I’m really glad that I took the last two days of this trip to do some Oklahoma shooting on my way back home. Although I was exhausted from pounding away for more than 30 days with non-stop shooting and driving, I was rewarded with glorious sun and I got tons of great photos. Then, it was just a matter of a nearly 1,500 mile jaunt on the interstate. Oy.

I’ve been adding each day’s photos to my website as I’ve been adding these samplings of photos to Flickr and this blog. So, I’m thrilled to report that everything is up at my website. If you want to see the result, have a look at your favorite topics/sections for Oklahoma, Florida, Alabama, Texas, etc. for new additions. Granted, I only got to about half of my planned Florida stuff, and only about 10% of the Alabama/Georgia stuff (“makeup” trip in June) but you’ll still find loads of new places/things and reshooting in sun or showing physical changes to what was already there.

To sum up this five-week trip from mid-August to mid-September….
14,798 miles (3,866 with Sparkle & 10,932 with Gator), about 3,000 photos, $2,134 on gas alone… a new van, a new dog…. quite monumental!

Let’s move on to some Oklahoma stuff. I’ll stick with signs since that’s what most of my blog fans can’t get enough of. Let’s start with a big batch from Oklahoma City. These two below are modern signs. I had the sun in my face/lens, so, I’ll reshoot another time. This evil looking fish is at Pearl’s Crab Town:

This one was built & installed around 2012. If you’d like to see some vintage pizza-flipping signs, check out this page at my website:
https://www.roadarch.com/sca/pizza.html

This one is at Forest Lumber:

A nice lava-rock facade and “floating” metal letters:

This modern sign with faux patina was created by Todd Sanders of Roadhouse Relics in Austin, TX:

This is a modern sign — built to replicate a long-lost sign that was on this building:

A bunch of legit vintage signs. This one at the Cattlemen’s Steakhouse:

The Club House Market opened in 1947 and is still operating:

Comfort Air Conditioning:

The long-closed Metro Cleaners:

So much to look at here:

Former Nu-Way Cleaners:

A modern replica sign from 2014 installed on a former Buick dealership building on Automobile Alley:

Puckett’s Wrecker is still operating:

A modern sign at Stockyard City:

The “entombed” Union Bus station sign. When they demolished the beautiful building and built the new hideous building, they saved the sign and for whatever dumb idea, put it behind glass waaaaay up high. At least they could have had single sheets of glass instead of all those ribs which makes shooting this nice sign with any justice nearly impossible:

This guy originally held an animated hammer for a hardware store. His hammer was transformed into a wad of cash when he began advertising for the pawn shop below:

Moving on to elsewhere in Oklahoma. Nice metal letters for this one in Enid, OK:

Also in Enid — why they covered up “National” on this side, I don’t know:

This orphaned John’s Apparel sign is in Ponca City:

Another sign from Ponca City:

This drug store in Crescent, OK goes by another name now but the Hood’s Drugs panels were saved and installed on the side of the building:

Moving on to a pair of signs in Enid, OK. This one was originally neon but hey – just glad it’s still there:

This sign originally advertised for Quality Cleaners & Dry Cleaners:

Let’s wrap up this post with some signs from Guthrie, OK. This sign was restored a few years ago, however, the top is already fading:

A modern sign at Stables Cafe:

This sign had been repurposed to read “Antique Mall” by 2008. I don’t know what the original wording was or if it came from somewhere else. I have seen a lot of those “doo-hickeys” on top of the sign in Louisiana. I don’t think I’ve seen them anywhere in Oklahoma other than some similar things on top of theatre signs. However, there was never a theatre at this location.

And, lastly, one of my favorite topics (okay, I have thousands of favorite topics) is car signs and this one is good enough to please me very much even though it’s probably from the 1970s (?). If you’d like to see older car signs, you might enjoy this page at my website:
https://www.roadarch.com/sca/cars.html

Going quiet for awhile now while I start building lists and maps for June’s trip. I also want to get through all nearly 3,000 pages at my website to check on possible broken external links and check maps for everything to make sure that things are still there and to update descriptions if they have changed in some way. I’ll start posting “highlights” (news from this process) here as I go.

Happy trails,
dj & the dogs