Outdoor Adventures

[Colt1861Navy]

Same down here, Ksquared...thanks to Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. 95% of the billboards in Texas are within city/county limits. Lady Bird has over the years fought hard to eliminate them altogether and has been successful in getting rid of all the old wooden billboards and/or any kind of signage along the highways that don't have proper and very expensive permits. Once you leave a metropolitan area all you see is beautiful countryside (except for the annoying Super Giant size Oil company/convenience store 'Next Exit' sign). However, in the big metro areas like Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio-Austin there are enough along all the major Interstates and Freeways running around and through these cities. Here in San Antonio there are too many for me on Inner Loop 410 and the newer Outer Loop 1604. Most of the modern day highways skirt around the small towns which keeps them and the countryside pristine. The problem is when you take the 4th largest city in America, Houston, the Greater Houston area contains 8,778 square miles - more than eight times the size of Rhode Island or 1360 square miles bigger than the Great State of New Jersey, one can see a lot of billboards just going to work. Dallas isn't much different. There are laws in place to eliminate future billboards, but, many existing ones are Grandfathered. Hopefully, Old Gramps will kick the bucket soon! Gramps the Law that is. <ggg>

In todays cyber-world, we get more than enough advertising. TV, for example now gives us 15 minutes of program and 15 minutes of advertising per 30 minute show. Newspapers and magazines are no better. I say DOWN With The FRIGGIN Advertising <hope no one here is in advertising...LOL>! I know what I want/need to buy and when/where to buy it. If I don't I can either make a phone call or look it up on the internet. But do away with popups and billboards. We've pretty much done away with telemarketers, thankfully.

The Tax paying Citizens of New Jersey (NHL World Champs) and Tejas (NBA World Champs) <I knew I could get that plug in there somewhere> prefer to keep our states Lean and Green! And I'm sure that the good folks of Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Arizona feel the same.

OK, off my soap box.

Colt