Summer Holiday
August 18, 2008
I got back from vacation a few days ago. Me and my buddy Gary made a quick trip down to Seattle to celebrate International Tiki Day with friends. I’ve documented the tiki aspects of this trip elsewhere on the internets – I’m only going to blog about other stuff here.
We really liked this moose sculpture made from horseshoes. In northern Idaho somewhere – I forget where exactly.
At Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle in Spokane they make insanely fabulous milkshakes.
I really need to add this to my Big World website.
More Spokane funkiness. The Garland Theatre – “Tops in Shows”
Thunderbird Motel in Ellensburg WA.
Americans like biscuits and “gravy” for breakfast.
Booze is cheap in the States. Air? Not so much.
Returning through Spokane: Downtown has many beautiful historic buildings and a lot of them are being refurbished.
The newly restored Fox Theatre, a former Art Deco movie palace, is impressive. Too bad the box office person wouldn’t let us poke around inside.
Spokane again. Frank’s Diner in a beautifully restored presidential rail car.
This was creepy.
The food was nothing special – canned corn, chicken fried chicken, more of that pasty white gravy.
My favorite roadside building on this trip was this “barber ship” in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho.
Darling, isn’t it?
Some of the thrift stores I stopped at along the way.
My favorite thrift find, in Cranbrook BC: A Trader Vic’s of Hawaii seahorse mug for a buck (been looking for one of these babies for awhile).
Highway Scavenger Hunt
August 12, 2007
Here’s how we did on the scavenger hunt Gaenor made for our “Lost in Paradise” vacation. We interpreted the rules a little loosely to include stuff we saw when we weren’t in the car too. The instructions said: “Describe or draw (as necessary) in spaces provided. If you can get photos, so much the better!“
An animal with horns:
Value Village, Vancouver.
An animal with fangs:
Take your pick. Bookstore, Seattle.
A recognizable item of clothing lying on the highway (not off to the side) Identify below: Nope.
A modified Jesus fish:
Archie McPhee, Seattle.
(“Truth” is eating “Darwin”)
A personalized license plate
Easy peasy – before we were even out of town.
A bumper sticker that makes you want to meet the person in that vehicle (draw or write contents below and explain why): Nope. The only bumper stickers we saw made us not want to meet the folks.
A chainsaw sculpture (describe or draw):
Dick and Jane’s Spot, Ellensburg WA.
Someone making a face at you as you pass (you are allowed to encourage this): No, you are not allowed to encourage this. Have you never heard of road rage??
A fruit stand selling what is clearly imported fruit or Atlantic seafood: Nope.
Someone with a foot out the window: Nope.
A dog with it’s head out the window (dogs in the back of pick-ups don’t count): Nope.
A license plate from a southern or eastern state: Lots of plates from Florida. Mostly people pulling big trailers.
An advertising sign that has been modified Draw or photo, please: Nope.
A naked person:
Shaboobie Boobarella (do pasties count?)
A crying child: Nope.
A tandem or recumbent bicycle or unicycle: I’m not even sure what a recumbent bicycle is, but G says we saw one in Vancouver.
Something written with rocks or flowers: A few. City names I think. Kamloops maybe?
A motel or restaurant that advertises that they speak another language. Name language: Nope.
A building or sculpture made of a nontraditional material:
Lego bust of William Shatner. Calgary AB.
A business with a “humourous” name:
We thought this sign was pretty hilarious. G kept going on and on about “a bag of Dicks.” Spokane WA.
An advertisement or business offering a “senior” benefit to people who are not yet 65; the younger the better: Nope.
People in a river: Yes, somewhere in Washington, I think.
Someone doing something at least moderately dangerous. Illustrate or describe: I have a pretty low risk tolerance, so I think highway driving is risky.
A camper, trailer or vehicle with old national park stickers on it: Nope.
A hitch-hiker with a cardboard sign telling you where they are going: I think we saw one hitchhiker, total. No sign.
A ‘Baby on Board’ sign: Nope.
A car/truck accessory with that naked lady sillouhette: G says he saw one.
An item beside the road, out back of a business or by the garbage that you would pick up if you weren’t on holidays: Ewww!
It’s a Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki World
July 30, 2007
The purpose of our “Lost in Paradise” vacation tour was Tiki! Tiki! Tiki! all the time, and we accomplished that goal – sometimes in unexpected places.
Our first tiki destination was the Tiki Village Motel in Vernon, BC. Successive owners have stripped it of its original tiki-ness and today it looks more Japanese than Polynesian-pop, but we did have the unexpected pleasure of finding this beaut of a Witco lamp in our room (with an ugly, non-original shade).
witco lamp
Our route into Vancouver took us past the Value Village on East Hastings where I found this vintage Orchids of Hawaii R-5 mug. According to locals, it is exceedingly rare to find vintage mugs in Vancouver thrift stores. As it turned out, it was the only vintage mug we would find in a thrift store on our trip.
vintage mug
Several stops later, we were at Funhauser Decor, the store of our Tiki Central friends Pepe le Tiki and Atomic Al.
bar necessities
wall of contemporary mugs by tiki farm
Pepe (Peter) was one of the main organizers of Lost Paradise, the Tiki event/fundraiser at Vancouver’s Waldorf Hotel that inspired us to go on this little road adventure. The Waldorf Hotel has 3 wonderfully ornate Polynesian inspired rooms that opened in the mid-1950s and have somehow survived the decades relatively unscathed. The Menehune Room was closed to us, apparently by order of the fire marshal, but we got to party in the atmospheric upstairs Tahitian Lounge with its starlit ceiling and original Leeteg velvet paintings, and in the downstairs Polynesian Room with its stunning 30-foot long Hawaiian historical mural by Vancouver artist P. Hopkinson (shamelessly “based” on the work of Matson Cruise Lines artist Eugene Savage).
bar in the tahitian lounge
drum shaped bar stools
detail
hawaiian island relief map in stairwell from upstairs entrance to downstairs rooms
details of mural in polynesian room
vancouver burlesque performer shaboobie boobarella and friend
In Seattle, we enjoyed the warm hospitality of our Tiki Central friends Elicia and Todd. There are no “old school” tiki establishments remaining in Seattle, but there are several fine contemporary locales carrying the tiki torch.
The Islander:
casually elegant interior
carved tiki
mai tai
The Trader Vic’s in upscale Bellevue opened about a year ago:
gary and elicia outside the entrance
miles of tapa cloth line the walls
art from papua new guinea
scary!
classic mai tai – invented by trader vic (if you don’t think so, you’re a dirty stinker)
elegant table setting in the restaurant (riff-raff like us eat in the bar)
Hula Hula:
shirty
wall decor, woven matting, bamboo, fishing float lamps – essentials for any tiki establishment
gary in leopard-print fez from archie mcphee’s
The Hawaiian General Store is not a bar or a restaurant but, as the name suggests, a generally Hawaiian store:
gary’s new tiki buddy
tiki babushka (russian-made nesting dolls)
I thought this was the most hilarious tiki thing I’ve seen – a perfect fusion of my tikimania and Slavic heritage. Maybe I should have bought it but I was trying to contain the spending.
Our Seattle hosts have an amazing tiki bar/rec room in their house – the Rongorongo Room – which I somehow neglected to photograph. Here’s a bit of their backyard patio:
About an hour east of Seattle, we pulled into the town of Ellensburg, Washington, to check out Dick and Jane’s Spot, which we’d read about on Roadside America. We happened on this little A-frame building housing Tiki Tattoos and Body Piercing. Nothing too terribly tiki beyond the name, but the Hawaiian shave ice we got at the kiosk in the parking lot was a welcome treat on this hot day.
Breezing through Spokane, we spotted the sign for the Trade Winds Motor Inn from the I-90. We pulled off the road to investigate.
The place has seen better days and the sign used to be way fancier in olden times. We stayed the night, but somewhere else.
lobby display with black velvet painting
The Sip-n-Dip Lounge in the O’Haire Motor Inn in Great Falls, Montana was the perfect capper to our tiki adventure. We’ve been meaning to come to this place for a while. In 2003 GQ proclaimed it the number one bar on earth!!! I don’t know about that because I haven’t been to nearly enough bars in, say, Turkmenistan or Burkina Faso – but I do know that we had one heck of a great time there.
mural behind the bar
mai tai
We fell in love with our cocktail waitress (in a polite and respectful way, not in a sleazy, drunken lounge lizard way), seen here modeling the cat’s eye glasses she bought for 50¢.
velvet painting
booth (the seahorse-motif formica is original)
the only tiki in the joint
happy patrons enjoying a fishbowl (more than 9 oz. of rum and other alcohol)
“Piano Pat” Spoonheim has been playing and singing at the Sip-n-dip since it opened in 1962!! Her repertoire on this night included Tiny Bubbles, Fly Me To The Moon, Ring of Fire (twice), and Margaritaville. We loved her unique phrasing (though it’s tough to sing along with).
Behind the bar, two windows look into the deep end of the motel’s swimming pool, where every Friday and Saturday night a frolicsome mermaid swims and poses for pictures.
Can’t wait to do it again next year.
Neon
July 30, 2007
vancouver
vancouver
seattle
seattle
ellensburg, wa
ellensburg, wa
spokane
spokane
great falls, mt
great falls, mt
Great Falls, MT
July 27, 2007
warning
Spokane, WA
July 26, 2007
pee break
radio flyer
dick’s
quality inn
Ellensburg, WA
July 26, 2007
tiki faces in strange places?
Dick and Jane’s Spot:
Seattle, WA
July 24, 2007
Seattle, WA
July 23, 2007
Vancouver, BC
July 21, 2007
green
yellow
red
