PORT ANGELES – Travelers on busy freeways in Seattle are getting an eyeful of the peace and beauty of the North Olympic Peninsula in a $118,000 advertising campaign that begins this week.

Huge professional photographs of Rialto Beach, the Devil’s Punchbowl at Lake Crescent and big cedar trees in the Hoh Rain Forest adorn 14 billboards on major arterials, such as state Highway 99, in east King County.

There’s one giant view to a billboard.

And each billboard tells the viewer: “. . .it’s time.”

“We hear constantly – at trade shows, on the phone and through e mails – that people haven’t been here for a long time, or that they haven’t been here yet,” said Diane Schostak, executive director of the North Olympic Peninsula Visitor and Convention Bureau in Port Angeles and the mastermind behind the program.

“They may say they love it here, or that they’ve heard that it’s beautiful, but for one reason or another, it has been a while since they ventured here.

“This campaign is designed to inspire travel to our area this year.”