Day 24: Wichita in the Sun (part II)

Alrighty then — let’s play catch up. Yesterday’s weather was so gorgeous and today was so miserable. More about that later in the Day 25 post that I’ll be working on right after this one.

I started the day in Pratt. I trekked back there late the night before so I’d be poised to photo the Donald’s Serva-teria sign in the morning (photo & video over at Flickr). But I miscalculated the alarm because I hadn’t adjusted it for the time zone change. Found myself up an hour too early (they open at 6am) but at least I was able to get the Flickr stuff up because of that.

Onward to Kingman after that. I’m sure this vacuum-molded sign must have been mass-produced but I’ve never seen another one. I’m a sucker for anything mortar & pestle. Endless & subtle variation on a theme:

This sign also in Kingman. I believe this motel is now apartments.

Now on to Wichita where we spent most of the day. There are apparently 4 of 6 of this chain’s locations left. This is #6:
http://www.dognshake.com/locations/
History of the chain which was founded in 1948:
http://www.dognshake.com/our-history/

I found out about these marble curb signs from US 71’s Flickr stream and wanted to see them for myself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/us_71/3902336561/

The Mentholatum Building is one of my favorites in Wichita:
http://members.cox.net/wichitahpa/Mentholatum%20Building.html

A very neat donut shop on the eastside of downtown — the Donut Whole:
http://www.thedonutwhole.com/

All of the donuts are the cake type and I usually prefer the glazed type which are air-ier. But I had to show my support for the giant chicken on the roof. The 3 selected flavors posed on the counter, left to right: peach cobbler, lemon cooler and maple nut. 36 hours later, of course they’re gone! Hey, I need rewards for all that driving and sugar to keep me up late at night to write these things. The donut itself was yummy — tasted just like really good cake. But I think the icing was a little too much in quantity and sweetness.

Signs, signs — I hope you like signs. Crusty but not too rusty:

A couple nice parking signs downtown (no book deal yet):

The Dyne-Quik is a Valentine diner — unfortunately, closed for many years:
http://www.kshs.org/diners/kansas/southcentral/wichita/dyne.htm

Public art at the center of downtown. Lots of annoying bronze children playing. But this was more unusual. Dogs (or foxes?) and ducks. One barks at a few of them on top of the something-or-other. While another dog-fox carries off an apparently dead duck in his mouth. Rather graphic, no? And they seemed to be easy to trip over to me. But my Wichita friend assures me that people don’t walk around downtown much.

I had never noticed this building before. It was originally designed as it is now: as a residence above the retail space.

Just next door is this building which I suspect was originally a Firestone Tire store. Here’s one with a similar pylon tower in San Mateo, CA:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/2829998310/

Moving on to towns outside of Wichita — this sign was in El Dorado:

Time for a real meal! My night off from blogging and Flickring was spent with my email pal, Glenda. She’s taught me practically everything I know about Wichita and has sent me countless photos over the years for my website. We had dinner at the El Maguey (translates agave plant) Mexican restaurant in Winfield:

Yours truly — the face behind the camera, the website, and these blog postings. Yes, I wear my glasses on my head now nearly 24 hours per day. Classy:

Glenda was getting way ahead of me:

But I caught up:

(kidding) Note the splash on the front of my t-shirt. Nice. Can’t take me anywhere.

OK, so that takes care of the obligatory photo of me for each big roadtrip. Now, as requested by several of my followers, a plate of real food. This (at bottom) was my veggie combo: enchilada, burrito & chalupa. Although they basically all tasted the same to me. My friend got some beefy guac-y thing (top):