West Coast Vintage Shopping

We didn't do much vintage shopping while we were in California. Which is kind of a surprise because that is one of my favorite things to do while on vacation! Especially so far from home. We saw all kinds of things we don't normally see in Tennessee at the one shop we stopped at right out side of Palm Springs. Oh well, next time! Here are some of the cool things I saw.

Look at all that Bakelite! I love looking at it, but I've never bought anything. Don't you love that snazzy water bottle display? Ha! I've never seen a case full of Bakelite so it was a treat too see all this displayed together!

I really thought about getting one of these guys. I was torn between the bucking bronco and the little native American dude with one googly eye. In the end they were just a little to expensive for my taste.

I REALLY wanted this bean art clown! Isn't he great? If I thought he would have made it home on the plane I might have pulled the trigger. I am now on the lookout for some bean art for my house! I have an owl mostly made out of sunflower seeds already, but I NEED beans!

I also loved these hand drawn portraits of the seven dwarves! They were very charming, every single one was just a little bit off.

Gorgeous Southwest table cloth, but they wanted over a hundred bucks for it! It was small to, probably not even big enough for a card table.

I hadn't ever seen anything like these jewel eyed animals. Pretty cute!

I was gushing over this cowboy light and checking out the price when I remembered that I totally HAVE this exact light in my front room, waiting for the day I turn it into my wild west guest room! It is terrible when you have so much cool stuff that you forget exactly what you have? I need to get working on that room!

There was SO much great mid century stuff. I LOVE those flamingos.

And figural lamps. I am on my way to having only weird figural lamps in my whole house.

Check out that silk screen! How awesome would it be to be able to screen Gerald Ford's presidential seal on whatever you wanted! So handy!

Here is what we ended up getting. A poodle dream pet for me, and a JFK cup for Travis. Not too bad!

A short trip to Palm Springs

Our little trip to Palm Springs wasn't planned at all, so I hadn't really researched anything for us to do while we were there other than drive around and point and cute signs and houses. There is an app available for 5 bucks that will guide you to points on interest, but Travis wasn't into it. So we just winged it.

We had to stop and see Marilyn of course.

We ate lunch at the Palm Greens Cafe and I got a sandwich called the vegan haystack. I'm trying to be brave and not get my food plain all the time so I didn't customize a thing. I got it bbg sauce, pickled jalapenos and all. And it was GREAT!

Travis loved his too. He might have been tired of getting his photo taken by this point. Haha.

If I had planned ahead we would have stayed in the Ace Hotel for the night. Someday! We did walk around the grounds. It was so beautiful!

I was a little obsessed with cacti the entire day.



One of the cutest signs I've ever seen!

We actually did a little vintage shopping right outside Palm Springs, the only shopping we did on our whole trip! I'll show you some of the sights I saw tomorrow!

Teepees and Dinosaurs!

I'm going a little bit out of order here, but I'll hope you forgive me. I'm not ready to post about my Richard Simmons encounter yet. (That sounds kind of dramatic. It mostly has to do with me not feeling like hooking up the scanner!) 

Like I mentioned in my previous post we decided on Tuesday afternoon that we would go to Palm Springs the next day instead of hanging around LA. That might have put us in the position of scrambling for a hotel room, but I knew just where I wanted to stay! I will never pass up a chance to sleep at one of the wig wam motels!

Why are they always called Wig Wam hotel when they are always teepees? Aren't they CUTE! Travis and I talked about how perfect it would be to make one of these into your lake house.

We stayed in the one to the right! It ended up being very spacious inside! It was much nicer than the one we stayed in in Cave City on our anniversary road trip.

I wish there were teepees to stay in everywhere!

I was good and sent lots of postcards on my trip! I always say I'm going to and take stamps, but sometimes they don't make it in mail until I get back home. I sent some from a post box at Disneyland, and they are supposed to have a Disneyland post mark. We'll see, neither of them have shown up yet!

On our way out of town we stopped at Viva La Vegan, the biggest totally vegan grocery store anywhere! I was surprised by how big it was! We loved it!

We bought tons of stuff we haven't seen before to bring home. My favorite thing were those cookies on top. Banana chocolate chip! Yum, I need to try and recreate them!

I didn't realize until we were on the road to Palm Springs that we were about to pass one of the places I have always wanted to go! The Cabazon dinosaurs that are featured in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Which has been on of my favorite movies for as long as I can remember. Expect I used to get SO scared when Large Marge was on screen. The stuff of nightmares!

This "come on in!!!" is referring to the fact that you are climbing into one of the dinosaurs! There is a pretty crappy gift shop, and their smashed penny machine is broken! But you can get a pre smashed one from them, thank goodness!

Wow! Look at that guy! So amazing! We didn't spring for the dinosaur exhibit so we didn't get to go up in him, but that's ok.

It was still super exciting!

It was also REALLY HOT! We heard on the radio (by that time we had finished our Star Trek audio book) that it was the hottest day of the year!

Travis was pretty much over it by this point. Haha. But I'm so glad we stopped!

A Day in LA with Mr. Tiny!

On Tuesday of our trip we drove into LA to meet the author of one of my favorite blogs! I've been reading Wacky Tacky forever and Mr. Tiny kindly offered to show us around while we were on the west coast! We met him and his sister Mary at their sister in law's house (which was AMAZING) and I won't lie, I was nervous! There is always that thought that the person you are meeting might not be as great in person as they are online. But I shouldn't have worried! Tiny and Mary were just as friendly and funny and interesting as you would expect! And he greeted me with presents! A perfect little orange crochet elephant box! I should have taken a picture, it is so cute, and now has a place of honor on my dresser, holding my little collection of 1940's humor pinbacks.

First things first they took us out to lunch at Green Leaves. I was so excited to be there I had to ask him the name of the place just now! I asked Travis if he remembered, but neither of us must have even glanced at the sign. We both got tropical pancakes with some breaded soy chicken. It was GOOD! If we were locals we would be back for sure! They even had vegen Thai tea! Something I haven't been able to find around Nashville.

Next we went up the Griffith Park Observatory. It was so beautiful! The building! The view! We could see the Hollywood sign!

It was a gorgeous day! We had wonderful weather for our whole trip, and even though we were in Palm Springs for the hottest day of the year, it wasn't as sticky and gross as Tennessee in summer.

Here we are reenacting the knife fight scene from Rebel Without a Cause. Obviously.

Bless Travis' heart. He kept insisting we do it, because he probably knew that I really wanted to, even though I didn't want to look like a dork.

And there is the Hollywood sign!

We went to Wacko's and I bought some silly post cards and some Heidi Kenney Yummy Breakfast stuff. The store was full of great stuff!

Then they took us to Scoops for vegan ice cream!

It was SO GOOD! I don't know what their secret is, but it was the best ice cream I've had since becoming vegan. That is mine in the front, I got a scoop of salted oreo, and one of strawberry balsamic. My mouth is watering now just thinking about it!

Blogger shot! I always love meeting people I meet through blogging, not only because they are usually great people, but it is fun to talk about blogging with someone who "gets it." Travis isn't interested at ALL in internet stuff.

After our ice cream we drove around downtown and Mr. Tiny pointed out many points of interest. It was great because I got to see all kinds of cool places, and it made me realize  I didn't want to spend the whole next day driving around the city (that had been the original plan.) We got a great LA experience with some people who (kinda, haha!) knew their way around.

We had an appointment at 6:30 so we had to get on the road, but not before a front porch photo op. We talked a little about my days in the child beauty pageant business so we are all doing our favorite pageant move. You know the one, where the little girls draw a heart around their face then blow kisses.

Thanks for hanging out with us Tiny and Mary! We had a BLAST and hope you liked us too (Even if I am TERRIBLE at guessing people's ages. Sorry Mary!) Please come to Tennessee! We'll give you the grand tour, and I know there are a few other lady bloggers who would love to show you the town!