Twilight Zone on Exit 4 Nashua (March 2026 Newsletter)

We saw Erin’s sign on Slack, and in person at ICE Out Merrimack Jan 8.  Jacqui and I said "let's do this!"  We decided to target Friday afternoon commuters.  Came up with “Twilight Zone,” acknowledging that our country has been taken over by aliens.

Bought strings of 50 LED Christmas lights on clearance.  Made black foam board letters per usual.  Poked holes, pushed lights in.  Hot glued the lights in place.  Used 1 by 2 pine furring strips across top and bottom; stapled the foam boards to the wood.  The wood's on the front, giving it structure, keeping foam boards flat, and protecting the lights from the fence.  Made four panels:  ICE, OUT, FOR, and GOOD.  Added screw eyes for carabiners, and long extension cords to each panel.  Got a rechargeable power pack with 120Vac outlet rated for 100W, 150WH.  Zero degrees was predicted, but power pack only rated down to 10F.  Used a cooler bag for it, to keep it warm!

First TZ - Jan 30

Jacqui, Dianne, Nolan and Mark helped bring everything up.  Bitter cold but we got it done.  Signs were facing highway, for northbound commute.  Great turnout, lighted signs and power pack worked great.  Jacqui and Cynthia took a drive, shot video, the sign showed up pretty good.  (I had four “hot hands” toe warmers in the cooler, but probably weren’t needed.  Monitored temp and it never got below 65F and the charge indicator still said full after two hours use.  Seems the unit makes enough waste heat to keep itself warm.)  Taking everything down in the dark was harder, colder, but we managed.  Got everything home, checked it out, all good.

Later, added more wood strips on the sides of the panels.  Decided to make two more panels with remaining lights on hand.  ICE OUT.  Added cardboard to the backs of the first four panels, to protect the wires on back during transport and so we could hang those facing local bridge traffic.

2nd TZ - Friday 13th & Jacqui's B’day!

Brigade went very well, good turn out, great response. ICE OUT facing highway.  ICE OUT FOR GOOD facing inward.  Lighted signs worked well, but I noticed the letters could be more legible. Eventually I’ll rework them, put lights on centerline of letters, not perimeter.  Again, breaking down in dark and lugging back to cars was a team effort.

Later, checked out signs, all good; they're holding up great!  And we got some Star Wars light sabers for next TZ!

3rd TZ - Feb 27

Jacqui, Dianne and Diane.  At Exit 4, less folks means more determination!  Setup is pretty routine now.  Most of the work is carrying everything up.  We had mild temps, longer daylight.   After sundown, the light sabers were a blast.  Last TZ this season since days are longer and clocks change March 8.

Takeaways

The signs work pretty well, but will improve the LED placement to make the letters more distinct and readable.  As they are now,  with lights around the perimeters, the letters blend together unless viewed straight on.  Will put them in the centerline of the letters instead.  The foam boards, LEDs and wood are surprisingly light.  But adding cardboard to the backs seemed to double the weight.  Still manageable. Carrying them was awkward at first, two people using both hands.  But we made incremental improvements.  Added carry handles, enter of top rails.  Much easier, one person can four, two on each side.  Not heavy but holding them with bent elbows gets tiring.  So now we use a long shoulder strap, clipped the handles.  Much easier.

All in all a fun project!  The signs are decidedly more work than average, but fairly low tech.  We’ll store them away until next Fall.

Huge thanks all our Exit 4 peeps!