SCA Conference right around the corner!

With the Society for Commercial Archeology 2010 Conference less than a month away, we wanted to remind you that early registration ends September 15th! You can find a handy link to register here.

The conference is being held in beautiful NW Arkansas and here are a few of the many great things offered:

•  An opening reception at the restored Dickson Street Inn
• Two bus tours with highlights such as Dinosaur World, Thorncrown Chapel, lunch at the Crescent Hotel, the Sky Vue Cabins and Kopper Kettle Candies.
• A full day of roadside-themed paper presentations
• A limited edition SCA 2010 Conference t-shirt designed by SCA member Rick Kilby and produced by Vintage Roadside
• Closing dinner at the 1902 Powerhouse building

Remember to pack an extra memory card for your camera - we made our first visit to the Arkansas Ozarks last fall and we're still speechless!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Tiki Oasis 2010!

It's hard to believe Tiki Oasis 2010 has already come and gone! Tiki Oasis can sometimes feel a bit like Christmas - weeks of prep, an event that flys by and the next thing you know you're standing in your living room with a suitcase in your hand, sunburnt, a bit bleary and wondering how it all ended so quickly.

Some of you may know that we added a new element to our Tiki Oasis experience this year. We presented a symposium we've been working towards for years on The Aquarama - an underwater show once located in Osage Beach, Missouri. We truly enjoyed having the opportunity to share one of our favorite stories and we want to thank all of you that attended. Special thanks to Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid for being our very amazing guest, and also to Marc & Ann for their friendship and generosity. Look for more Aquarama material coming soon!

Photo courtesy of Michael Contos. Visit him on Flickr here.

Another highlight for us was bringing back a vintage cocktail recipe not served or seen in roughly 40 years. The Aquarama Sling. If you were lucky enough to grab one of the 500 gift bags you received one of our recipe cards. For those of you that didn't end up with a card we proudly offer the recipe below. Bottoms Up!

Here's a quick rundown of how our days went:

Thursday - A great dinner with friends at The Red Fox Steak House (very cool place) followed by the opening party at the Bali Hai. The high point of the evening was Marina's performance with The Tikiyaki Orchestra - wow! You'll see bits of the performance in our video below.



Friday - Our Aquarama symposium, grocery shopping (Bathroom Salad anyone?) and a perfect evening watching the show from the balcony of our room.

Saturday - The Vintage Roadside booth was open for business! We introduced three new designs again this year and had a great day. Saturday night favorites included Charles Phoenix, the Lampshades and a mind-blowing performance by Ape.

Sunday - Rolling out the Vintage Roadside booth for another fun day, and a great poolside set by the Martini Kings!

Here's where some of you head for the airport and arrive home a few short hours later. Us? We load up the car and head 1100 miles north. The plane might be faster, but it's almost impossible to convince the pilot to swing back for another look at that big fiberglass statue!

We enjoyed some time with friends along the way home, enjoyed our first lime flavored Crush, didn't enjoy those horrible cheese chips at a mini mart on Sunset Blvd., almost melted from the heat in Stockton, napped in a few rest areas (Hello Weed, CA!) and that brings us to today - already crossing off the days in our calendar until we can all do it again!

Thanks again to everyone that was a part of the weekend - we truly appreciate it!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Aquarama Update

For several years now we've been working to put together a history of Aquarama, Lake of the Ozark's lost mermaid and underwater show.

It was slow going until we were fortunate enough to talk with Janie - one of the original Aquamaids. (If you'd like the read the interview we did with her you can find Part One here and Part Two here.) We're beyond thrilled that after talking with Janie we've been able to talk with other past employees, Aquarama visitors, and now a member of the family that created, owned and operated this unique piece of history.

We're looking forward to doing our part in preserving this unique history beginning with our symposium at Tiki Oasis on August 20th at 10:00 am:

Beautiful Girls That Live Like Fish: The Story of Aquarama, World Famous Mermaid Attraction.
10:00 am at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Diego.
Tickets available here.

If you're headed to Tiki Oasis this year we hope you'll join us for our presentation! We'll also have Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid (all the way from Florida) as our special guest to answer any questions you might have regarding life as a professional mermaid.

We'll be working to share what we've put together via future presentations, our blog, and through our Aquarama history section on the Vintage Roadside website.

Also, if you have Aquarama memories to share we'd love to hear from you on the blog or through our contact form located here.

See you soon!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Let's catch up!

Howdy all!

What's shaking at Vintage Roadside you ask? Here's an update of a few of the things we've been working on along with a few things coming up later this summer.

We had our first photography show here in Portland. Thank you to everyone that came down for the opening reception at The Original - we had a blast! And thanks again to those who purchased our art work. We hope you're enjoying the photographs!

We took a short road trip down to the southern Oregon coast. We're suckers for chainsaw carvings.

We were vendors once again at the Rose City Round-Up hot rod show. We've been all three years and this was the best yet!

We've endured endless rainy days to finally get out and shoot a few more things here in Portland. Wonderful to see the 6th Ave Motel neon sign restored.

We restocked our Jet Lanes, Thunderbird Lanes, 29 Palms Roller Rink, Hula Hut & Walters Maroon Ambulances t-shirts.

Here are a few upcoming things for the summer. We'll post more details about these events as we get closer.

The July Antique & Collectible Expo. Over 1400 booths of just about anything you can imagine. We always find that one thing we never even realized we needed.

Jake the Alligator Man's Birthday Party. A Friday night bachelor party followed by a hot rod show and Bride Of Jake contest. We're also designing the limited edition t-shirt for the party again this year.

Hotrod-A-Rama returns this year. One of the great traditional hot rod shows in the NW.

Tiki Oasis. We'll be launching 3 new t-shirt designs and presenting a symposium on the history of Aquarama.  Our symposium will also include a very special guest - Marina the Fire Eating Mermaid!

Now that we're caught up we'd love to hear about your summer plans! Any road trips coming up? Eat at a great drive in lately? Win a round of miniature golf? Feel free to leave a comment here or post over on our Facebook page located here.

Hope to see you this summer,

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Come see Vintage Roadside at Crafty Wonderland this weekend!

Howdy all,

If any of you are planning on attending the very first Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale this weekend stop by and say hello to your friends from Vintage Roadside! We'll be there all weekend ready to provide you your first new t-shirt of 2010.

There will be over 200 booths of Portland area goods to choose from so bring your wheelbarrow or possibly a pack mule, although we're not sure of the Convention Center's policy regarding service animals, so maybe leave the mule at home.

• What: Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale
• When: May 1st & 2nd. 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
• Where: Oregon Convention Center, Hall D. Portland, OR.
• How Much: Free admission!

See you there!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Sale at Vintage Roadside!

We're in the throes of spring cleaning here at Vintage Roadside and have decided we need to make some room. What this means for you is that you can now add our Moonlight Motel and 77 Ranch Tourist Court t-shirts (men & womens) to your Vintage Roadside t-shirt collection for a song. That song would be titled "Sweet! $12.00 + shipping." Limited to stock on hand. Our normal retail price is $20 for men and $22 for women.

First up is our Moonlight Motel shirt. The Moonlight Motel was once located in Independence, Missouri (boyhood home of Harry Truman) and offered telephones, radios, and room controlled heat. You can pick one up for $12 + shipping on our website here.

Our Moonlight Motel shirt is available for both men and women in Navy Blue.

Next up is our 77 Ranch Tourist Court t-shirt. Dallas, Texas' 77 Ranch was the place to stay along Hines Blvd. in the 1940s and offered shady porches and rustic wooden furniture. You'll find our $12 + shipping 77 Ranch t-shirt on our website here.

Our 77 Ranch shirt is available for men in Light Blue and for women in Orange.

We hope everyone is enjoying spring!

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside

Ontario, California - Charles Phoenix, Graber Olives, and Thunderbird Lanes

Before we jump into our tour of vintage Ontario, we'd like to begin the wrap up of our Palm Springs trip with a few thank you's.

First, a huge thanks to everyone that stopped by to say hello and pick up t-shirts at the Charles Phoenix show and the following day at the Vintage Airstream show. We truly appreciate it!

We'd also like to say thank you so much to Jacques Caussin, Nickie McLaughlin, and Christy Eugenis from the Board of Modernism Week for letting us be a part of the show. We had an amazing time and can't wait for 2011! And a tremendous thank you to Charles Phoenix for spending a Sunday showing us the sights and sharing the history of his hometown of Ontario.

On to the field trip!

Our first stop of the day was at the Ontario Museum of History & Art. Housed in Ontario's second city hall, the museum has a wonderful collection of local artifacts on display. A few of our favorites were the items from the former Hotpoint factory, the Road Ways exhibit, and the neon sign from the former Thunderbird Lanes.

One of the highlights of the Hotpoint display was seeing the great product names once used by the company. Can you imagine the buzz at the dinner party once you announced you were now the proud owner of a brand new "El Stovo"?


Happy Hotpoint. Most famously portrayed by Mary Tyler Moore in the Hotpoint commercials of 1954. We're calling dibs on this outfit for Halloween 2010!


The mighty Thunderbird! When we began our initial research on Thunderbird Lanes as one of our t-shirt designs, we were thrilled to discover the museum now housed the sign. We'd been looking forward to seeing the sign in person and have to say, seeing a 17' wide neon Thunderbird at eye level is quite an experience. (If you'd like to see how our Thunderbird Lanes t-shirt turned out you can click here.)


The museum is open Thursday - Sunday and admission is free. If you're ever in the area it's well worth a stop. You can find more information on their website here.

Our next stop was Graber Olives. In business since 1894, Graber's is the type of place we love to visit. We're huge fans of "factory" tours and the tour of Graber's did not disappoint. Along the tour we saw how the olives were cured, canned, and labeled as well as hearing stories of the people behind the olives past and present. Two of our favorite parts of the tour were the equipment they still use, which dates to the 1940s, and Betty, our tour guide.

Tours are offered throughout the year along with group tours by request. You can learn more about Graber at their website located here.

Below, Betty explains how the labeling machine (over her right shoulder) operates.


A shot of one of their prize winning boxes designed by artist Rex Brandt.


We wrapped up our day in Ontario at Vince's Spaghetti - an Ontario institution since opening in September of 1945 as an open air French Dip stand. According to Vince's website they "serve over 9000 meals a week, over 1500 miles of spaghetti each year, and over 21 tons of spaghetti every month."


Below, Charles shares his tips on making the most of a visit to Vince's with Mrs. Roadside as well as trying to convince her that his dubbing of us as "Jelly" is a win-win for everyone.


After a great day around Ontario we pointed the car north and headed back to Vintage Roadside World Headquarters - with a few detours along the way.

Mini Jake stretches his legs in the pet area of a highway rest stop.


Hope everyone had a nice start to their week,

Jeff & Kelly
Vintage Roadside