For years, growing up, there were signs saying "adopt a view point" in the highway we'd drive out to see family over the holidays.

For years, I thought they were saying something about road saftey, warning drivers to look at whats coming up instead of directly in front of them. Something akin to the picking a spot on the horizon to sail towards to keep the boat straight my dad had taught me for sailing...

At some point i realized the blue signs were all guidance or info, not rules or warning. At one point I thought they might be politically motivated, like the "please dont litter" signs along that same highway- where they pleading with us to form and opinion, any opinion.

I think I was in my late teens before I finally saw one that said "this viewpoint adopted by " and realized they were literally asking people to sponsor the scenic pull-off spots along the highway.

I still prefer to read them as some poor civil servant waging a private campaign against nihilism, picking the nicest bits of scenery for his message, hoping to shock the american public out of their unfeeling malaise.