Drawn the Road Again

Category: Built to Last

  • Pink pachyderm

    Pink pachyderm

    If the Yoken’s whale is the queen of the east coast’s Route 1, then the Elephant Carwash sign surely must rule Highway 99 in the west. The restaurant inside the Space Needle can eat its heart out—this jumbo gal is my favorite spinning landmark in the Emerald City.

  • Spurred to sketch

    Spurred to sketch

    I really have no idea why this sign isn’t where it’s supposed to be (in Durango, CO), and why we stumbled upon it at Hole n’ the Rock instead. But since Durango wasn’t on the list for that trip, and I never would have made this sketch otherwise, you won’t find me complaining!

  • Five-star shop

    Five-star shop

    As far as I’m concerned, supermarkets might as well not exist. The only kind of grocery store I’ll ever want is the kind with a good old vintage sign and a little bit of tasty typography.

  • Colonial colors

    Colonial colors

    Three years ago I got to see Philly all decked out for the Fourth of July—what better place to spend the holiday than the city that gave it to us in the first place? To everyone reading in Philadelphia, and all over the U.S. this week: happy Independence Day!

  • Red, white and bunting

    Red, white and bunting

    You know, I’m not really the 4th-of-July-house-decorating type. But I sure love the old-fashioned way they do it in New England.

  • Kook mosaic

    Kook mosaic

    This is what happens when you let a bunch of artists build a garden wall. Somehow, I doubt this is something you’d see on HGTV, but it definitely confirms that these are my kinda people.

  • Catch of the day

    Catch of the day

    A June day at Alki doesn’t tend to provide the summer warmth you might find at a beach outside of the Northwest—but even in the chilly overcast air, there’s nothing better or more summery than a basket of fried clams and hot chips.

  • Guiding Light

    Guiding Light

    Okay, so the title of this post is not an accident. Apparently this lighthouse actually was a guiding light—on the soap opera of the same name, that is. But I’ll have to take Wikipedia’s word for that one, because vintage soap operas aren’t really my cup of tea. Vintage lighthouses, on the other hand, are…

  • Big tow

    Big tow

    Seattle is one of the most tow-happy cities I’ve ever encountered. If you’ve ever tried to decipher the convoluted weekday parking rules downtown here (where signs say things like, oh, I dunno, “2-hour parking except third Wednesdays in months with an “R” in them, between 3 and 6 pm, and then only if driver is…

  • Stones and subdivisions

    Stones and subdivisions

    The very same day the Tailor and I breezed by a sign painter’s version of a petroglyph, we also got to see the real thing, up close. Of course, they were beautiful and fascinating—but what really got me was the fact that the remnants of an ancient pueblo civilization were perched above a modern suburban…