Let’s start off with a few photos from Wenatchee.  This sign is part of a former gas station that houses a collection of pumps, cars, and other signs.  The station is painted to read “Chuck’s Thrifty Gas”.  This sign and the collection popped up sometime  between 2009 and 2011.  “Gas for Less” was a chain of gas stations but I haven’t seen a sign like this one for the company.  So, I don’t know if these were mass-produced or if this was just an imaginative re-use of another sign:

 

A ripple tin paneled oldie with a sort of shaky repainting from around 2008-ish.  It was previously a faded grey.  I don’t know what color the sign was originally:

This sign is right new door to the Empire Hotel.  The sign panels had neon and were lit until just a couple of years ago.  Up until then, the “House of Booze” panel read “Tavern.”  What a shame.

Moving on to Ritzville.  The Top Hat Motel has a boring backlit plastic box but there’s this nice neon add-on:

Also in Ritzville – the Whisperin Palms Restaurant has this nice skeleton sign in the window:

 

From Moses Lake — the Sage N Sand Motel had another neon sign which has been replaced with siding and plastic letters (I’ll spare you).  But this one still stands as it did in the 1950s/1960s:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/7331600210/

A few more signs from Moses Lake — the Ripple Tavern:

and Danny’s Tavern:

and the Dockside Pub:

This building in Moses Lake is wacky wonderful.  It houses the Broadway Bar & Grill.  I’d love to know what it looked like originally:

Moving on to Ephrata.  These two signs at M&H Glass (still in business) are embossed plastic.  The red paint has faded on both of them but I’m glad they haven’t tried/failed repainting that.  Dig that perforated slipcover on the building on the right:

Also in Ephrata — this motel is gone and the sign is tucked back on the lot behind chain link fencing.  There was a man with a top hat perched on the right of the sign — breaks my heart that he’s gone now:
http://www.thom.org/gallery/decay/hiu/

From Coulee City — god bless those clouds!  This points at the Ala Cozy Motel which is across the street:

And, lastly, these two signs are at the Trailwest Motel in Grand Coulee:

The rooftop sign is apparently lit at night:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ahhhsucre/9675058931/

Five more blog posts to go.

dj

Moving on now to Seattle (briefly since I spent a good chunk of time there last year) and then heading eastward.  The weather was grey and crappy most of the day.  But out of the 10 days, I think this was the only one where I didn’t get full sun (and temps hovering around 100 degrees).

Starting this post with some Seattle things.  These two signs inside Luna Park Cafe  appear to be vintage with modern neon applied.  There are some other signs & lots of other vintage goodies inside as well:

This former Denny’s has lots of original details — starting with the sign:

and then there’s the incredible interior:

Some Seattle vintage neon:

and a modern neon bowl of noodles at the former Standard Cafe (now Artform, a framing store).

With the gloomy weather, it was not a good day for shooting.  But I was happy that this time, I finally got to see the roving Pig Food Truck (aka Maximum / Minimus).  They were just about to open so I didn’t have lines of people to interrupt the view.  Just the guy on the roof painting:

I shot this photo at The Shack last year.  I’ve heard that it was a repurposed sign:

I’m wondering if this sign that I shot on this trip might be related:

Moving on — this American Legion Post sign is in Snohomish:

This former Fotomat is also in Snohomish:

The dogs & I arrived at dusk in Wenatchee where there are lots of great signs.  However, very few were lit at night.

More tomorrow,

dj

This day was spent mainly in Western Oregon, including Portland, with a tiny bit of Washington.  There will be lots more Oregon in later posts from this trip.

Let’s start with some Portland stuff:

This former Chevrolet sign is located inside the Super Chevrolet Parts Co.:

This sign looks pretty much the same as it did originally — just a few color changes:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/hollywoodplace/5360890813/

 

This sign appeared around 2012 when the building began housing HD Loft Studios.  I don’t know where this sign came from.  There’s a plastic covering protecting the neon:

If you’re into the rusty, this one’s for you.  The hotel is being renovated.  I hope they don’t mess with this sign:

 

Moving on to The Dalles:

These two Hotpoint signs are at Pioneer Electric — still in business!:

A two-fer with the IOOF sign:

That yellow “corduroy” plastic is sure holding its color!

A close-up of the diver (= pool, and I believe the motel still has one).  Maybe the tubing holes supported the text “Pool”?  Can’t quite tell from this vintage postcard:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/94207108@N02/15133949852/sizes/l

Crossing over the Washington border for just a bit.  This is from Goldendale:

Also in Goldendale.  I saw at least one other sign on this trip with a neon asterisk (?) like this so they must have been mass-produced:

Back in Oregon.  On the roof of the Pheasant Grill Drive-in in Arlington:

 

From Hermiston:  At first glance, the Obie’s Express coffee place looks like a former Mister Donut but there are too many folds in that folded plate roof.  The giant coffee cup is just barely three-dimensional.  I don’t know what the building housed originally.  Google Street View shows that it’s been Obie’s since at least 2007:

Just down the street, is this now-Rodeway.  It was originally, or at least previously, the Way Inn Motel.  The roof was painted white at that point – with those white rocks making a lot more sense!  Now, they look just delightfully silly:

Crossing over officially into Washington for a few days now.  This sign is from Selah:

Last photo for the night — ran out of daylight in Sumner.  One of the smaller, modern versions of the famous Elephant Car Wash signs in Seattle (and Rancho Mirage, CA):

More soon…

dj

I was thrilled to stumble upon these Little Miss signs in Junction City.  Well, actually just one sign but the two panels displayed inside next to the drive-thru window.  I believe there are only about eight of these still on display across the country.  More about them at my website halfway down this page:
http://www.roadarch.com/eateries/dq5.html

 

This sign in Willamina was originally a Sambo’s sign:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/3729453611

The building is nothing special so it was either demolished or this sign was brought from someplace else:

The Otis Cafe is, naturally, in Otis:

This sign is in Cloverdale, OR.  It’s probably modern but still blog-worthy:

 

The Pronto Pup in Rockaway Beach opened earlier this year.  I was happy to see that they had vegan corn dogs!

Rockaway Beach is the birthplace of corn dogs.  They were invented in the late 1930s.  The first Pronto Pup stand opened around 1941 in Portland.  Their website says 1941 but some of their signs say “since 1946” and “since 1947.”  The history gets hazier after that.  At some point, the name might have been used generically.  Today, Pronto Pups are sold at State Fairs across the country.  I believe the present-day company is really just a manufacturer of the batter but I haven’t done my homework yet.  These vintage photos inside the Rockaway Beach store show some neat vintage neon signs that no longer exist:

 

This sign is in Astoria:

This Harvey Marine sign is in Aloha, OR:

The store is technically closed although the company is still doing on-line business.  Muffler Man fans are worried about what will become of this former Texaco statue with the bunny head which stands in front of the closed store.  More about this statue and its brothers one-third of the way down my page here:
http://www.roadarch.com/giants/ifother2.html

Let’s wrap up this post with two signs from Portland:

I was relieved to seen that one of the plastic onion dome panels which was missing last year had been replaced:

More coming soon,

dj

 

Time out from the signs and buildings.   This quickie post features some photos of my traveling buddies.  This romp was at one of our fave places, Gearhart, OR, where you can drive on the beach.  There’s Nik, Sparkle (423,000 miles young) & Fixie:

A wonderful place:

A close-up of Grem with Nik & various toys in the background:

Griz – the baby of the family (about 3 yrs old):

The two boys:

Nik just had $5500 of surgery on his “good eye”.  He’s basically blind but saving that 0.1% vision was worth it:

Grem — the trouble-making, Einstein of the group:

Fixie — the old lady kickin’ up sand.  Sort of.  She’s 17 and this might be her last big roadtrip:

Da family:

 

Back soon with another post — on topic, I promise!

dj
Gremlin, Griswold, Fixie, & Sputnik

I just got home from my big trip of the year.  10 days of racing around Washington & Oregon with my lists and four dogs.   I put 5,111 miles on good ol’ Sparkle and blew $871.41 on gas alone.  There were a couple of mechanical “events.”  A frayed ignition coil wire brought me and my pack to a sudden halt in 100+ temps  just north of Coulee City, WA.  After a few hours, a $160 towing bill and $86 fix got us back going again.  In Spokane, there my catalytic converter needed its third repair of the year.  No one can figure out what’s causing the trouble.  After about 4 hours and $666, we were back on the road.

I’ve got about 1,000 photos from this trip ready to crop & tweak for the website.  It may take me until winter to get them all up.  For now, I’ve got a sampling of photos from each day for this blog and my Flickr account.

After nine hours of driving and coffee, it was Willits for the night.  This sign is much more appealing at night than by day:

From the patched neon tubing holes, clearly there was different text on the sign panels originally:

Another sign from Willits:

An a-Frame coffee kiosk in Fort Bragg.  There was a HUGE line of cars:

 

Here are a few signs from Garberville:

From Fortuna — love the neon gas flame:

A few signs from Eureka:

At the AA Bar & Grill:

Also in Eureka — here’s my photo of the Bob Crivello sign from 2008:

Around 2014, the sign came down during a windstorm.  The owner has been unable to find a neon shop to fix the sign.  It lays in the back parking lot for now:

 

One last photo for this post — also from Eureka.  This nice oldie stands next to the service shop for Northwood Hyundai and Chevrolet:

I’ll be posting more posts this weekend.  Hopefully, wrap things up in the next week or two.  You might also want to check out other photos from this trip being added simultaneously as I make my way through the batches:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/

Back with more photos very soon,

dj & the well-traveled dogs

Here’s the wrap-up post from this weekend’s trip.  You can assume all the photos in this post are from San Diego unless I mention otherwise.  I haven’t seen one of these gas station islands with overhead lights in a very long time.  I assume the thicker pole to the left supported a sign:

The last time I was by this site, maybe a year ago, it was a vacant lot.  The property is being developed as a hotel.  Now, finally, the recreation of the former Top’s Supper Club entrance structure which was built in 1939 is going up.  After 1964, the building housed other restaurants until it was demolished in 2014.  This photo shows what the place looked like originally:

And here’s what’s there now.  I already see some subtle discrepancies.  The tower’s base doesn’t match, nor does it have those nice concave contours, the windows on the front don’t look right, and some of those streamline-y edges on the right now looks like sharp-edged blocks.  Better a recreation than nothing at all I guess.  That hotel part built behind it is pretty hideous:

The former Casino Theatre in San Diego was built in 1913.  It was remodeled in the 1930s to this Art Deco look:

The building now houses a Ghiradelli Chocolate store.  The marquee was adapted:

The sign is lit at night but I didn’t backtrack for it.  Here’s a photo from Joe Wolf:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/joebehr/5504879456/

The Star Motel is boarded up but this sign is still hanging on:

This circa 1940 building was given a new paint job last year.  Here’s my photo from 2014:

And yesterday:

I believe this building previously housed a credit union.  That round thing on the left was a deposit vault of some type I believe.  The building now houses an Islamic Center:

I hung around at dusk to check on the lit/not lit status of a few signs.  I was disappointed that the former Loma Theatre sign was only half lit:

Here’s what the sign looks like on a good day:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/30894058@N03/12148596073/

 

On the other hand, the Golden West Hotel sign is looking grand:

If you would like to see more photos from this trip, head on over to my Flickr stream where I’ve uploaded another small batch:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/
The next set of posts will be in August following a two-week trip to Oregon and Washington.  The trip starts at the end of July and, yes, of COURSE the dogs are going.  Maybe I’ll finally throw in some long overdue photos of them in one of those posts.

Happy 4th of July!

Debra Jane & the dogs

Sparkle has been plagued with nearly continuous “ABS” and “check engine” light dash displays for the past three months.  After trips to various mechanics every week, I thought it might have been resolved.  But, no.  The “ABS” light came on after about five hours of driving on this trip and stayed on pretty much the entire time.  Sparkle runs perfectly fine but the light annoys the heck out of me.  I’m doing my best to get everything squared away as perfect as can be for the Oregon/Washington trip coming up in a couple of weeks.  But it might be time for the black tape.

Anyhow… Here are some Los Angeles & Orange County goodies.  Post #2 will be for the San Diego stuff.  Let’s start off with one of my fave dairy store chains.  The Alta Dena Dairy stores have cuter buildings but these Rockview Dairy stores deserve attention.  The barn-like buildings and 1960s(?) signs are a welcome sight in a land of modern Starbucks, Burger Kings, etc.  Their survival must be attributable to the fact that lazy Southern Californians don’t even have to get out of their cars to get their drinks & snacks.

Here’s a nice example in West Covina:

Here’s a close-up of the cow head with air brushed body:

And the barn roof style sign (note the cow-spotted painted pole):

Here’s another location in Whittier with a different style barn building:

I’m told that the fiberglass cow is a recent addition:

 

The Friendly Hills Bowl in Whittier opened in the 1950s.  It closed in 2015 and developers have promised to preserve the building and the sign for the retail complex that’s soon to come.  I’ve heard that the sign would be reworked (what, like “SHOP”?) but according to this article, it won’t change:
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/government-and-politics/20160204/whittiers-friendly-hills-bowling-alley-sign-comes-down

Here are some of my photos from 2013:

The sign has been removed temporarily.   Attached to the fabric-covered chain link fencing is a sign about a BevMo coming soon.  I guess bowling is passé.  Glass half full that the rocks & entrance are being preserved.  Here’s what the sign looked like yesterday:

 

Some better news — I was thrilled to see the Coffee Pot Building in Long Beach is being restored.  Here’s one of my photos from 2013:

It was built in 1932 as the Hot Cha Cafe.  Restoration began last year and here’s what it looked like yesterday:

 

 

The Doughnut Hut in Burbank might have been a former Foster’s Freeze or some other burger stand.  I’ll have to do some building comparison later on:

 

Signs!  I know that’s what you want.  How about the Jolly Jug Restaurant sign in El Monte?  A sign on the door says they’ve been there since 1947.  This sign’s gotta be 1960s though:

And a close-up of the kinda creepy jug-headed guy:

 

From Azusa — the black paint was a nice blue until earlier this year:

 

The Astro Motel in Culver City:

 

The Pike restaurant in Long Beach.  I can’t find vintage photos but I assume the sign had neon originally:

 

OK, let’s end with a couple of signs from Pasadena.  Allied Auto Supply did have neon inside the channel letters originally:

Yes, a STILL operating record store.  I love the script on this one:

Part 2 with the San Diego stuff coming up later today.  In the meantime, you might want to see some other photos from this weekend which I’ve uploaded to Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/

dj & the dogs

Here’s a sampling from the rest of the Memorial Day Weekend trip.  Although I shoot lots of buildings & statues, it seems my blog followers are mostly interested in signs — so that’s what I’ll provide you with!

Let’s start out in Napa with a unique neon arrow:

A few more signs from Napa — too early in the morning for this one, the nice red porcelain looks washed out:

This one’s hidden on a used car lot office:

A modern sign but nicely done:

In the middle of nowhere in Middletown at an antiques store:

At the La Hacienda Mexican Restaurant in Cloverdale:

Four signs from Ukiah:

Maybe my favorite of the four.  You just don’t see rolls of film represented in signs anymore:

From Santa Rosa:

At Analy High School in Sebastopol (where the sports teams are known as the Tigers):

I wouldn’t be surprised if that tiger was created by Patrick Amiot whose sculptures are scattered all over town.  His studio (and residence?) is located at Renga Arts in Sebastopol.  These modified vehicles/trailers are visible from the road:

A sampling of the signs in Petaluma:

The last town on this trip was Forestville – which looks quite like this mural (mountains and vineyards):

and, lastly, this unusually shaped Oddfellows sign:

That wraps up this sampling of photos.  There are more photos (different ones)  over at Flickr from this trip:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/

And I’ll be busy adding lots of other photos to my website (RoadsideArchitecture.com) for the next month or so.  The next trip will be the year’s biggie:  a two-weeker at the end of July.  That’ll be more Northern California but mostly focusing on the Oregon and Washington stuff that I didn’t get to last summer.

Til then — happy trails!

Debra Jane & the dogs

Before I move on with the next batch of the Bay Area photos, I nearly forgot that I set these photos aside for a post.  Just some stuff close to home.

From Summerland — Sandpiper Liquors:

Next to the liquor store is this curious former phone booth with beach rocks.  Beach shrine?  Don’t know…

Next to the baseball stadium at UC Santa Barbara — about five feet in diameter:

From Goleta:

From Paso Robles:

From California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks  — barrel vaults galore:

From a little L.A. trip — a a tiki peaked office and striking paint job:

The West Hollywood replica diver (built before the one at MONA in Glendale) sign has returned!  The story of these divers at my website about halfway down this page:
http://www.roadarch.com/signs/camona.html

This “Hotel Californian” sign has also miraculously been restored and reinstalled.  Here’s my photo from 2008 where it sat for many years:

and from a couple weeks ago:

A couple of signs from Buellton:

And, lastly, from Paso Robles:

Okay — back to cropping & prep-ing the Bay Area North stuff.  Stay tuned.