What's Your Sign - East Bay

One of the fun things about visiting cities is all the wonderful vintage neon.


I added these shots to my collection on our trip up to Berkeley last weekend.


Margot spotted this one in nearby Albany and we made an immediate u-turn to go back and get the picture. How could you not love the Hotsy Totsy Club? Their motto is - "Keeping Albany tipsy since 1939".

The Diner That Time Forgot

This lonely neglected cafe sits alongside Hwy 101 at the outskirts of Buellton, about 40 minutes north of Santa Barbara.

I'm sure it must have been open 50 years when I first remember my family driving up to visit relatives in San Luis Obispo, but my first memories of it are from the late '70's when I moved up to the central coast.

It seems to have always been empty, boarded up, full of tales of past glory, waiting and waiting...

On our recent jaunt down to Santa Barbara Margot said "We've got some extra time, do you want to stop and get some pictures of the old diner?" So here they are. With the way things seem to just disappear these days, I feel glad that I'll have this visual evidence to help jog my memory in the years to come.

What's Your Sign? In Provincetown

The famous Lobster Pot Restaurant

Lovely weathered door on the fire station

Oo -La-La!

Great seafood, great outdoor seating,
great fun- Bubala's by the Bay

What's Your Sign? In Seattle

The famous 5 Spot Cafe

Love that weathering - near Mariners' Ball Park

$.75 for a room! - those were the days - Pioneer Square

What's your Sign?

Main Street, Morro Bay

Powell Street, San Francisco

French Quarter New Orleans

There's nothing like neon. What's your sign?

Ho-Hum - Isn't it Ironic?

I've posted before about my love of signs; vintage signs, neon signs, funny signs... You get the idea. Here's a great one from our trip to Reno a few weeks ago. Margot found a place to let me out of the car and then waited while I walked back down the street and got a few shots.

I loved the neon, the vintage feel, but most of all that a motel in Reno should be called "Ho Hum". Ah, irony! -("It's like rain, on your wedding day" - my Gen X and Millennial readers are laughing at this.)

What's Your Sign?

One thing I love to do when we travel is capture great old signs in my camera lens. I've made the mistake of not getting a picture and then finding the sign gone the next time I go by. So now I point and shoot the minute one catches my eye, just in case it's not there later. The top one is, apparently, 4 blocks beyond the Capri Motel in the Marina District of San Francisco.

And who couldn't love "Pawn Dog" in Oxnard, California? What a jaunty grin!

Sadly this institution just south of Ventura, California, is now closed and waiting for the wrecking ball. It's been around forever, but soon will be just a memory. I was able to get this picture just in time.

Discovered this beauty in Seattle near Pioneer Square on a trip up for Art Fest. What mixed-media artist could resist that lovely weathering?

And on the other side of the country, here's the Lobster Pot in Provence Town on the very end of Cape Cod. So, what's your (favourite) sign?