Author Archives: Chandler O'Leary

Croquet quarry

The Tailor and I just got back from a week on Vancouver Island. It was my second trip there, and I couldn’t wait to show him the Butchart Gardens on a sunny day.

Most stunning of all is the spectacular Sunken Garden, which feels like an English garden crossed with something out of Lewis Carroll’s imagination. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Queen of Hearts might step out from behind a topiary, flamingo in hand.

The Sunken Garden is a landscaping masterpiece, a labor of love by Jennie Butchart, the wife of an early-20th-century industrial magnate. Jennie spent many years rehabilitating a spent limestone quarry, carting in topsoil and coaxing it into a living jewel. The garden is set up so that something is blooming in every season, but summer is really the time to see it in all its glory.

If you go, be ready for hordes of tourists—and despite that, for the overwhelming urge to move in and stay forever.

Smoke signals

Tomorrow is my fifth anniversary of living in Washington state—so in honor of the occasion, the next few posts will highlight the Pacific Northwest. It’s been fascinating to see all the faces and incarnations of Mt. Rainier in my time here (so fascinating, in fact, that I did a whole book about it). But I have never seen “the Mountain” (as we call it here) like I did on the day of this drawing. Because of the wildfires that were raging elsewhere the Cascades at that time, I was literally standing on the Mountain, and I could barely make it out.

Unfortunately, with the increase of wildfires we’ve seen in the West lately, I fear this might not be the last time I see the Mountain like this. Sending good thoughts to everyone living in areas affected by wildfires this summer.

False fronts

A perfect sunny afternoon in Napa Valley. The still-bare trees were the only reminder that spring hadn’t quite sprung yet. Coming from chilly, rainy Washington, it felt like summer by comparison.

Head table

Well, I wouldn’t recommend this place to a vegan, but if you like Wild West kitsch (or you use antlers in all of your decorating), this is the place for you.

The Buckhorn Exchange is the oldest restaurant in Denver: it holds liquor license number one! It has served dinner to both Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Will Rogers, and numerous other historic guests. The menu of various game dishes is pricey but excellent—I recommend anything with the prickly pear glaze on it. And of course I ordered a Sioux City Sarsaparilla with my meal—all the while wishing I could do a decent impression of Sam Elliott in The Big Lebowski.

Oh, and ladies: if you go, be sure to check out the upstairs washroom. Not only are there two antlered buck heads in there, but the heads are jousting each other. I really should have sketched that, shouldn’t I?

Ah, well. A reason to return.

Flour power

I lived in the Twin Cities for a few years, and I used to pass under the Gold Medal Flour sign every day on my way to and from work. To me, the mill complex is as important a part of the Minneapolis skyline as the Foshay Tower or any of the modern skyscrapers. That’s because the city’s history and wealth were built by the mills—thanks to the hydro power of the adjacent St. Anthony Falls and the Mississippi River.

You could say that flour was Minneapolis’ bread and butter…

(Sorry, I can never resist.)

Deerest love

The White Stag sign is the jewel in the Northwest’s neon crown. By day it frames patches of the Portland skyline; by night it’s a diamond-bright beacon of riotous flashing color. And in the holiday season, the stag masquerades as a certain reindeer we all know.

I think this just might be my favorite thing in all of Portland—and in a city bursting with my favorite things, that’s no mean feat.

Miracle Mile

More vintage goodness along Highway 99: sunny Redding, California is filled to the brim with old neon signs. On this day I was road tripping with a fellow travel blogger, my friend Mary-Alice (and her pup Chloe). The girls were remarkably patient with me while I insisted on stopping every thirty seconds to sketch more signs. But it was such a perfect day—how could I have passed it up?

Fresh as a daisy

This is one of my favorite signs on Highway 99—the old backbone of the West Coast. Everyone has heard of Route 66, of course, but the Old Pacific Highway is also full of aging neon and other vintage gems, from Canada to Mexico.

The Daffodil Motel sign has a special place in my heart because it references the daffodil farms that used to dominate the adjacent Puyallup Valley. Sadly, only one major daffodil farm is still operating in the valley—but those cheery yellow flowers are still a big part of the local culture here.

Fellow West Coast folks: what’s your favorite bit of neon on Highway 99?

Speechless

There really are no words for this one—except that ever since I saw this sign, I’ve found ways to work in the term “ho-made” to as many things as possible. Comedic gold.

As an aside, I didn’t sketch it, but just a few blocks away is a bait shop that sells wine and spirits. Read that last sentence again, and let it sink in. The Tailor and I wanted to buy a bottle of wine for our host that evening, so we asked a local where we might find something. She gave us directions, but apologized for not being able to give more information than that. “I can never remember the name of the place, because I just call it ‘Wine & Worms,” she said.

Oh, yes, this is my kinda town.

Towering guilt

You know, if you think about it, a place that lets you pay money to drive your car through a hole cut into a centuries-old living redwood tree is kind of the perfect illustration of the bad side of American culture.

The first time I was (literally) in this neck of the woods, the guilt won out, and I passed it by. Then, earlier this year, the side of me that plans trips around things like Wall Drug hijacked my internal monologue, screaming, “You HAVE to stop! This is EXACTLY the sort of thing you love! They already drilled the tunnel, so you might as well!” And so I gave in. And you know what?

I loved every second of it.

Sorry, redwood tree. I’ll go plant a sapling as penance.