8 minutes, no stopping, little thinking, billboards.

Oh man, when I think about billboards all I can think about is all those Cavalia ones. Did you know that billboards stay up until there is a new one to replace it, I mean, it makes sense, they don’t want a bunch of blank billboards and it’s more effort than it’s worth, but that means that we may see those Cavalia billboards for a long time despite the fact that it’s moved on to Portland and maybe even on past that.

We used to visit Utah a lot growing up because my dad’s family lived here and my mom’s parents lived in Wyoming. I remember the first time I saw I-15 I was actually sort of enchanted by the all the billboards, which is amazing because most people, including myself sometimes, find them so ugly. We didn’t have as many billboards where I grew up, too many trees I guess.

So seeing all the billboards was exciting. I wanted to read them all. I love criticizing their advertising techniques. Whether they make sense or whether they have too much information to process as you speed past.

It reminds me of Fahrenheit 451 where they’ve increased the speed limit so much that they have to stretch out the billboards so they can be read. That book is crazy. I haven’t read it in a long time.

When I came to school at BYU I remember the drive from SLC to Provo and all the billboards. They sort of added to the excitement of a new beginning. Provo looks nothing like my hometown, where I had lived my whole life up to that point.

Now, having been here for more or less eight years give-or-take some summers, a mission, and a study abroad, I miss trees. I miss them a lot. But because of my initial feelings towards billboards I still love them. The drive from Provo to SLC is justifiably one of the ugliest commutes and also one that according to the traffic signs seems to be fairly deadly but it is still something I like. It reminds me of some place that was new and exciting but is also a second home.