"I already got some of those," he replies, and he isn't kidding. He had stopped at Mary Lou's on a previous vacation and went home with a pair of lacy ladies underwear bearing Mary Lou's logo.

People find Mary Lou's hole-in-the-wall store at Mile 103 of the Seward Highway even though the sign advertising it stands several yards back from the road.

That's good, because the sign -- an Alaska classic, boasting not just liquor but "T-shirts, panties and hard core Alaskan gifts" -- is about to move even farther from the highway.

And the way things are looking, the signs aren't the only things that may have to move. A frontage road, still in the planning stage, could push homes and businesses out of the way in the coming years.

Business owners in Indian and Bird have until the end of the month to move signs that encroach on the highway's right of way. If they don't, the Department of Transportation will do it for them.

DOT spokesman Rick Feller said the Federal Highway Administration offers no alternative. A September 2006 letter from the highway administration says if the signs remain, DOT must reimburse the federal government for $20 million worth of improvements already made between miles 96 and 102 of the highway.

Being Alaskans, folks weren't happy to be told to move signs that, in some cases, have been around for decades and are as much a part of the Seward Highway scenery as Dall sheep and beluga whales.

"I guess I have to get some duct tape and tape myself to my sign," Mary Lou Redmond said, only half joking.

Mary Lou has been in the bar and liquor store business along the highway since the 1950s. She has a Xeroxed copy of a photo of the original joint in Portage; the sign survived the 1964 earthquake and relocated to Indian, along with the bar and liquor store.

History alone should spare Mary Lou's sign from government threats, but Feller said no grandfather rights exist. And in a letter to DOT earlier this year, the highway administration indicated it won't approve encroachment permits for the offending signs.

And so, absent some civil disobedience and a few rolls of duct tape, you'll soon have to look quite a bit harder to know where to stop for a pair of lacy red panties while on your way to the Russian River.

But the fuss over the signs could be the beginning of something much bigger.

A frontage road appears to be coming soon, two of them, actually -- one for the cluster of businesses in Indian and another for Bird.

With them would come all sorts of new headaches for Redmond and other residents and business owners, some of whom may have to move their homes and buildings.

Wendell and Pat Terwilliger live on the second floor of the Valley Bible Chalet, where Wendell is pastor. They only recently learned that their front parking lot and a portion of the building -- including their living room -- is in the right of way.

The highway is about 110 feet away, but they said a frontage road would stop just 30 feet from the front steps.

"Trucks rumbling by now can make you vibrate," Pat said, looking out at the highway. "I can't imagine them being 30 feet from this window."

Linda Wymbs, a cook at the Brown Bear Saloon, lives between Mary Lou's and the church in a small house she calls heaven. For now.

"The road would go right to my doorstep,'' she said. "It would be a nightmare. It would really hurt all of us."

DOT is right to look for ways to make the highway safer around Rainbow, Indian and Bird, a short stretch with 31 turns leading to businesses, homes and side roads. It's a two-lane road teeming with slowpoke tourists and gotta-get-there-yesterday Alaskans, and the combination can be deadly.

One idea is to add a passing lane and turn pockets; another is to do nothing. The other is to build a frontage road, something not made public until late February. A decision will be made in September.

If a frontage road crowds out businesses and homes, the need for it will diminish. If a frontage road is a precursor to a four-lane highway -- which some suspect -- DOT and engineers should look at taking land from the other side of the highway too.

After all, encroachment works both ways. A frontage road would encroach on the livelihoods and lifestyles of people who live and work along the highway. That should be every bit as important to the state as meeting the demands of the Federal Highway Administration.

Beth Bragg's opinion column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is bbragg@adn.com.