they actually advertise for free restrooms in some parts of the country! That's because many of the rest-stops in Texas and Oklahoma are actually "picnic areas" and don't have restrooms. So the "free restrooms" that they refer to are the ones in places like McDonalds and Taco Bell...and even some of the gas stations.
***We stopped at one rest stop in New Mexico that had a particularly large amount of signs...in fact, they had tons of signs up. Some were normal signs like, "No smoking in bathrooms" and "Pet must be on a leash"...others were a little strange like, "Rest area patrolled by state police" and "No vending on highway right of way". Then there were the really strange ones like the sign that was off by itself a few yards away from the bathrooms that said, "Employees only". --Employees?? Funny, we certainly didn't see any employees while we were there...and besides, where exactly were only the employees allowed to go? This was also the only rest-stop that we came to that I actually saw a sign that displayed a list of rules and regulations for you to follow while on the rest area property. It listed several rules, including "Do not climb on walls" and "Do not write on walls". And I won't go into how far from satisfactory this particular rest-stop's restrooms were...but let's just say they were the worst I saw during the whole trip. So you can imagine how funny it was that they had a sign out front with the following question on it: "Do you approve of this rest area?" We tried to push the "no" button, but alas, it had been permenantly pressed down by others who had visited the rest area, so we didn't even get to vote in the poll! :)
***I knew we were in trouble when there were cattleguards on the on-ramps in some places...but a sign in Arizona really drove the point home. It said, "All livestock stop 1/2 mile ahead". --I honestly didn't know that we were supposed to share the road with cattle...but who knows... As I had to keep reminding myself, "We're not in California anymore, Toto!"
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