Before I depart on my annual five-week summer trip, I like to give my van, laptop, camera, etc. a 4-day workout to make sure everything is ready to go. I was all over the Central Valley, Sierra Mountains, Reno, Sacramento area, and the Bay Area… a few thousands miles without a hitch. Here’s a sampling of some of the more than 400 photos which have been added to my website.

This giant rubber duck was originally installed in Las Vegas. It’s now by the pool at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno, NV:

This grizzly bear is one of two at the Grizzly Gas station in Mariposa:

The huge “Penny Bear” and her cubs in Tahoe City are covered with more than 200,000 pennies:

This giant honeybee sculpture in Orland is one of two different designs installed last year:

This tardigrade is installed in front of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis in Davis:

This wood-carved Statue of Liberty in Oakhurst is located at the Best Western:

This Chief Tawonka statue is inside the Shell station in Emigrant Gap. For more about these statues produced for Cigarettes R Cheaper chain stores, see my website here:

https://www.roadarch.com/giants/indians.html#Tawonka

The Prospector in Washoe Valley, NV was repainted in 2021:

This office building built to resemble a bulldozer is in Turlock:

The Woolworth building in Bakersfield is being adapted as a music venue. The sign, facade, and lunch counter inside will be preserved:

This restaurant is in South Lake Tahoe:

This sign pole detail is at the Waffle Shop in Oroville:

This neon clock is in San Francisco:

This sign is in Redwood City:

This one is in Tracy:

This sign in San Francisco was horribly adapted with LED recently. Note how the tubing doesn’t even line up with the painted letters:

The Stockton Poultry Market in Stockton was also adapted with plastic and LED. Here’s the “before”:

and the “after”:

This sign in Tracy was also adapted with LED. The “before”:

and now:

This sign in Albany with its new color scheme:

The El Dorado Motel sign in Twain Harte:

This restored sign is in San Jose:

The sign in Murphys in the 1940s:

… but it looked like this for decades later – just a painted flat panel sign w/out neon:

Then, this “tribute” sign was built around 2008:

This sign is in Truckee:

This sign in Coarsegold looked like a totem pole originally:

It’s now just the oval panel with a readerboard below:

And, lastly, this beauty is in Pollock Pines:

I might be able to get back to the mid-century section for one more blog post before I skedaddle off to the Midwest next Wednesday afternoon. By the way, if you want to tag along virtually at Instagram (see link below), I post about a dozen photos taken that day each night while I’m on these mega trips.

Happy Trails,
dj & the dogs

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