A busy weekend of shooting & schmoozing.  The Neon Speaks Festival and Symposium took place Fri, Sat & Sun in San Francisco.  It was simply fantastic.  If you are into neon signs and you didn’t make it, there are plans to do it again next year.  Mark your calendars to check in at the website in maybe March of next year so you can get tix (sold out this year):
http://sfneon.org/

I took Thursday off to get up to the Bay Area & grab photos on the way.  The first few hours in the Bakersfield area, the sky was one big cloud — making for crappy photos.  So, these will have to do for now until I can revisit & reshoot.

This one was recently restored but, unfortunately, the panels & neon are covered with plastic protection.

 

A couple of places on the Bakersfield/Oildale border:

 

A blasted out sign & what seems to be 1960s-era drive-in:

I don’t know how long the place has been Young’s Drive-in.  The crappy rooftop food signs were added in recent years:

Moving on to Fresno — and sun for the rest of the trip!  This arrow sign is at Jim’s Chinese Restaurant:

A couple more signs from Fresno:

And this modern sign is awfully cute — at Pismo’s Coastal Grill:

 

In Carmichael — this bowling alley has been demolished.  I don’t know how much longer this sign will be there.  Plastic signs don’t get no respect.

A close-up of the flames:

From Madera —  for you rusty/crusty fans.  From the shape, I’m betting that the “MOTEL” panel was originally painted as logs:

Lots more to come from this four-day weekend trip.  Probably back with another post tomorrow night.

dj & the well-traveled dogs