Roadside America - Guide to Uniquely Odd Tourist Attractions

Roadside America - Guide to Uniquely Odd Tourist Attractions

Roadside America is a rather unique web site of unusual attractions and strange sightings and funky, Rt. 66-type advertising of the 50s. As we were driving through Aberdeen, WA on the way to Wal-mart I noticed the Hot Dog man from their site so the next time we were in town I snapped a quick shot of him. It didn't turn out badly considering we were driving in the truck in the rain when I took this shot.

If I had realized how many drive-through espresso/coffee shops were in Washington when we first arrived here I would have started taking pictures of all the different buildings as many are quite creative in their efforts to draw customers to them. After all, when there's a coffee shop on practically every corner, you have to have come up with something different to draw the customers. They've ranged from small houses with gardens to beavers in rocking chairs on the roof to log cabins to lighthouses to cars crashing out of the sides of the building. We find it surprising that so many people are stopping at all hours of the day for a cup of their favorite brew. Although Denny and I both started out drinking coffee with cream and sugar (years back my grandmother would fill a heavy brown-fading-to-tan ceramic mug with a little coffee and a LOT of evaporated milk and sugar for me, which irritated my mother to no end. Which is probably why Grandma did it.) we have both weaned ourselves of the cream and sugar. These days the only thing we want in our coffee is the occasional shot of Bailey's Irish cream after dinner, so we have never even tried any of the Starbucks-type of coffee flavored drinks. I figure if I'm going to imbibe 600 calories with my coffee, it's going to be in the form of a slab of brownie, thank you very much.

Returning to unusual advertising for a business, I also took this picture of Fat Smitty's restaurant, located on Highway 101 at the intersection of Rt. 20. Perhaps it should be included in Roadside America, too?