Today, I fell in love. No, not with a midcentury building or another rescue dog or some grand theatre. I am now addicted to “ranch gates”. I wrote down the locations of each of these but I hope you’ll forgive me not including them since it’s 1 am and I should be resting for tomorrow’s next big photo-shoot. I’m going resist the temptation to start a new section at my website for these guys. Surely, there must be books or websites about them already. (If so, please let me know as I need to know!)

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This one came out blurry (shot in pouring rain) but at least I got a detail shot as well:

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The day started off in Devine with flash flood warnings, thunder & lightning, and torrential pouring rain. I thought I might have to sit the day out in a hotel. That’s what a sensible person would have done. It was scary driving through barren landscapes with no cell phone service. But the day got better as we went westward. By mid-afternoon, the skies were just incredible (forgive a few bugs on the windshield):

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I ventured across the border to Mexico to shoot a Muffler Man. Getting across was sure easy enough. But getting back was a bit of an ordeal. I had my passport and my dogs’ papers with me but the agents still made me feel like I was lucky to get back in. The dogs had to stand in a kennel near the van while the agent went through it for illegal aliens, drugs, fruit & vegetables… And then the questions… I should’ve just lied and said I was visiting a relative. But, no, I had to say I went to take a picture of a statue & that just seemed too fishy I guess. And I was going to California via south TX and Mexico? My honesty has always gotten me into trouble.

I was in and out of Mexico so quick that I really only took photos of the Muffler Man. I was pretty paranoid that I didn’t have Mexican car insurance (which I think I’ve read you really should have or god knows what will happen to you). And then the road signs were in Spanish (which I only speak about 20 words of). And the streets were full of giants puddles from the rainstorm). Plus I was a bit worried about getting lost with a quarter tank of gas and no map.

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So, let’s end with a few sights from Del Rio. A town that despite smelling of overpowering cow poop (at least that’s what I think it was), still had a lot of surprises:

Be careful what you wish for! It was hot today — in the 80s I think. Of course, we were skirting the Mexican border for most of the day so I guess that was part of it. I even turned the AC on in the van: something I really only do when the dogs start panting hard. Poor Grip still has a heavy winter coat on. They say it helps insulate but I have my doubts. She was much more uncomfortable than the other naked members of my family.

Vast distances covered today between stops. We’ve reached the sandy, dusty, dry part of the state that’s for sure. Most small towns looked bad off economically. Downtowns just scraping by or totally deserted (however, it was Sunday so most things were closed I guess).

Here’s a long-closed theatre in Harlingen:

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A neat Stremline Moderne building in Harlingen — I have no idea what it housed originally:

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The remains of a sign in McAllen. I love the different shapes and colors of the lightbulbs. And the blue & white Streamline-y building against the much-appreciated blue & white sky.

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There’s also a Streamline-y J.C. Penney store in McAllen:

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I love the little perched windows on the side of that building:

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Another example of old-fashioned display windows in Alice:

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Also in Alice, these street lights looked exceptionally old to me:

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Bougainvillea, right?

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Let’s wrap up with three signs. This one stands on a vacant lot. The building next door sure doesn’t look like it might’ve been a bus station:

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Certainly a sign of the times — Lonnie’s, having lost its neon, is surrounded by new development. I fear plans for a Sonic Drive-in or Burger King are already in the works.

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As I was pulling off the highway to settle in for the night in Devine, I saw this nice plastic sign:

Now we’re talking: sunny all day & t-shirt weather. They say 80 tomorrow! Hearing that it was rainy and cold back in NY made it seem all the nicer. Covered a lot of miles today. Houston to Harlingen in itself is 330 miles. Add on sidetrips off the highway. That means I didn’t take as many photos as usual but I’m getting back on schedule and am set up nicely to take a lot of photos tomorrow. I have never been in South Texas so this is exciting for me.

I found a spot of beach for the dogs to play in Corpus Christi. Nik got to play in the Gulf which wasn’t too cold for him to swim. Fixie got some of those nasty goatshead stickers in her feet and was not happy. Grip found a dead seagull. Grem had fun barking at the live ones overhead. She would jump straight up in the air as if she might catch one if she tried hard enough. Pretty funny.
OK — on with the show.

A couple not worthy of the website but deserving honorable inclusion here:

An old used-ta-be theatre in West Columbia:

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A cute ice cream stand in Beeville:

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Quite an ATM machine! (Corpus Christi):

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And at the same bank:

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Time for a regional diversion — I’ve been seeing these guys around. I think they are some sort of yucca but I’m not sure. I asked a few locals and they didn’t know either.

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We had these cactus in my backyard when I grew up in Southern California — but I can’t remember what they’re called:

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I’m pretty sure these are Texas Bluebonnets, right?

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Miami Beach? No, Corpus Christi!

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I had a great time in this city which has a rich mix of architectural styles. I have no idea what this building was originally but you gotta love the bright paint:

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I came upon this car dealership that features two retro elements: a huge silly sign and a diner-esque gigantic office. Both pretty tacky but I still found them entertaining.

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I managed to sneak in a stop in Raymondville as the sun was setting. I wish I’d had more time to check the little town out — but I did grab a couple quick shots of these two interesting buildings:

a Streamline Moderne affair (theatre? dept. store?):

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I love the grandiose details on this little cutie:

I forgot just how huge Houston is and it seemed to take forever making my 20 or so stops. Also just getting to Houston took longer than anticipated. Even despite speeding and getting my first ticket of the trip: 81 in a 65 = $200. Ouch. The last sign that I saw was 70 — most of the interstates in TX have that speed limit. But I guess I was just close enough to Houston to rate a lower restriction. That cop wrote me up in record time and was right on to the next “customer” before I even pulled away. Ah well, part of the cost-of-living on the road. I usually get one speeding ticket per major trip which is well worth it. If I obeyed the letter of the law, I’d probably only get to half the things I want to shoot. Nevertheless, I’ll be a little lighter on the gas pedal for awhile.

Weather was lovely for the second day in a row. Only I was stuck in the car way too much to put it to good use. I’m really going to have to scale back on TX stops at this point so I can arrive in CA with enough time to make the distance driven worth it. Hopefully, by next weekend.

The dogs got treated to an outstanding off-leash dog park today: the Harris County Dog Park. We’ve been to Millie Bush Dog Park in Houston before and this was just as great. Huge open grassy space, water for swimming (still too cold really), stuff to climb on, other nice dogs to run with. It was good to let Grem off her 50′ tether for awhile and her recall is getting much better.

http://www.houstondogpark.org/
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4768749.html

On with today’s pictures!

I made a few stops en route to Houston. The little town of Hallettsville had some fun & nice signs:

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I’ve been noticing just about every small town in TX has these sidewalk steps. What’s the deal with that? Is there more flash flooding in TX than say PA? I don’t recall noticing these in the Northeast.

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I’m not sure what business this Rubber Ducky is associated with. There was a Drury Inn behind him and a rental car company. I know Comfort Inn uses rubber ducks in their advertising (and leaves small ones in their bathrooms which Nik always finds and decapitates). But there was no sign of a Comfort Inn around (unless Drury Inn took possession of the hotel). That might have been awhile ago and explain Ducky’s semi-flat tires. I don’t know if he got dragged around in parades or what. Quite a mystery.

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These suspended traffic signals in Houston freak me out. They really blow around in the wind and I’m worried one will drop on my roof or worse on my windshield while I’m passing under them:

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A couple “art installations” in Houston within about a block of each other:

The Flower Man:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/TXHOUflowerman.html

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and “Field of Vision” with giant eyeballs on pedestals:

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And lastly, this little bit of specialness from the day. An abandoned sign on an empty lot. Long may it continue to survive!

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The caption on this sign in Austin expresses my feeling exactly. It was another lousy weather day. More rain — and when it stopped finally in the afternoon, there were wild strong winds. From trying to keep water off the lens to trying to keep my hands steady enough not to blur the photos. This trip is a photographer’s boot camp!

Still desperately trying to get on schedule. I’ll be skipping enough TX stuff on my list to easily create another week-long trip. Hopefully, next year. Although I’ve been here at least three times before, it’s a damned big state to cover and I’m always finding out about more stuff to see.

Austin’s a great town for signage, converted gas stations, oh, and music I guess! There are lots of oversized, literal modern signs, as well as nice neon oldies.

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How’s this for a City Hall?

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And a great “food truck”:

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Austin has an annual art car parade — and surely this must be one of the participants:
http://www.austinartcar.com/

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The dogs are always on alert — especially in the cities — for birds, motorcycles, men in uniform, people perceived to be approaching the van, cats, dogs, squirrels… all deserving to be manic-ly barked at. Grip is usually stationed in my lap and keeps an eye on the left side of the world.

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There’s much to love in San Antonio. The canals, the architecture, the history… The tourists head for the Alamo and there’s great stuff to see downtown. But there are lots of other wonderful things on the fringes of the city that merit having a vehicle to get around in. Like these bus shelters:

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and funky old buildings like this former store or showroom:

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and signage galore:

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these San Antonio signs gave me a good chuckle at the end of the day:

It was a stunning day: super weather and great subject matter. I was banging through my list and still wasn’t making great progress. Traffic, bigger distances than estimated between stuff. And now with the day lost due to rain in Arkansas, I’m about two days behind where I’d like to be. Tomorrow, I’ll have to really prioritize and skip stuff — which is always painful to do. The forecast for tomorrow is for lots of rain and thunderstorms — a bummer since I’ll probably be shooting “stuff that matters”.

Someday, I’m going to park the van in a quiet shady spot or find someone to babysit the dogs while I do Dallas on foot. There is so much fantastic midcentury & other stuff downtown and I miss so much even driving slow in the van. I could probably stay a week and still not do a halfway thorough job. Same probably goes for any really big city. Maybe when I retire and don’t have to get back to the job by a certain date, I can do more off-list exploring.

Here are some random shots of buildings & details from downtown Dallas:

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And now for some signage & such:

This giant 8-ball in Fort Worth looks pretty old and has some nice crudeness to it. Doesn’t appear to be a modern plastic thing.

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the windmill on top of this sign spins and rotates; in Sansom Park, on Jackboro Highway;

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a nice combination Streamline Moderne & rooftop signage — also in Sansom Park on Jackboro Highway:

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and lastly, a cute guy from Dallas:

A very productive and sunny day today! I felt so bad last night leaving Sparkle outside in the freezing rain and snow esp. after all the hellish driving I’ve been putting her through each day. This was the view from the toasty warm hotel room.

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The snowstorm turned out to be no big deal. Maybe an inch here and there in Greenville. Once we got a bit further north, there were maybe 2-3 inches. However, it must have been a bad night to be driving as I saw maybe a hundred cars throughout the day abandoned on the highways. Why they didn’t get towed I don’t know. Not accidents, just stuck on grassy shoulders, some turned the wrong way. It was kind of eerie.

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Here’s Gremlin’s new favorite sofa. Nik doesn’t seem to mind.

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Here’s an interesting midcentury church — not nice enough for my website but I had to photo it anyway. Reminds me of origami.

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As I was making a 5-point-turn in the the church parking lot (Sparkle’s not particuarly good in tight places), the guy who I assumed to be the preacher came out to lock up and go. He waved to me. Everyone is so friendly here in TX. More so than I remember anywhere else. Everyone you pass says good morning, how you doin, etc. The EZ-Mart cashier called me hon. Their attitude and the sun made it an especially positive day.

I am far from an artist but I have found it’s one of the best ways to find something when I’ve got a bum address (or none at all). The convenience store clerk had no idea what I was looking for when I was describing the spaceship house, UFO house… but when I did my Futuro sketch on a business card, she knew instantly where it was. For comparison purposes:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/2311879732/

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The kids contribute their own artwork to our trips:

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I needed to see the Gainesville Muffler Men since another Big John was added after my last visit. While I was there, Glen Goode came out & insisted on taking my picture with the giants. So I have a family portrait for you here: me with two dogs in my arms and two on the ground. Now you probably think I’m two feet tall and my dogs are 2″ tall next to these giants.

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So I insisted on getting a photo of Glenn Goode as well — he’s the guy who restored these giant statues.

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I had so many stellar things to photo today that I really didn’t take many “filler” photos. I do have this one plastic sign for you though. I haven’t seen this rocket-style spark plug before.

It was brutal today. It POURED, all day, every minute, torrential. It was challenging, no, ridiculous, trying to take photos today. But I did what I could. The results aren’t too shabby but if you look closely, you’ll see little lines of rain and puddles on the ground. I didn’t have raingear so I would get soaked every time I got out of the car. Constantly drying off the poor camera. And now, just an hour east of Dallas, TX in Greenville, at 11:30pm, it’s snowing! Swirling huge flakes for hours now but the ground temperature so far is too warm to stick. Supposedly, there will be sun tomorrow.

Since I got a sense of the lousy weather early, I decided to hit some more things in Arkansas on my “so-so list”. Those are things that I would not ordinarily go out of my way to see unless I have time (which normally never happens). The stuff in NE TX that I want to shoot would be nice to get in the sun so I deliberately let myself fall a day behind schedule in hopes of better conditions. And as it turned out, it was fun to spend more time in Arkansas after all and I got plenty of worthwhile stuff.

Here are some of today’s sights.

I don’t know what this type of farm equipment is called — threshers? — but they are very visually pleasing:

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Texarkana is great fun. Half Texas, Half Arkansas. Lots of nice signs and a variety of architecture. This one is on the Arkansas side of Stateline Avenue:

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This place is on the Texas side of town. When is someone at Flickr going to start a Bail Bonds Signs group?

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This building has some nice old world touches. Sorry about the rain smear over “Chicks”.

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Not quite worthy of my website — but deserving honorable mention — although many folks would deem these mid-century buildings ghastly.

a bank from Texarkana, AR (note the cars are lined up from the tellers stationed in booths beneath the building; and a cool spiral staircase in a glass box)

a former “Motor Bank” from Magnolia, AR

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a fun plastic facade in Clarksville, TX:

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Some other misc. stuff.

An Egyptian Revival Masonic Temple in El Dorado, AR:

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Oil discoveries in the 1920s transformed El Dorado into a boomtown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado,_Arkansas

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Some building re-uses are better than others. This one in Paris, TX is particularly gruesome:

It was nice in the morning but then the gray set in. Got dark early and now it’s pouring like mad at midnight as I write this. Took tons of photos today. I know someone said there’s not that much roadside in Arkansas and I hope I proved them wrong! I’ll spare you doggie pix today since I have so many others to choose from. Let’s get to it!

It seems inevitable that whenever I’m in a fairly big city on a weekend, there’s some sort of running event. Little Rock today was no exception. A total drag when I’m trying to hit a downtown area quickly. I don’t have time for strolling around. I’ve got to get from Points A-L and with a well-plotted map, the van’s the fastest way — until all the roads are blocked. I didn’t see hardly any running but sure a LOT of standing around. So I had to be a pushy New Yorker, “scuse me, scuse me!” and get to my stops.

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I took tons of sign photos today. I put a bunch at Flickr and have lots more for the website. Here are my “rejects” — still pretty nice!

A cone from the Yellow Jacket Drive-in in Sheridan:

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A golfer from Magic Hills Golf in Hot Springs:

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a neat liquor store sign in Hot Springs:

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Damn! I’m usually so good with my notes. I’ll have to check on this one for tomorrow. I pretty sure this former theatre is in Hot Springs.

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Hot Springs is naturally very water-oriented. Lots of great and interesting architecture including this stunner:

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Also in Hot Springs: a nice painted wall sign that hasn’t been “restored” to death:

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A fun one from Hot Springs:

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The Surgeon General probably prohibits making signs like this nowadays. Although this one looks fairly modern.

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Spring has almost sprung here in Arkansas — I’ve been seeing daffodils and some cherry trees. I’ve been resisting photo-ing flowers thus far — but couldn’t resist this one. This is at the Central Park restaurant in Hot Springs: look carefully, those aren’t tulips but rocks!

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Heading out of Hot Springs, here’s one of those funky uses for geodesic domes: this time, incorporated into a church:

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Of course, I’m crazy about Sinclair stations because I’m always hoping they’ll have a dinosaur. And they are still a novelty to me since they didn’t have them in CA where I grew up and they aren’t in the Northeast where I live now. I got all excited at the prospect of gas-ing up with these silvery old pumps in Crows — but then noticed the plastic bags on the handles. Hope it’s just temporary.

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A wonderful corner drug store in Clarksville (yes, still open):

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A wonderful old fire engine on display in Mountainburg:

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An Egyptian Revival / Art Deco Masonic Temple in Fort Smith:

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And, lastly, I envy the high school kids that live in Alma, the home of the Airedales. Actually, I went to Buena High and we had the Bulldog as our mascot but that is far too common. Airedales seem so much wussier. Not that I’m not crazy about all Terriers mind you! How I wish I could gas up at the Rat Terrier Express and could shop at the MinPin Mart.

A pretty productive day with some boring interstate treks between destinations. The sun was out for the most part which gave my photos a boost. The weather has definitely changed — down to my t-shirt for the first time in what feels like six months. Looks like some more sunny days ahead. I discovered yesterday that a headlight was out and took care of that today.

The dogs got two major outings today in addition to their numerous pitstops. In the morning, a church with a huge soccer field / picnic area. And then in Memphis, we went to check out Shelby Farms which has a huge offleash area for dogs with several lakes for them to swim in. The girls waded for tossed cookies while Nik was thrilled to thrash & splash with his Jolly Ball despite the water being pretty icy still.
http://www.shelbyfarmsoffleash.org/

On with the pictures!

The World Overcomers Church appears to be mid-century — but it’s too ugly by my standards to include at my website so I’ll put a photo of it here. What really makes this place special is the gigantic Statue of Liberty they have erected on the corner.

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One of the things I finally got around to seeing on this trip was the guitar-shaped pool at the Days Inn in Memphis. This place is just down the block from Graceland after all.

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And I had been meaning to shoot the little astronaut sign at Atomic Pest in Memphis. I was too distracted by the giant mouse on the roof the last time and forgot about the sign:
http://www.agilitynut.com/critters/mice.html

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I went to Marion, AR to check out a pet cemetery that was part of the Crittenden Memorial Park Cemetery. But the plaques were pretty dull and not worth shooting. No photos, no carved vertical gravemarkers. But right next to “Pet Land” was a special “Baby Land” section which was incredibly sad.

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In Brinkley, AR there was this auto parts place that I suspect is a former theatre. Awfully elaborate for car parts and the curved structure and blade sign look awfully much like a marquee. Does anyone know the story of this building?

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This is a neat little adapted sign in North Little Rock, AR. Unfortunately, the photos came out kinda blurry. I don’t know if it was from shooting at sunset or just shakey hands from worrying about the van getting sideswiped in the bad location I parked her in.

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And lastly, alls well that ends well… these two girls are veteran travelers and know just when to sneak in sleeptime on the road. Grip, the oldest dog on the left, has been to over 40 states now. It seems silly that with my big van to stretch out in, most of the time, all the dogs want to sleep in the front.