Road signs of the times

Sign of the times
By Josh Salm /Staff Writer
Date published: Dec. 31, 2008
A 22 hour, 1,400-mile drive from the family farm in eastern Wisconsin to my apartment in Old Town is a true test of wills – and a marriage, for that matter. My wife and I are still speaking to each other, so I passed that test.
As for the test of wills, I kept my sanity by keeping myself preoccupied with Lewis Black and Dane Cook comedy sketches on my iPod, sports radio talk shows and even road signs. There’s signs for everything along the interstate. Gas station next exit. Toll ahead 2.5 miles. Adult stores next exit (By the way, who ever drives down the interstate, sees that sign and goes, “Hey, I wasn’t thinking about that before but now that they have that there, that sounds like a good place to stop.”).
Did you know there’s a Recreational Vehicle and Motor Home Hall of Fame in western Indiana along I-90? For some reason my wife wouldn’t agree with me to stop and check the place out.
Coming in to Maine on the final leg of my journey, I got to thinking about how members of the Piscataquis County Economic Development Council are working to put up signs throughout the county to direct tourists to different landmarks and towns throughout the county. At the PCEDC’s annual meeting a few weeks back, there were discussions about how the Piscataquis Tourism Task Force put up signs for the Gulf Hagas and the Katahdin Iron Works region, as well as historical markers in different towns in southern Piscataquis County.
I had a thought that night during the annual meeting that popped back in my head as I crossed into Maine Monday night. It’s great this tourism task force is putting up signs in Piscataquis County, but where at the signs outside the county getting people up this way?
According to my unofficial count, there are two signs involving Piscataquis County between the state line and Old Town — one for Peaks Kenny State Park somewhere near Augusta, and another saying “Dover-Foxcroft, Moosehead Lake, Moose Mountain” further north.
For the record, there’s one sign for Jackman and Moose River region just before the Dover-Foxcroft sign.
The signage going up now helping tourists in this area find local landmarks is great. Those chickadee signs, the Gulf Hagas directions and the historical markers all add to the experience of visiting Piscataquis County, but what good is that if there is nothing on I-95 telling people about Gulf Hagas, Sebec Lake or even something as simple as the Appalachian Trail.
This state’s economy is built on tourism, and this county is not excluded from that. That’s why Plum Creek wants to build a resort off Moosehead Lake, to capitalize on the tourism aspect. That’s why the tourism task force is putting up signs, to get people to those destinations.
I mean, what good is building something like the Recreational Vehicle and Motor Home Hall of Fame if you don’t tell the tourists driving 70 miles per hour down the interstate about it? Heck, it would have drawn me off the road had my wife’s better judgment not prevailed.
Maybe it’s time we start looking at advertising the county’s places of interest on Maine’s only interstate. In the end, what good is it to have Piscataquis County filled with signs when there isn’t a sign outside the county directing the tourists up here in the first place?