Happy Thanksgiving

We here at Eccentric Roadside have much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, and since eating is a big part of the celebration, we thought we'd post some food-related street signs we've seen along the way...

Strike up the abandoned: Awesome photography by Noel Kerns

These pictures are all copyright Noel Kerns. Aren't they something?

I've always found abandoned places compelling and I started taking pictures of them back when I was a college student. On our trips down secondary roads, we've seen a lot of these places -- melancholy reminders of what used to be  -- and I'm fascinated at how long some of these sad places stick around, rotting away year after year (check out some we've blogged about here). Lots of other people like to take pictures of these kinds of places, but very few have the talent and skill of a Mr. Noel Kerns, a Dallas-based photographer who mostly focuses on Texas ghost towns, decommissioned military bases and old gas stations, cafes and roadside dwellings, all photographed at night under a full moon. Just finding these places takes skill and time, but then he waits until the perfect evening and lights his subjects in an incredibly artistic and surreal way, giving the images a dreamlike quality he calls "light painting". He's got a book out, "Nightwatch - Painting with Light" and a really extensive Flickr sight. Keep up the good work, Mr. Kerns, and long live decay.

Sweating Bullitts: Driving Divisadero Street in San Francisco, California

 "Bullitt" has what's considered the best car chase ever filmed.

 Steve McQueen drives a hopped up 1968 Mustang...

 ...in pursuit of a boss Dodge Charger.

While trying to get to the south of the city, we wound up on  Divisadero Street...

 ...which looks like this...

...but felt like this (that's us in our Subaru Forester. Catch us if you can, Steve McQueen). 

Our previous blog post mentioned the fun of seeing famous movie locales while travelling. We had another such outing in San Francisco, although it was unintentional. We were visiting Bodega Bay, about 60 miles north of S.F., and wanted to get to our next stop, a hotel near the San Francisco airport south of the city. Normally when you're on the outskirts of a big city, you just hop on the interstate and it will loop you around the urban area. Without really scrutinizing the map, we assumed this would be the case in S.F., too. Au contraire. The city population didn't want to wreck their awesome landscape with super highways, so the way to get from north to south is to go over the glorious Golden Gate Bridge and then be dumped off right in the thick of the city. Mrs. Eccentric was driving (white-knuckled at the wheel) and I was "navigating" ( I use that term loosely) and we found ourselves going up and down those famous mountainous S.F. avenues like you used to see on the old Rice-a-Roni commercials. I noticed the street we were on was Divisadero, and I was about to say, "Hey, honey! Guess what! I think we're on the street where they filmed the "Bullitt" car chase!" but I thought I'd better keep my mouth shut, at least until our hearts were out of our throats. Sherry did a Steve McQueen-worthy job of driving and we made it to our hotel slightly damp from the flop-sweat but in one piece. Turns out the "Bullitt" car chase was mostly filmed on Fillmore and not Divisadero, and people drive these streets every day and it's no big deal if you know what you're doing. In fact, by the time we left S.F. four days later, we (and by we, I still mean Sherry) had those city streets down pretty good.

Now about that driving trip through Monaco...

Now, that's Muir like it: "Vertigo" locale Muir Woods, north of San Francisco, California

 Here's Jimmy, Hitch, Kim and me hanging around Muir Woods...

 ...which was a location in the Hitchcock masterpiece "Vertigo" (poster by the great graphic designer and Hitchcock collaborator Saul Bass).

 Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak emote among the giant redwoods...

 ...and they checked out a tree segment showing how really old those Redwoods get...

 ...even going all the way back to 900 AD.

 The trees really are magnificent at Muir Woods.

 Poor Jimmy just can't get Kim out of his head.

 Hitchcock used lots of locations around San Francisco for "Vertigo" including the Golden Gate Bridge.

 This was as close as we got to that scene where Kim jumps into the drink near the bridge.

 And you thought you were having a rough day.

Whenever we're on a trip, if the opportunity to visit a location seen in one of our favorite movies arises, we try to grab it. Back in 2011,we were lucky enough to stroll through Muir Woods National Monument, a spectacular old-growth coastal redwood forest 12 miles north of San Francisco in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. If you're an Alfred Hitchcock fan, you'll recognize the place from his 1958 masterpiece "Vertigo". Jimmy Stewart, as unhinged height-phobic ex-police detective John "Scotty" Ferguson is hired to follow the mysterious and equally disturbed Madeleine Elster, played by the dishy Kim Novak. These two tortured souls spend a day together that includes a stop at Muir Woods, where they observe an old tree segment dating back to 900 AD. We were delighted to find the same segment in the park where Jimmy and Kim stood, looking just like it did in the movie. The only wet blanket in this whole endeavor is the fact that Hitchcock didn't actually film "Vertigo" here -- he used Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Boulder Creek, California instead, and the tree segment was a facsimile created by the prop department. We knew this going in, though, and we still had fun in the park enjoying the outstanding beauty of the trees and nature's splendor and were left to ponder the philosophical question, "If Jimmy Stewart has fear of falling in the forest and there is no one is around to hear him, does he still have vertigo?". I guess we'll never know.

This spud's for you: The Idaho Potato Expo and Potato Museum of Blackfoot, Idaho

 This is what the Expo's fabulous concrete potato looked like when we visited in 2006...

 ...and it appears they have renovated it and put up a more professional sign in the years since. Personally, we prefer the lovably unprofessional-looking lettering from before.

 Inside you'll find a bushel of exhibits...

 ...including this natty burlap tux...

 ...worn by the ironically named C.G. Rice. Perhaps he told his dry cleaners to go light on the starch.

 They've got the world's biggest Pringle on display...

 ...Marilyn Monroe rocking some burlap...

 ...and another big spud.

 There's a potato tune...

 ...and Dan Quayle's autograph on a spud to honor his having trouble with the spelling of the word when he was vice-president.

 They've also got a farm harvesting machine with one of the coolest Space Age potato-related names ever...

 ...Spudnik!

 Be sure to see the Hall of Fame of potato movers and shakers...

 ...and don't miss the awesome multi-media presentation.

Of all the wonderfully eccentric roadside places we've visited, we love the Idaho Potato Expo's giant concrete potato so much we put it on our masthead. When we visited there in 2006, we found it to be everything we'd ever hoped for in an eccentric roadside attraction -- one of those small town, lovably earnest places that's a tribute to something some might find ordinary but others devote themselves to. This is one of the places that makes America great. A sweet, friendly lady greeted us at the front desk/gift shop and was impressed we came all the way from Rhode Island to visit Tater Central. Inside the museum is the story of Idaho potatoes, told in a low-tech way with lots of folk-arty paintings and a-peeling exhibits. At the gift shop, they've whipped up a spud-tacular array of great and goofy tuber souvenirs (alas, though, there was no tuber toothpaste). And, true to their slogan ("We give taters to Out-Of-Staters"), we received a box of yummy hash browns to take home with us! You can't beat, whip, boil or mash that. So don't fritter away your visit to Idaho without visiting the Expo... you'll be in a state of bliss and I yam certain you'll want to you-tuber it to see if there's a mash-up. Tot's all folks!

Shanks for the memories: Hilltop Steakhouse of Saugus, Massachusetts headed for the last round-up

It is with great sadness that we report that the Hilltop Steakhouse of Saugus, Massachusetts, a 52-year-old mainstay of eccentric roadside restaurant awesomeness, will be closing its coral doors for the last time on Sunday, October 20. We love this place for its throwback appeal to a time when you just couldn't eat enough meat, carbs and more meat. You even got a place mat to show you what part of the cow you were about to ingest. But the best Hilltop had to offer was it's Texas-sized 50-foot neon cactus sign, letting all passersby on Route 1 know they're in the presence of eccentric roadside dining greatness. So long Hilltop...you'll always be prime in our book. Read our earlier post here.