Tennessee Travels #4

If you love neon signs like I do, you have to check out Beale Street in Memphis. Wowza!













And here I am, just like Marc Cohn's fabulous song, I'm "Walking in Memphis," actually on Beale Street.


And here's that great tune...

Dinner and an End?

On a quick trip to Ottawa, my friend Peggi and I found a cute diner for lunch.


We were drawn in by the neon sign.


The place had about 12 booths and looked pretty authentic.


No menus. Two specials: Beef quesadillas or soup and sandwich of the day. Oh, and all day breakfast. Till 3:00 p.m. anyhow (almost all-day!)


So we both went for the chicken salad sandwich with cauliflower-leek soup and coffee for $4.99.


And we split dessert: an apple blossom and ice cream. Delicious!


I looked around and wondered where the Ladies' Room was...


...the waitress said,"Through those doors and around the bowling alley."


Bowling Alley? Sure enough, the diner was in front of a bowling alley and was the snack bar for the place.


My inner Dude (think Big Lebowski) wanted to play a few ends but we'll have to save that for next visit.

Signs of the Times

It's too bad people feel they have to keep updating things and making them look "better." This sign for the Glen Motel in Alexandria came down a few years back. I drove past it everyday for years and always got a kick out of it.


Another sign on its way out in Alexandria is this "Coke" sign advertising the Meloche and Sabourin meat/grocery store and abbatoir. The store has been closed for years.


I love this sign which I shot a few years ago in Morrisburg, Ontario, about an hour west of here.


Another sign close to the Iroquois Motel is one for the Lamp Lighter Motel.


This little grocery store located just down the road from me in Greenfield closed a few years ago. The owner had a penchant for cats and they used to climb all over the place so I visited often.


I love the old fashioned typography on this sign, taken in Toronto last year.


This sign is preserved, thankfully and kept inside at Sheppard's Motors in Alexandria.

A Step Back in Time

I love old neon signs and this was one of my favourites. It advertised a neat little grocery and butcher shop in Vankleek Hill, Ontario. The shop was an old-fashioned version of a today's convenience stores, having bits and bobs of every sort of thing one might need. And the owner, Monsieur Methot was a butcher so all the meat was hand-cut and wrapped in brown paper (no styrofoam in sight).
One of my favourite features was the shop cat. You'd find him asleep under the vegetable display or perched beside the cash register. Unfortunately all are gone, sign included. The building now houses an accounting firm.

Spring has Sprung

A sure sign of spring. The Dairy Queen is open!

Great Neon Sign

Don't you just love this sign? I saw it in Eastern Oregon last week. Richard and I finished our ice cream cones on the huge lawn of the Wallowa Lake Lodge which borders on the lake. Beautiful place.

I Love Neon

I've always loved neon signs and have taken photographs of them for sometime. Now that I have a digital camera, I seem to have a growing collection of them in my "Neon" file. I thought I'd share one of my favourites, taken in Maine.