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Set the Controls billboard.
Glory days of the Set the Controls billboard.

S.C. Billboard: Set the Controls for Secret Caverns

Field review by the editors.

Sharon Springs, New York

The largest of all of the billboards advertising Secret Caverns is also its most elaborate. Artists Todd DelMarter and Kurt Piller threw pretty much everything in their iconography into this one: flying saucers, a Viking longboat, Bigfoot wearing a fez, pyramids topped with eyeballs floating on clouds, a V-formation of General Lee's flying over an erupting volcano. Said Todd, "It was one of those signs where after we'd penciled it in we said, 'My god what have we done.'"

Set the Controls billboard, reboot needed. 2020
Set the Controls billboard, reboot needed. 2020

It's almost 15 miles distant, at the gravitational periphery of Secret Caverns and its impulse quasars. Its panoramic tableau of the fantastic world that awaits explorers is too much to absorb in one viewing, even if you hold still and stare at it for a while.

Kurt described the billboard simply as "Beautiful," but was upset that it has twice been destroyed by runaway cars. We suggested that the drivers may simply have been mesmerized by what they saw. "If we caused it," said Kurt, "that makes me feel better."

Also see: Secret Caverns

S.C. Billboard: Set the Controls for Secret Caverns

Address:
US Hwy 20, Sharon Springs, NY
Directions:
On the south side of US Hwy 20, facing eastbound traffic, just west of its intersection with Hwy 145.
Admission:
Free
Save to My Sights

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