Friday, August 05, 2011

No Vacancy


The sign at the Airway Express Inn located near Spokane, WA.

The N-O at the bottom of the picture, are the first two letters of the words NO VACANCY. I've never seen the sign lit, and I'm pretty sure the place is closed (although I did see a newspaper machine out front). I guess I'll have to pay more attention next time I'm there to see if the place is still in operation.

Open or closed, the sign is super cool.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1 YEAR AGO:
Imperial Sand
2 YEARS AGO:
How Many Twenty Year Olds Have A Seventy Pound Head?
3 YEARS AGO:
My First Time
4 YEARS AGO:
I’ve Been Everywhere Sunday
5 YEARS AGO:
Text Me
6 YEARS AGO:
Eddie Dines Out Friday

3 comments:

ELH said...

that sign brings back lots of memories of my youth days in the mid to late 60's..all our vacations were via car,non a/c if you can imagine that. 4 kids,mom and dad all lookin for a place to stay. mind you those were the days before popdown dvd screens,i-pods,portable cd players..
one way my mother would keep us occupied was to look for the motels with the most creative signage,with all the pretty flor lights flashing. i'm sure that one with the jet in it, in it's heyday would be all flashing and beautiful and probably would have caught our eye and made us want to stay..those signs along with some of the old really creative roadside signage of yesteryear are disappearing to fast for me,now with all our satellite phones and equiptment,we don't really need that...but i always found that stuff kinda interesting and fun..I still see a lot out there, but it's not necessary like it used to be.
the show "pickers" really love the old sighs, betcha they'd like to restore that one..

The Daily Rant said...

ELH: Isn't that something else? I remember some road trips via car, although my father was like me, so the car was always an iceberg - he hated being hot as much as I do. I must get it from him! LOL

The sign looks as if it lights up. The letters down the pole of the star that say no vacancy are neon and outlined, as if they did at one time light up.

I love the old signs. In fact, my heart is broken this week because for four months, I've been passing a sign in Valley City, ND (exit 290 on I-94) for the Flickertail Motel, which was apparently active over 50 years ago. I've been wanting to take a picture of the sign - it's metal, with an arrow that says "Flickertail Motel" and it's just sort of forgotten about, surrounded by uncut green grass and weeds.

Stopping to get the picture has been a bit of a challenge - sometimes it's dark when I go through, sometimes I'm on the wrong side of the interstate, and to take the picture I'd have to pull over on the shoulder in front of the sign and take a quick snap out the window. Plus, Ed keeps saying, "Oh, you can get it next time. It's been there over 50 years, it's not going anywhere."

Well, last week I drove through, and as usual I turned my head to look at it (I was heading west, the sign is on the east bound side)...

And it was GONE!!! GONE!!!

OMG, my stomach immediately got a knot in it. I was like, WTF?? Where did it go?? I couldn't stop, but I was SO upset that all these times I could have gotten the photo and now it was GONE.

On the way back, I slowed down to take a look and it appears as if the sign just finally fell off it's metal poles. I was thinking, did a storm come through? Did a fat bird land on it and it collapsed under the weight?? I was beside myself.

Anyway...now I have to look for new things to photograph along the route and realize that I learned a valuable lesson.

Don't put off for tomorrow what you could do today.

I've always poo-pooed that saying before, but now I've lived it! LOL

Ms. Crawford said...

Awesome pic! Very cool and vintage!