Shallow Thoughts : tags : sign

Signs on the Way to San Antonio Hot Springs

This week's group hike was to San Antonio Hot Springs, in the Jemez above La Cueva. It was nice and cool up there, especially since the trail is mostly shady, winding through ponderosa forest with views of San Antonio Creek below and towering rock walls above.

Read more ...

Tags: hiking, sign, mysteries
[ 12:06 Aug 31, 2023    More hikes | permalink to this entry | ]

Would You Want a T-Rex as a Handyman?

I saw this truck at Home Depot in Santa Fe.

I have to wonder: would you want a T-Rex as a handyman?

I mean, aside from wanting to eat you, it doesn't seem like it would be very "handy" with those little arms that can't reach anywhere.

Tags: humor, dinosaur, sign
[ 16:18 Jun 13, 2023    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

A Questioning Attitude is Cultivated

At the bottom of the truck route (the main highway going up to LANL), the lab keeps a sign, usually advertising things like Motorcycle Awareness Month or Work Safety Month. I think they change it more or less monthly.

A few days ago, this curious sign appeared.

Don't Dart.
Cross Smart.
A Questioning Attitude
is Cultivated.

It includes a logo of the Institutional Worker Environment Safely and Security Team, or IWESST.

I have no idea what they're trying to get across with this sign. If you want to cross this 55mph highway, don't dart across it because it's smarter to saunter slowly? And what does darting, or crossing, have to do with a questioning attitude?

Or does this relate to some deep secret known only to LANL badgeholders, so if I figure it out they'll have to kill me?

Well, I guess they've succeeded in one respect: they have me questioning the sign.

Tags: sign, humor, los alamos
[ 17:58 Jun 03, 2023    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

Dust Storm Burma Shave Signs

I just got back from a trip to the Chiricahuas, specifically Cave Creek. More on that later, after I've done some more photo triaging. But first, a story from the road.

Driving on I-10 in New Mexico near the Arizona border, we saw several signs about dust storms. The first one said,

ZERO VISIBILITY IS POSSIBLE

Dave commented, "I prefer the ones that say, 'may exist'." And as if the highway department heard him, a minute or two later we passed a much more typical New Mexico road sign:

DUST STORMS MAY EXIST

New Mexico, the existential state.

But then things got more fun. We drove for a few more miles, then we passed a sign that obviously wasn't meant to stand alone:

IN A DUST STORM

"It's a Burma Shave!" we said simultaneously. (I'm not old enough to remember Burma Shave signs in real life, but I've heard stories and love the concept.) The next sign came quickly:

PULL OFF ROADWAY

"What on earth are they going to find to rhyme with 'roadway'?" I wondered. I racked my brains but couldn't come up with anything. As it turns out, neither could NMDOT. There were three more signs:

TURN VEHICLE OFF
FEET OFF BRAKES
STAY BUCKLED

"Hmph", I thought. "What an opportunity missed." But I still couldn't come up with a rhyme for "roadway". Since we were on Interstate 10, and there's not much to do on a long freeway drive, I penned an alternative:

IN A DUST STORM
PULL OFF TEN
YOU WILL LIVE
TO DRIVE AGAIN

Much better, isn't it? But one thing bothered me: you're not really supposed to pull all the way off Interstate 10, just onto the shoulder. How about:

IN A DUST STORM
PULL TO SHOULDER
YOU WILL LIVE
TO GET MUCH OLDER

I wasn't quite happy with it. I thought my next attempt was an improvement:

IN A DUST STORM
PULL TO SHOULDER
YOU MAY CRASH IF
YOU ARE BOLDER

but Dave said I should stick with "GET MUCH OLDER".

Oh, well. Even if I'm not old enough to remember real Burma Shave signs, and even if NMDOT doesn't have the vision to make their own signs rhyme, I can still have fun with the idea.

Tags: humor, travel, sign, cavecreek
[ 16:05 Mar 26, 2018    More travel | permalink to this entry | ]

Adventure Dental

This sign, in Santa Fe, always makes me do a double-take.

Would you go to a dentist or eye doctor named "Adventure Dental"?

Personally, I prefer that my dental and vision visits are as un-adventurous as possible.

Tags: humor, sign
[ 08:54 Jun 08, 2015    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

Another stick figure in peril

One of my favorite categories of funny sign: "Stick figures in peril". This one was on one of those automated gates, where you type in a code and it rolls aside, and on the way out it automatically senses your car.

Tags: humor, sign, stick figures in peril
[ 10:19 Jan 18, 2015    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

One of them Los Alamos liberals

I love this Adopt-a-Highway sign on Highway 4 on the way back down from the Jemez.

I have no idea who it is (I hope to find out, some day), but it gives me a laugh every time I see it.

Tags: humor, sign
[ 10:50 Aug 24, 2014    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

Why should I stop here? Oh, that's why!

I love warning signs. Especially when they have funny pictures on them illustrating the drastic consequences of ignoring the sign.

This one is by the railroad tracks in downtown Mountain View. In case you weren't sure what that funny wooden arm was for.

Tags: humor, sign
[ 20:15 Feb 13, 2013    More humor | permalink to this entry | ]

Snowy Grapevine, Rainy Central Valley, Unappetizing Sagebrush

The Grapevine, the pass through which Interstate 5 crosses the mountains north of LA, was covered in snow today. Gorman, near the highest point of the pass, was blanketed in white, not even bushes or grass poking through.

We'd hesitated before coming this way -- the Caltrans web site had listed the pass as closed until a scant half hour before we left. Signs on the highway at Castaic still said the pass was closed, but we put our trust in the web, and forged on. Happily, the road was open, clean of snow, and barely even wet, giving a lovely view of the snowy Transverse Ranges as we passed through this unexpected white christmas. Also fun was seeing a double semi trailer full of oranges passing through this wintry landscape.

Descending into the central valley, we saw the first "Food grows where water flows" sign at Buttonwillow, pinned to a trailer in a field of sagebrush and tumbleweed. Perhaps a goat would have found some food there. At least sage (which I do like in cooking) is closer to culinary than the cotton that all the farms here were growing for the last two years (presumably due to subsidies) the remnants of which still litter most of the empty fields along the I-5 corridor.

"Farm water feeds the nation", fifty miles farther north, also stood in a field of tumbleweed, but the California Aqueduct was nearby, so it was at least somewhat topical. The next "Food grows where water flows" adjoined a vinyard. Does wine count as food? Maybe they were table grapes.

The Buttonwillow rest stop features lovely woven hanging birds' nests, visible now when the trees are bare of leaves and looking like something out of an African weaverbird documentary. I didn't get a good look at the birds occupying those trees now; usually those I-5 rest stops are populated mostly by blackbirds and ravens, but I'll have to keep a sharp eye out next time I pass through in spring.

Tags: travel, sign, politics, water
[ 19:33 Jan 04, 2005    More misc | permalink to this entry | ]