Rest-N-Ravages

 Journey to Moclips By the Sea

Moonstone Beach Motel... home for two lovely nights of rest.

 

                                            Pickles loved running on the beach.

We met a man trying to rescue a wooden ship from a watery grave.

My favorite haunt in Aberdeen

"We work, we play...

the ravage of time marks

The march of the day."

  

I found a Motel named after me... and another  sign for my collection.

             6-15-11                 

More Neon Haunts

   Spent the day in Seattle area looking for cabin lighting and came home with some  

   vintage neon.   

  Bardahl Oil Company Ballard, Washington 

   Can you see the secondary sign that lights up over top of the large letters?  

                                           It reads..." Add It To Your Gas"                                  

               I will have to return in the dark to try for a lit shot.                        

      Zesto Burger and Fish House 

  Ballard, Washington 

  Roxbury Auto Parts 

  White Center, Washington 

  Michael and I worked for this company back in 1984. 

  Dicks Drive-In sign decked for Christmas 

  Ballard, Washington 

   Yum!  Still the best burger around. 

  Court Of Monte Cristo Motel 

  Edmonds, Washington   

   Make plans to see this slice of Americana before it's too late. 

  It's scheduled for demolition soon.  

  Wish I could really bring them home.  

Road Sign Additions

Shining, faded, battered or abandoned, I love collecting pictures of vintage signs.

 Here are a few I have captured in the last couple of months.

Westport Washington

5-9-10

Orting 6-26-10

Morton 6-26-10

Chelan 7-31-10

Dryden 7-31-10

Bremerton / Manette 8-8-10

Capturing Haunts With Pixel and Film

Do you ever drive along a familiar road and anticipate the sight of something around the next bend you have seen a hundred times before? Maybe it's an old yellow house with a deteriorating rose arbor, an abandoned store or a rusty car like the one your grandpa use to drive. I'm always a little fearful the next time I pass that it will have vanished from the landscape a victim of time or change.
   There is a house near mine that I have photographed from the street many times.

I love the mysterious way it looks hidden in the trees.

Recently I asked the owner if I could photograph it up close.

Weather and time have not been kind to this old girl but in her years she still sparks the imagination. How old was the person who lived in this room? What did they dream as they peered out the window?

I was told she will be torn down soon, too old, too far gone for repair. It will be sad to see her leave. I will take my captured views of this haunt and store them for posterity. Because I want to remember and  because someday someone might look at the faded images and find imaginations there as well.
What are the places along your traveled road that inspire you and make you smile?
Why not consider capturing a few of your own.
      
Follow this link to my flickr site for "vintage signs" I'm collecting.

Slept In a Wigwam Lately?

A line in a song by the Judds tells us, “There’s a blacktop road, faded center line. It can take you back to the place but it can’t take you back in time.” Most roads and most days I would have to agree. But there is one road, the “Mother Road” that could be the exception to the rule. Driving along this ribbon of asphalt the imaginative eye can peer beyond the ravages of time. For an evening I’m a child again, giddy with the possibility of sleeping in a giant concrete tee pee.

$57.75 buys us a night in #3 complete with a key that’s not a card.

Inside we are greeted by furnishings of wood, branch and formica. The tiny bath is tiled in red and white.

Even the view from the diamond window seems to look backward in time.

As I watch the new day dawn, I almost believe It is 1966. Here I stand a wide eyed five year old, ripe with excitement for what lies around the next bend of Route 66.

Wigwam Village #6 Holbrook Arizona

November 2009

Of Shoes and Ships and Ceiling-Wax

As a child did you ever dream of sailing to far away lands? Did you ever fill a lazy afternoon imagining yourself rounding Cape Horn with supplies bound for Alaska, fishing off the coast of Maine, or Captain of a Caribbean pirate ship ? I did, I suppose most children do.
A block or so from Grandma Brumbaugh's house in Marysville there was an old fishing boat. Long past the day when its keel felt the cool touch of Puget Sound, it sailed a field of blackberry and broom.
I would dream as I walked by that my hand was upon the wheel, wind in my hair not a single cloud on a blue horizon. I can still smell it, the musky scent of rotting wood and yesterdays rainwater pooled upon the deck. Even as an adult I thrill at the sight of these forgotten hulks. Less common now, they are victims of time and tide, yet ready to sail in my memory.
Here are a few salty haunts I have collected.

The schooner Wawona at the Center for Wooden Boats in Seattle May 1985
When restoration efforts proved too expensive she was dismantled in March 2009.

Great Uncle Gene Sapp’s fishing boat on his farm in Sequim, Washington July 1990.

The Tugboat Mary D. Hume near the Rouge River Bridge in Gold Beach, Oregon June 2005.
I think every child needs a boat to sail away on so this mommy built one of plywood, Velcro and pipe insulation.
Darren & Morgan sailing the fields of King Rd. May 1995

I’ve Traveled That Way Before

A few days back I decided a ride to Port Townsend sounded like a fun way to spend a Saturday. Despite the Hood Canal Bridge being closed which meant a much longer trip, and although we had driven this way many times before, I was optimistic. “It will be fun taking the slow route through Belfair, Union, Hoodsport, Liliwaup, Brinnon and such. I told myself relax, slow down and see what the road will bring.
We stopped for lunch at the Chimacum Café, burger for him French dip for moi.

Here’s one of my favorite PT places to eat just because of their sign.

I had to take pictures of the boats while hubby patiently waited.

I’ve just started trying to take photos from the Harley while moving. It’s a bit challenging holding on to gloves camera and case. While capturing the cows I caught both of us repeated in mirror, how fun!

How many times have we driven by the Center Cemetery, never stopping?

The graves were framed in concrete. I wonder if these use to be foundations of buildings.
One even had what looked like a step where a door may have stood.
Some of the graves were hidden, caressed by tree and fern.

The saddest testament to a soul lost to time. Who was this precious one?

On the way home we stopped to take a picture of one my favorite sign on 101 North.

If you ever ride the slow road to Port Angeles, Sequim or Port Townsend, watch for this great “Haunt”. What fun loving person decided to use Neon for such a utilitarian sign?