Good weather for the most part.  Some sun, some clouds, and then in the afternoon some rain.  Which gave me a good excuse to pull over and SLEEP for a half hour.  Still felt awful when I woke up (general exhaustion) — but I can tell I have way more energy than normal now.  Hoping for lots of sun this weekend as we have a big marathon in St. Louis ahead of us.  The forecast right now is for thunderstorms Saturday and full sun on Sunday.  I think if it rains, I’ll take another nap(s).  I really want to get these photos right.

The day started in Lebanon.  This oldie on old Route 66 advertised for the Satellite Cafe (long gone).  I wish I could find a vintage photo showing whatever was on top of this sign:

Another in Lebanon.  The place appears to still be open:

On to the Lake Ozark region.  I’d never been there before and it was pretty exciting.  Much more exciting than Branson.  Admist all the new development, and there was a LOT, there were still some lingering treasures.  For now.

This one’s from Osage Beach.  Closed now but it has quite a history:
http://www.cmshowcase.org/halloffame/Lee%20Mace/lee_mace.htm

From Lake of the Ozarks:

A couple more from Lake of the Ozarks. The Rebel Arcade has the funkiest, most rundown but still open mini golf course I’ve ever seen.  And Lord knows, I’ve seen many in my pursuits:

I’m glad this sign has been saved — but really, quite the injustice.  At least the bulb arrow hasn’t been stripped:

Oh, and yes, the dogs did take a dip in this Lake Ozark.  They insisted.  I followed the signs to the State Park and after several miles out of my way, finally found a boat launch area which is always an easy solution.  Nik befriended an Amish or Mennonite family and the kids got quite a kick of throwing his ball for him.  Grippie wandered off in some woods and scared the crap out of me for awhile (thinking she might be lost).  As she’s gotten older, there’s a bit of Mr. Magoo attitude developing (wandering off and  responding to my calling her).  I’m not sure how great her distance hearing is right now.

I saw a few of these signs / stations around today.  Had never seen them before so it must be a regional brand.  The stations themselves were pretty boring looking so I didn’t shoot them:

And lastly for today, the Rolla Burger Family saga.  Back in 2006, when I first saw these guys, there was the entire family of four standing on the roof of a tractor-trailer:
http://agilitynut.com/giants/aw.html

The Teen disappeared sometime around 2009.  And now, it would  appear that entire family is gone.  I thought I’d ask what happened with them.  It took me quite a lot of back and forth driving just to find the place since the “Discount Grocery” building is now hidden behind a few well-worn mobile homes.  No one seemed to be around so I took a peek in the building.  Trespassing, me?  Bingo!  There were Mama and Papa amongst all the junk — but no sign of Baby.  More than this, I do not know.

The morning got off to a slow start in Branson which was way tackier in a modern way than I’d imagined (never been there before).  I thought this was nice/fun for a new sign though:

One of the very few oldies in town:

Then we were off for a lot of windy roads and one-stops in small towns.  This one is in Forsyth. That’s a C-152 Lectra on top — like this one (note video in the caption):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/4881474940/

I found an old postcard of the place and it appears they originally had a Neo-Lectra (produced by the same company) in its place:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/huffstutterrobertl/4363978084/sizes/o/in/photostream/

More about Neo-Lectras here:
http://www.agilitynut.com/sca/roto2.html

This sign’s from Cabool:

This soda sign is above an antiques dealer in Ava:

A former Dog N Suds in West Plains:
http://www.agilitynut.com/eateries/dsuds.html

Moving on to a big town now — Springfield where I got to shoot some new stuff (old but new to me) and check on lots of stuff I hadn’t seen in five years.  Anybody know what Anton’s was originally?  Apparently, some sort of drive-in.

Lots of other great signs in Springfield:

These signs are behind the Mexican Villa:

I’ve seen several of these buildings on this trip.  I’m assuming they were initially banks.  This is the first I’ve seen with this plastic ball which appears to be original:

Just wonderful.  From the inflation level of the tires, it doesn’t appear that they drive this Muffler Car around anymore.  Pipes on front and back.

Last one for the day — also from Springfield.  A very sign-heavy posting today — hope you don’t mind.  It’s not that I prefer signs over buildings — it’s just that they tend to be more plentiful and less messed-with than buildings.  While this Danny’s sign appears to be nothing special, take a look at the scroll-y neon surrounding it.  I haven’t seen that before.

Here’s the plan, if you’re interested.  Tomorrow will be more I-44 hugging towns — up to the Lakes region.  Then the weekend should be all St. Louis.  Monday or Tuesday wrapping up SE Missouri.  Then the rest of the trip, hitting a prioritized sampling of the other states en route to home.  Five weeks is a long time away.  My email inbox is bursting.  I’ve got enough photos for the site to keep me busy til spring.  And it would be nice to be getting more sleep and eating more salads.

So I’m about 5 days behind schedule at this point.  But I fully intend to give the lower half of Missouri a thorough go and ditch the rest of the states if I have to.  All is grand here.  Sparkle’s running great.  Clouds in the morning gave way to sunny skies around noon.  I’m writing this the morning after and it looks like another sunny one — not a cloud in the sky.  So I’m thinking hot.  After a couple 70 degree days, yesterday was in the 90s.

Let’s get to it so I don’t waste time writing when I could be shooting.  The morning was spent still in Kansas gathering goodies in the southeast corner.  Just had to stop in at the Six O One Donut Shop just because of the donut on the roof.  Got one donut and a fried cherry pie.  Donut (breakfast) was so-so.  Pie (dinner) was unreal good.

If you’re a sign lover — no, I mean REALLY a sign lover, then this is for you.  I stumbled upon this one in Fort Scott, KS.  It’s a super oldie and I’ve never seen anything like it.  Backlit opal glass letters incorporated into a metal strip flush with the building.  Pre-neon, the letters were let with bulbs behind them.  Backlit opal glass is rare enough — but this format is just incredible.  The very few BOG examples that I know of are on normal, projecting signs — like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/4434080682/

There’s one of those Egyptian birds (braindead and can’t remember the name right now) at the center of the composition.  Here’s a detail showing a broken letter:

On to Missouri — this crime against architecture was committed in Nevada, MO.  According to CinemaTreasures.com (the best movie theatre site, hands down), this theatre was built in 1910 and remodeled in 1950s. It got this look in 1992.  They spared no expense, huh?  While the bulb “Fox” sign is fine, could they have put those air conditioning units anywhere else — like the roof?  How about those crappy sides on the left side?

But there appear to be some folks in Nevada with aesthetics.  Witness this intelligent (some might say garish) paint job on this stunner of a building:

One more “grab” (a Flickr word that annoys me) from Nevada.  I fear these soda signs will all disappear one night in a nationwide massacre.

This sign in Lamar still looks good despite being denuded of its neon:

This rusty rooftop sign from Jasper.  This ice cream stand is still alive and kicking:

This one’s hard to see, I know, but I’ll include it anyway.   Also from Jasper.  It’s basically a couple painted plywood figures (corncob smoking farmer & dog) installed with tractor. Sweet.

From Joplin, in front of HomePro.  Love this guy.  Love all construction worker type signs.  Okay, maybe any signs with people.  Or animals or things or…  I can’t tell whether this is entirely new — or a replica of an older version — or a combo of the two (same frame, new panels):

The dogs got some good running and some good sleeping today.  Grippie has perfected the art of sleeping standing up:

More from Joplin.  Apparently, a liquor store sign repurposed as a Coke bottle — great!

While at Carousel Park to check out the old mini golf, I noticed this little guy near the entrance. Appears to be a chubby English Bobbie (cop) – do they still call them that?  I’ve never seen this style statue before but imagine they must’ve been mass-produced.

 Another rusty — now missing its business:

And last one for the day — from Sarcoxie.  I have re-entered the Ozark Mountain region so it’s appropriate to include this one.  Although hillbilly imagery has gotten incredibly rare.  This was at a gas station, turned souvenir/fireworks stand, now long closed.  Worth clicking large.

Sun’s up — gotta go!

What a difference 24 hours can make.  Gorgeous skies yesterday = glorious photos.  Today, rain & grey all day until 8:30pm.  Luckily, it was a day when I had relatively unimportant stuff to shoot and lots of little one or two stop towns.  Tomorrow, really hoping for some good sun again since it’s the start of Missouri and high volume shooting planned.

The dogs got some good running and swimming in before the weather went from icky to awful.  I was a bit hungover in the morning — slight headache & woozyish.  Although I probably only had the equivalent of two small drinks from that pitcher, my body is not used to alcohol.  But it was fun nevertheless.  Good to celebrate but not really a rejuvenating night off though. 

 Just 12 more days to go — I think I can pace myself for the rest of the way.  Looking at the stack for Missouri though, I feel a bit of a mad panic to do a thorough job of that chunk.  I’d guess there’s close to a week’s worth right there even working at a rapid clip.

Slim pickins today for Flickr & the blog.  I’m just not motivated to share the grim greyness of it all.

A sign from Independence — washed out white sky.  Yeesh.

A neat entrance gate for the Burlington Veterinary Center (in Burlington):

This sunken relief (what’s the word? my brain is gone)  is at Fairfield Elementary School in Chanute.  It reminded me of the one I uploaded to Flickr a couple days ago — maybe the same artist?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/4892553337/

I uploaded a couple photos tonight at Flickr from Trotnic Recycling in Parsons.  The next couple photos are also from there.  I guess this was an idea that didn’t work out:  a gas station themed mini golf.

Among the gas station related stuff, there was also this neat circus wagon:

Time for a snooze — finally caught up!  And hoping for lots of much prettier photos for you tomorrow.

Alrighty then — let’s play catch up.  Yesterday’s weather was so gorgeous and today was so miserable.  More about that later in the Day 25 post that I’ll be working on right after this one.

I started the day in Pratt.  I trekked back there late the night before so I’d be poised to photo the Donald’s Serva-teria sign in the morning (photo & video over at Flickr).  But I miscalculated the alarm because I hadn’t adjusted it for the time zone change.  Found myself up an hour too early (they open at 6am) but at least I was able to get the Flickr stuff up because of that.

Onward to Kingman after that.  I’m sure this vacuum-molded sign must have been mass-produced but I’ve never seen another one.  I’m a sucker for anything mortar & pestle.  Endless & subtle variation on a theme:

This sign also in Kingman.  I believe this motel is now apartments.

Now on to Wichita where we spent most of the day.  There are apparently 4 of 6 of this chain’s locations left.  This is #6:
http://www.dognshake.com/locations/
History of the chain which was founded in 1948:
http://www.dognshake.com/our-history/

I found out about these marble curb signs from US 71’s Flickr stream and wanted to see them for myself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/us_71/3902336561/

The Mentholatum Building is one of my favorites in Wichita:
http://members.cox.net/wichitahpa/Mentholatum%20Building.html

A very neat donut shop on the eastside of downtown — the Donut Whole:
http://www.thedonutwhole.com/

All of the donuts are the cake type and I usually prefer the glazed type which are air-ier.  But I had to show my support for the giant chicken on the roof.  The 3 selected flavors posed on the counter, left to right:  peach cobbler, lemon cooler and maple nut.  36 hours later, of course they’re gone!  Hey, I need rewards for all that driving and sugar to keep me up late at night to write these things.  The donut itself was yummy — tasted just like really good cake.  But I think the icing was a little too much in quantity and sweetness.

Signs, signs — I hope you like signs.  Crusty but not too rusty:

A couple nice parking signs downtown (no book deal yet):

The Dyne-Quik is a Valentine diner — unfortunately, closed for many years:
http://www.kshs.org/diners/kansas/southcentral/wichita/dyne.htm

Public art at the center of downtown.  Lots of annoying bronze children playing.  But this was more unusual.  Dogs (or foxes?) and ducks.  One barks at a few of them on top of the something-or-other.  While another dog-fox carries off an apparently dead duck in his mouth.  Rather graphic, no?  And they seemed to be easy to trip over to me.  But my Wichita friend assures me that people don’t walk around downtown much.

I had never noticed this building before.  It was originally designed as it is now:  as a  residence above the retail space.

Just next door is this building which I suspect was originally a Firestone Tire store.  Here’s one with a similar pylon tower in San Mateo, CA:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/2829998310/

Moving on to towns outside of Wichita — this sign was in El Dorado:

Time for a real meal!  My night off from blogging and Flickring was spent with my email pal, Glenda.  She’s taught me practically everything I know about Wichita and has sent me countless photos over the years for my website.  We had dinner at the El Maguey (translates agave plant) Mexican restaurant in Winfield:

Yours truly — the face behind the camera, the website, and these blog postings.  Yes, I wear my glasses on my head now nearly 24 hours per day. Classy:

 Glenda was getting way ahead of me:

But I caught up:

(kidding)  Note the splash on the front of my t-shirt.  Nice.  Can’t take me anywhere.

OK, so that takes care of the obligatory photo of me for each big roadtrip.  Now, as requested by several of my followers, a plate of real food.  This (at bottom) was my veggie combo:  enchilada, burrito & chalupa.  Although they basically all tasted the same to me.  My friend got some beefy guac-y thing (top):

OK — off to work on today’s photos & blog post now.

A gorgeous day for taking photos.  I’ve got them all ready for you but I need to hit the road.  I had a fun night off visiting with a friend.  This morning, the weather has taken a dive.  Pouring, miserable rain.  So I was at least able to make use of the downtime to work on photos & get them up at Flickr.  Tonight, I’ll get the photos up for this post and the next one with whatever I’m able to shoot in this slop.  The plan is/was to finish KS and start on the southern MO stuff.

Much cooler — high maybe 80?  But pretty nasty grey and rainy for the most part.  Until the last couple hours.  So not the prettiest of pictures — but still better than nothing until I can get out here the next time.  I’m writing this the morning after as the sun is just coming up.  On one side, those nasty black clouds and the other side more promising with clear mixed with orangey.  The orangey sky is where I’m heading.

The dogs and Sparkle are all great.  Just want to bang out this post before I get too backed up.  Definitely socializing tonight and won’t have time to post.

I stumbled upon another former Ku-Ku restaurant.  This one in Garden City.  They botched it up with that box in front and the reroofing didn’t help.  Here’s another one and the info in the caption:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/4883816617/

A couple old motels hanging on in Dodge City:

This one also at the Bel-Air — nice day, huh?

I had a mild bout of food poisoning or something and wound up spending more time in Kinsley than expected.  I think it might have been that egg sandwich?  But I’m all better now.  I prowled around town a bit as I recuperated and found this small town mid-century bank.  Note a very live-able 73 degrees – but I’ll take the sun and 100 degrees over this.

From Larned:

Another from Larned.  I’ve seen a lot of these plastic Carrier signs in Kansas:

From downtown Pratt.  Probably their nicest Art Deco building and they’ve mucked it up with this crappy sign/clock:

Let’s call this one “Moderne Building with Trailer”.  No way to avoid it.  Maybe on a sunnier day in the future, they’ll have moved this thing. 

A Valentine diner in Ellinwood:
http://www.kshs.org/diners/kansas/northcentral/ellinwood.htm

Two chainsaw wood carvings in McPherson.  This woman doesn’t seem to be standing near a school.  There is a church across the street but I don’t think that’s the connection.

And in front of Central Christian College — mascot I presume:

I briefly visited with Erika Nelson of World’s Largest Things…
http://www.worldslargestthings.com/aboutus.htm

who was in Newton working with some folks on a big mural downtown.  They’ll be painting it until mid-September.  A lot of prep goes into it.  This color mock-up is roughly what it will look like (taken from above, ladder visible at bottom of photo):

One of the guys she’s working with did this wall mural in Hutchinson.  The one in Newton will be about the same size:

Erika’s art car, “Scout”, was there at the gallery where the planning is taking place. I could not get a good shot of it since it was in a tricky spot and the sun was not in my favor.  Suffice it so say there are lots of dinosaurs and other critters embedded in tar, children’s ponies in the back pierced by arrows, astroturf, etc. and “Combat Generica” emblazoned on the side.  Here’s another photo of Scout but it still doesn’t show much:
http://www.worldslargestthings.com/images/scout/door_shot.jpg

It wound up being a very quick meeting since she was hard at work.  I was to return at night to witness the outline being projected and painted onto the wall.  But there was a problem with the measurement of the projected image and so the work was called off for the night.   So my revisit to Newton did not happen.  I was greatly disappointed — maybe enough to return there after my dinner/drinks in Winfield tonight?  We shall see.

Let’s close with some photos from Hutchinson.  Just moments after I snapped this photo, the business owner came out of the office screaming and waving and clapping his hands — and I just drove off slowly like he didn’t exist.  Sheesh!

A very nicely preserved example of the Astro Motel chain.  Here are a couple vintage images for comparison:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/romleys/2542209807/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14696209@N02/4261549758/

Last one — love the blocky shaped letters:

Next post will be a double then on Tuesday night.

Today, we reached our western most point and began the slow crawl back towards home.  Another two weeks to go.  About four days behind schedule.  So much of the southern IL, IN, OH & KY stuff will have to wait til another time.  But I’m doing my darndest to get 98% of my KS & MO stuff done.

More miles and fewer stops today since western KS is far more rural.  More gas stations than neon signs.  But it’s really so pretty that I didn’t feel the pain of only about 3 hours sleep until about 5pm.  Got a giant gas station coffee and forced myself through the bleeriness.  It also helped to have good radio company (Car Talk, Wait Wait, and I’ll admit, Prairie Home Companion).  I was doing alright til I turned off the engine tonight and then I took a four hour nap.  Yikes!  So now it’s 2am as I’m cranking out this stuff.

The dogs got some swimming in at a state park somewhere — forget the name.  It was about 20 degrees cooler and I only ran the AC for a few hours in the afternoon.  Dark clouds for the past few days always seem to be east of us.

I’m not sure about the blogs for the next couple days since I think I’ll be socializing.  That’ll put me two days behind and I don’t see how I’ll ever catch up unless I hit some major rain and can just park & blog.  What shall I do about this?  It’s not so bad catching up on one day with a double blog — but three is just beyond me.

On with today’s photos.  This stone-adorned building in Russell might have been a garage.  Does anyone know its history?

A couple more signs from Russell.  I think this might have been the Kent Motel originally:

I’ve been looking for sunflower imagery and this is the best I’ve come across so far.  The plastic panel looks like it was a spinner.  I bet that part was neon originally:

This is all that remains of this drive-in in Russell:

There was lots of good stuff in Hays:

This sculpture was installed in 1981.  More about the sculptor under #49 at this page:
http://www.haysusa.com/html/the_arts.html

This fun piece is just north of town:

Some curious cows.  The dogs were flippin’:

Lots of small towns today.  From downtown Palco:

From Hill City — the Money Chevrolet Truck Center has a pretty big collection of vintage cars and signs:

Goodland is chock full of interesting stuff for such a small town.  This intact mid-century furniture store has it all:  louver screens over the windows, metal letters, stone, and tile:

Last photo tonight from our western-most point for this trip:  Kanorado.  So named since it sits in Kansas, right next to the Colorado border.  Lots of clouds, trains, and grain elevators today.

It’s frighteningly late here but I’m going to try to push this post through so I’ll be on top of things tomorrow.  I forecast much coffee and gum chewing throughout the day.  Maybe five minute power naps.

Back to the AC situation for a moment.  When I got rolling again yesterday after the repairs, everything seemed fine.  Til I got on the highway.  When I’d hit 50 mph or higher, the coolness would only trickle out a tiny bit.  But when I’d take my foot off the accelerator, the coolness would blast back on.  I called the shop, then hours away, and they’d never heard of such a thing.  I got pretty good throughout the day at going faster than I wanted, backing off the pedal a bit and then I’d have normal air.  I wasn’t going to go to another mechanic and lose any more shooting time.  Though I worried that suddenly I’d be AC-less again.  Today, though — everything, even on the highway is behaving perfectly normal.  Awesome!  Is it possible that whatever was hanging up has righted itself?  Let’s hope!  Today was another 100+ degree scorcher but I think it’s supposed to be cooler for a few days  now.

Alright — let’s get to it.  To make up for the delay, I have a double or triple batch for you.  And that’s even being highly selective.  I took SO many Flickr-worthy, bl0g-worthy photos that it was really hard to narrow thing down.  It was a truly awesome day in Kansas in every way.

Now here’s the last thing you’d expect to see at my blog:  a kitty!  While I was shooting a gas station in Emporia, this guy came up to me meowing in a friendly way.  Despite the frightening expression/pose of this first photo, it was really just a playful sort of bounce as I was focusing on him/her.  I babytalked to him and he continued meowing and stood up against my leg.  I assessed his weight was a little thin but not starving.   Maybe the station’s or a neighbor’s pet.  But not freaky feral.  And with four dogs in the van, there wouldn’t be much I could do.  Except I did go get a giant handful of food for the guy.  At first, he questioned what it was (not normal cat food smell I’m sure) — but then got down to eating it.  I wish him well.

A couple more from Emporia.  A colorful and vacant former Burger Chef:
http://www.agilitynut.com/eateries/bchef.html
(no sign of the original sign)

No, I did not imbibe this time — but find the sign pretty cute:

Couldn’t resist this dramatic shot in Wamego.  I saw lots of these limestone (I think) brick buildings today.  Must be a Kansas thing — just can’t remembering ever seeing this many.

From Zuckey’s Bowl in Manhattan:

A Valentine diner in Junction City:

A few shots from Junction City.  More limestone brick — this time, an Art Deco fire station and municipal building:

This former Burger Chef still has the original lights.  The building is used as a used car lot office now.

From a different used car lot in town:

I found a lot of great stuff in Abilene — both planned and unplanned.  While driving around town, this sign caught my eye from two blocks away (posted at Flickr tonight):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/4890268812/

I recognized it immediately as a sort of twin for a sign at the American Sign Museum.  You don’t see bulb signs like this but very rarely.  Once inside, I was delighted to see this incredible collection of cameras from all eras:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeffcoat-Studio-Photography-Museum/85307969769?v=info

It’s a must stop if you’re ever near Abilene — an easy on/off break from I-70. 

Lots of other great signs and buildings in Abilene.  Here’s a pretty one:

And for such a smallish town, Abilene is chock full of museums:
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/museums/
The C.W. Parker Carousel was on my list.  This museum also contains a fantastic collection of telephones (technically, the Museum of Independent Telephony).
http://www.heritagecenterdk.com/museum_of_independent_telephony.html

It was a mere $4 and there were all kinds of other things to see that I didn’t have time for.

At one of my Flickr postings for a motel sign last week, one of the neon signs advertisted “switchboard” and a few folks didn’t know what that meant.  Well, this museum had a big collection of them as well — as well as this “hands-on” machine:

On to Salina which was mind-blowinging cool.  My first time.  How come nobody ever nudged me to visit that city before?  I had about a dozen things on my list and shot about 50 more.  Lots of fun signs.  I thought this one was very fun though obviously fairly modern — but note a jumble of old signs behind it: 

Concrete block + neon = a magical combination:

A hand-painted, no-text-needed sign:

Salina has some gigantic granaries — at least that’s what I think you call them.  Clouds, anyone?:

And this one with a neat neon scaffold sign on top boasting about how many pounds per day:

Neat old streetlights in town.  I’ve never seen anything like them.  Must be translucent-y at night?

Just a tiny sampling of the deco-y goodness waiting for you in Salina:

Since the troops are a bit restless from being confined to the AC-ed van (not so much outdoor running in 100 degree heat), we’ve been having “Bottle Time!” every afternoon.  Since I always have a few D.C. empties on hand, it’s free fun for all.  Nik & Grem flail and chomp away while Grip & Fix bark at them to “stop it!”.  Yes, someday, I’ll learn to take actions shots with my high-tech camera — but maybe it’s better this way — very Balla-esque, no?
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/balla/dogleash.jpg.html
Nik & Grem like to strip the labels off and take the caps off — then chew the cap-end to a chomped up mess.

I was told that these are Pink Painted Ladies – new to me:

Everyone says that Iowa and Kansas are so flat and boring.  But I find it just the opposite.  Maybe it’s because we have no sky in NYC and this just the extreme opposite.

And when you think of Kansas, unless you’ve been there extensively or live there, you probably don’t think of lakes. But I passed two nice ones today:  Lake Waconda which was HUGE.  And this one:  Lake Wilson — which the dogs did not let me pass.  Got to a bridge and had to turn around.  The water was crystal clear — very fun for watching little doggie legs kicking.  A good time was had by all.  In addition to the cooling in the water part, much sniffing of, rolling in, and eating of dried bits of crusty crablike animals.

Time to hit the road — caught up finally!!  Shorter blogs to follow.  In fact, just a forewarning, I might take two nights off here in Kansas.  One to visit a friend and another to meet a roadside celebrity.  But I should have more for you tonight.

OK — time to play catchup since I’m a post behind.  I haven’t even started working on today’s photos and I took TONS.  It’s already 11:15 pm but I just bought a gigantic coffee at the 24/7 Travel Store (smallish truck stop-y gas station) here in Russell so I’m feeling pretty ambitious.  But I’d better keep things slide-show-ish and keep the commentary limited so I can get stuff done and get back on track.  I suspect the next post won’t be as chatty as my brains fizzles to mush.

Way back yesterday morning then… stuff to do in Kansas City, KS and keeping an eye out for open, reliable-looking AC repair type places.  So let’s start with a couple signs from KCK:

Named for its location (on Rainbow Blvd.):

I’ve seen a few repurposed Safeway signs on this trip.  I’ll share this one in Mission with you to show off some more of those gorgeous clouds I’ve been witnessing.  I don’t know if this sign will survive the next business incarnation:

And so Mission was to be where I spent about two hours of my morning getting Sparkle’s AC serviced.  I saw a respectable looking Goodyear tire place and it wasn’t five minutes til they pulled her into the bay.  The found a funky hose (I think it was) and there was only 1 gallon of freon when there should have been 3.  So charging that took about an hour.  It was already 90-something at 10am so I really had no choice in the matter.

Normally, this Goodyear has wi-fi which would have been a nice diversion but the modem was down or something.  I did shoot this nice midcentury bank across the street, thinking it was a nice sky blue & white theme.

When I got rolling again, not less than a mile down the road, I saw a sign that said site of new Capitol Federal Savings.  Uh oh.  Looks like that cute little bank might be endangered.  The KC suburbs are rampant with new development — bigger, newer, nicer — the same chant going on everywhere in America.  Shoot ’em now folks!  These things have a way of disappearing.  Praise the business owners for keeping their old signs/buildings and plead at your community meetings and electees that these things be spared.  I’ll keep my lecture short for now.

Sometimes you just can’t tell what’s “real” (old) and what’s retro (fake imitation).  Particularly, as this retro stuff ages it gets really confusing.  This little strip mall in Mission has a stainless-looking wedding cake over the cleaners entrance and some other little stainless embellishments on the side. I sure can’t tell — but maybe a local remembers when this place was built or how long they’ve seen it there.

crappy side view — sun problems:

I’m crazy for this pair of arrow signs at a used car dealer in Olathe:

A truly crappy photo but I’ll include it anyway.  Taken while driving in Lawrence so you get glare and bugs.  But I hope you can make out the neat camo cab — is that wheat or what?  I’ve never seen a truck with this sort of thing before. 

This sign in Lawrence.  I suspect these beer mugs were mass-produced with maybe other beer cos. than Coors as well — but I’ve never seen another one like this:

Just plain pretty.  Looks like it might have either had a name change or a heavy-handed restoration at one point.  From Tecumseh:

We’re in Topeka now — my first time which was very exciting.  And it was just mind-blowingly great in every way.  Great signs & old buildings.  Mid-century buildings all over the place.  For my money, I’d pick Topeka as a vacation destination over Palm Springs if you like mid-century.  Sure, maybe the examples in PS are more extraordinary — but not as plentiful or as heavily tweaked.  If you exclude houses (I usually do!), there are maybe about a dozen or so mcm buildings in PS.  But in Topeka, I bet there are 200!  PS’s mcm buildings get As while Topeka’s might get C+/B-.  But I bet the hotels are a heckuva lot cheaper, too.  And off the top of my head, I’m not remembering any neon signs or Art Deco in PS either.  Topeka’s got other fun raggedy, weird stuff, too, that PS doesn’t have.  Hands down, Topeka’s the winner in my book!

Here are just a few highlights (more at last night’s Flickr post).  A two-fer:  dogs and rustiness.  Yes, the text part of the sign must have been a lot more exciting in its prime.  I’d love to see a vintage photo of this one!

A modern sign — but so worthy of including here.  I tried to place/crop the clouds so it looked like rocket exhaust for you:

Two magnificent specimens at Autos Inc.:

It’s been awhile since I posted any parking garage signs.  And Topeka has several nice ones.  Can someone please get me a grant or a book deal so I can just travel the country and shoot parking signs exclusively?  Only half kidding.

A study in contrasts.  Good Lord — that’s more awnings than I’ve ever seen in one place!:

Let’s close this one out with a couple more signs from Topeka.  I’m heading off to work on today’s stuff now.  Stay tuned…