Big shoes to fill

There's nothing that gives us a kick quite like the sight of extra large footwear along the open road. We've been lucky enough to spot a few along the way, so try these on for size (I take a 9 1/2):

 The big boot of the L.L. Bean headquarters store, Freeport, Maine.

 An extra large Timberland Pro series with the Titan Safety Toe, Pompano Beach, Florida

The Haines Shoe House of Hellam, Pennsylvania (being worked on by cobblers, er, contractors when we were there)

The Silver Slipper (size 0...you know how it is with ladies' apparel), at the Neon Boneyard, Las Vegas, Nevada

It's a gas baby: The Neon Boneyard of Las Vegas, Nevada

These photos have an annoying but necessary watermark on them because the Neon Museum only allows photos for personal use. They charge for commercial use so they can raise money to keep restoring the signs.

 This nice lady lead the tour we took back in 2008.

As fans of both roadside stuff and decay, the Las Vegas Neon Museum's Neon Boneyard is just about the coolest place we've ever seen, even when it's 100 degrees outside. As Vegas's casinos and businesses get torn down to build even bigger, more up to date places where you can lose your kids' college fund, the Neon Museum's earnest preservationists have arranged to have the classic old signs dragged to an area on the outskirts of town. And thank God, for these signs are history. The Boneyard spreads over two acres and contains over 150 donated and rescued signs dating from the 1930's up until today. It's a surreal experience to take the tour, a real bargain at $18, and led by local Vegas sign historians/volunteers. The Museum is lovingly restoring the signs and putting them up around Las Vegas as historical goodwill ambassadors reminding visitors of Sin City's glorious past. They look fantastic restored but I find them even more amazing in their Boneyard state of ruin. The irony is overwhelming. Something that was once so glittery, happy, huge and spectacular is now rusted, busted, and tapped out. A trip to Vegas is simply not complete without a trip to the Boneyard. The Neon Museum uses the tour fee to keep on restoring the signs so visit them, please. Here's their website: http://www.neonmuseum.org/tour-info

Blow out the candelabra and hang up the feathered cape: Las Vegas' Liberace Museum is closing this October

"I wish my brother George was here."

The strip mall owned by the Liberace Museum has fallen on some hard times.

I don't think Liberace ever sang "The Times They Are A-Changin" but that's the tune they're singing at the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas, closing their doors on October 17. Open since 1979 in a retail location about 5 miles from the famous Las Vegas Strip, the museum has fallen on difficult financial times lately, with attendance dropping from a peak of 450,000 15 years ago to 50,000 today. The Museum, part of a strip mall owned by Liberace himself and left to maintain his legacy, had been using its rental income to fund the museum and other charitable projects, but like many other commercial locations, it now sits only partially occupied, hurting the bottom line of the memorial. Perhaps a bigger issue for the museum is the recognizability of Liberace as a showbiz icon to anyone under the age of 40. Unlike Elvis, who Liberace outlived by 10 years, Liberace's music and image are not constantly in the public eye and he represents a bygone era of Las Vegas entertainment. What a shame, too, because for sheer over the top glitz, kitsch and bling, he couldn't be beat. Perhaps interest will be renewed if some long-planned projects about him ever get off the ground. A biopic directed by Steven Soderberg has been mentioned since 2009 but it was to star the now-ill Michael Douglas as Liberace so its future seems uncertain.

I would suggest if you're in Vegas before the middle of October, check out the museum because it may be your last chance to see the possessions of a man who thought that too much was never enough.

Beloved souvenir of the week: Miss Atomic Bomb poker chip from Las Vegas' Atomic Testing Museum

I did a post some time ago about the incredible Atomic Testing Museum of Las Vegas, Nevada, and it is a place that is not to be missed if you're a non-gambling eccentric roadside attraction fan. A prized memento of that stellar trip is the poker chip I purchased in their superior gift shop. Poker chips make great Vegas souvenirs because they're small, inexpensive and very Vegas-y, baby. But this isn't just any souvenir poker chip. Emblazoned on this fine keepsake is Miss Atomic Bomb. Back in 1957, a photo shoot was concocted to honor the atom bomb being tested in Vegas, and who better to do this than a pretty showgirl decked out in a cotton-ball mushroom cloud explosion swimsuit. But who was Miss Atom Bomb? A Mr. Robert Freidrichs of the National Nuclear Security Commission has been searching for Miss A.B. for some time and has compiled some impressive data. He's determined her to most likely be Lee Merlin, a 1950s Vegas model who, if she's still alive, would most likely be in her early seventies today. Check out this website, conelrad.com, for more of the explosive details. If anyone out there in Eccentric Roadsideland has seen her, or if you're tuning in now, Miss Merlin, drop us a line. You da bomb.

Odd souvenir of the week: Las Vegas lip balm

Every once in a while you come across a souvenir that makes you go "huh?" and such was the case with this item. While patronizing a CVS drug store on the Las Vegas strip I spotted a huge dispenser full of lip balm. Nothing to see here I thought, until I noticed the little sticks had the classic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada" logo on the label. No other brand name, just that. Sure, people are apt to get chapped lips from the hot Vegas sun and people probably kiss each other more here than wherever back home is, but I'd never seen a cosmetic with a city's logo on it before. A practical souvenir and at a popular price, to boot.

Las Vegas's Bonanza Gift Shop: The whole kitsch and caboodle!

No trip to Las Vegas would be complete without a visit to the Bonanza Gift Shop, the world's largest (and perhaps most taste-challenged) gift shop. It's a strip mall the size of a Vegas city block full of deliciously awful "gifts" and souvenirs. Need a Royal Flush potholder, fake vomit, squirting slot machine or a plush parrot that hurls obscenities at passersby? They got 'em and lots, lots more! I've always loved junky souvenirs and this place is the Nieman-Marcus of tasteless wares. It amazes me that a prime piece of Vegas strip real estate (Sahara and Las Vegas Blvd.) could be occupied by this old-fashioned kind of a place. It dates back to 1980 but feels more like a place I'd consider one of my favorite roadside attractions when I was a child back in the sixties. It's wonderful and a connoisseur of crappe such as myself could spend all day here. According to their website, the place is a "virtual cornucopia of Las Vegas souvenirs and gifts with a little bit of everything else thrown in. Over 40,000 square feet of shopping hysteria. The bizarre, the unusual, yes even the weird all available in one giant place." Celebrities who have visited the place include Angelina Jolie, Michael Jackson, Condoleezza Rice, Cindy Crawford and Ringo Starr. As they say, when in Rome, buy fake Elvis sideburns like the Romans do. Here's their website: http://www.worldslargestgiftshop.com/cgi-bin/shop/index.html

Las Vegas's Bonanza Gift Shop slideshow

Freemont Street, Las Vegas, all lit up

We were just in Las Vegas a few weeks ago but didn't have time to see the Freemont Street area at night, so here are some pictures from our 2004 western roadtrip. You actually begin to feel uncomfortably warm standing near these signs because all those light bulbs give off an amazing amount of heat. All that energy put in the cause of luring you to penny slots and "easy" money seems like a colossal waste, but they sure do look cool. It's like a museum of Las Vegas's glorious dubious past. I could stand and watch them for hours, blinking away frantically... a true eccentric roadside attraction. As a wise man in an ill-fitting sequinned white jumpsuit once said, "Viva Las Vegas!"

Las Vegas's Freemont area signage: Wow-wee wow wow, baby!

Before our tour of the Neon Boneyard, we had a little time to kill so we walked around the Freemont area of Las Vegas. As far as eccentric roadside attractions go, and in the lexicon of the Rat Pack, this place is the livin' end, Charley. Big, bulbous retro casino signs dare you to come in and swing, baby swing. Inside, these casinos are a more rundown version of the ones on the strip, and their patrons are a bit more, shall we say, earthy too. But the signs are way, way cool. We were here in 2004 and saw the place all lit up and it's like you stepped back to 1962. If the casinos on the strip really wanted to do something different, they would build an exact replica of the Sands or Flamingo circa 1960, Las Vegas's glorious Mob-run era. Until then, this area reminds you of the old, the real, the groovy Vegas. We weren't able to see the place after dark this time but it was still worth the trip to see the mind-boggling craftsmanship behind this lost art form of neon and bulb. Ring-a-ding-ding!

Las Vegas's The Atomic Testing Museum: I've looked at clouds from both sides now

An atomic bomb exploding near Vegas casinos

Miss Atomic Bomb, 1957

One of the better eccentric roadside attractions we recently visited in Las Vegas was the Atomic Testing Museum. You don't think of Vegas as being much of a museum town, especially science museums, and yet this is one of the best science museums I've ever been to. It's run by the Smithsonian, so already you know this ain't no carnival on the edge of town. The reason the museum is in Vegas is because Vegas figured prominently in the testing of atom bombs from the late '40s on. So little was known of the bombs' effects that they used to fire them off within sight of the old downtown casinos and their oblivious gambling denizens (see the photo above). They also had bleachers for VIPs to get a good goggled-protected look at the mushroom blasts while seated in comfort. Irony and naivete abounds. There are cartoon reels depicting a glorious nuclear-based future. After all, splitting the atom was going to mean we would never have wars, sickness or fuel shortages again. There's a great collection of atom-based pop culture items (comic books, breakfast cereal) and also a wall full of many different models of Geiger counters. I love those things when they're clacking away. Who knew there were so many varieties and styles? They smartly play up Miss Atomic Bomb of 1957, an actually beauty pageant winner, complete with a mushroom cloud bathing suit and giddy what-me-worry expression. There couldn't possibly be a better place to be than America in the '50s. Check out the museum's website and don't miss it when you're in Vegas: http://www.atomictestingmuseum.org/