Spreckels

 

I've resolved to try to document the cool signs in the city where I actually live...super fun to find them on road trips, but these are in as much danger of disappearing (possibly more) than those anywhere else. So: the Spreckels Theatre.

Margie and Katie

 

I love a named apartment building--and NOT the modern pretentious crap like "Möde" or "Denizen." These are charming, and even though they are not right next to each other (but are within about a quarter mile or so), I have to think this is a dad naming these after his daughters. (The text is weirded out here because I inserted the umlaut; I have tried to fix it but cannot, so..._

Scroll

 

A cool (functional) door at the Timken Museum in Balboa Park; the building itself is an anomaly as it is a 1965 midcentury modern design located in the midst of ornately decorated Spanish Colonial structures.

Midcentury Cool

 

Three very cool artworks on the outside of a bank (now closed) in Sun City. I did some quick research but haven't been able to find any info on the artist.

Things I Saw Today

 

Devil on a utility box.

Apartment dingbat.

Construction barrier giving side-eye.

Clouds

Fun Friday

 

Today I took myself downtown on the trolley to hear the San Diego Symphony in rehearsal at the Rady Shell. They played Beethoven's Seventh, the second movement of which is so beautiful that it brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it. An amazing free opportunity to hear classical music in a lovely setting.

So SoCal

 

This is quintessential: one palm tree so tall that you can't see the top of it without craning your neck; a mid-mod apartment building; and that blue blue sky.

Shining

 

Rounding out photos of our oh-so-fab short road trip to see the sandhill cranes in Southeastern Arizona, here is the Hotel Gadsden in downtown Douglas. It's quite beautiful inside, but it was quite deserted two days after Christmas and was definitely giving off a bit of a Shining vibe...

Love the shoeshine stand and old phone booths!

And this is the Grand, a once-beautiful theatre downtown...apparently it last showed movies in 1958 (!); behind this facade the roof caved in and it seems to have fallen into great disrepair (not sure if the roof has been repaired or not). A local group, the Border Arts Collective, is seeking to rehabilitate it for adaptive reuse. It is so sad to see magnificent buildings molder and decay... 

Sights/Signs

 

On EVERY road trip, there are many interesting things to see along the way. Here are some sights in Arizona (Gila Bend, Benson, Tombstone, and along the road). 

Mod Cons

 

Please admire this ultra-cool 1960s Frigidaire Custom Imperial Flair oven--even the name is cool! And it was apparently the oven in Samantha's kitchen in Bewitched (see link above). 

(This was in a house that was having an estate sale in my neighborhood, thus the crap piled on the pullout; the house is a gorgeous historically designated 1926 Spanish revival, but obviously the kitchen underwent a modernization in the 1960s.)

So atomic age! 

Love it! 

And right outside that super-mod kitchen are these two adorable built-ins...you could sit at the one at right and talk on the phone! I love love love these--check out the details of the trim, etc. They DO NOT build 'em like they used to!

Desert Odds 'n' Sods + Pioneertown

 

Scenes from Sparrows Lodge, our very cute hotel.

Also from the hotel: a very cute idea--water trough--that doesn't work too well in practice (too much water needed to fill, and in this case, the drain would not stay stoppered).

Ooh, for the next road trip?

S'mores at the hotel! 

Cheers!

Quintessential Palm Springs view here...the mountains are right there.

Yum!

Would make a cute little shop!

And then, Pioneertown. Built in 1946 by Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and others, it was meant to be a filming and vacation location. The lake, golf course, airport, and shopping center did not happen (apparently in part due to the scarcity of water). More than 50 films and TV shows were filmed here.

Pappy and Harriet's is now a restaurant and music venue.