I was at Target today, and in the discount bin, I discovered a Road Atlas, all 50 states for merely $2.50.  Each state had an 8 and half by 11 page dedicated to the entire state, with a couple of the smaller states that are next to each other geographically, like Connecticut and Rhode Island, sharing a page.  I stood there and pondered who might spend a full $2.50 on this book.  The level of detail, or the lack of, makes me question its very relevance and usefulness. Not to mention, of course, the abundance of technology to accomplish the same end, from Map Quest to Google Maps to I Phone applications to GPS. 

       This reminds me of when my husband and I moved into our first home 12 years ago.  We selected a house to grow into, four bedrooms.  This left us three bedrooms to play with.  One became what we called “The Map Room”.  It was fully decorated with travel themed items; old fashioned suitcases neatly stacked, a metal Eiffel Tower, a large globe. 

     The next step was the wall treatment.  I chose the biggest wall to do the map effect.  I took pages from an atlas, used wallpaper paste, and smoothed them all over the entire wall.  Then, I took a wood stain and ran it over the dried maps. It came out looking like aged maps, and really finished off  “The Map Room”.

     Now, as for the Road Atlas in front of me, I imagine these days that a wall treatment would be about the only use for an actual hard copy of a road atlas.  I am thinking this Road Atlas should be sold within the Room Décor area of the store, perhaps a coffee table book entitled “Remember When?”