Saturday Morning Cartoon: What's Cooking, Doc?

In honor of the 85th annual Academy Awards, I present What's Cooking Doc?, a 1944 Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Robert Clampett.   No need to say anything else; you'll get the reference soon enough.   Enjoy!

Bye, Bye Bahooka...

 



What rotten news.   I just heard from my brother that one of my favorite restaurants, The Bahooka, is closing next month.   I reviewed the restaurant HERE, and if you have never been, I urge you to pay a visit now before this original, one of a kind tiki restaurant goes the way of dial phones and fiscal conservatism.    



I've been expecting it for a while...  the last few times I visited, it was fairly empty and half the restaurant was "dark."   I liked it that way; it was like having your very own Polynesian hideaway.  No other people around to take away the atmosphere... just the Hawaiian music, the colorful strings of lights, and the hum of the many fish tanks that dominated the available wall space.  Every time I went I noticed something new and exciting.   I had hoped that one day I would hold an event in their funky banquet room (which was also adorned with fishtanks), but it looks like that won't be happening. 

 

The waiting area.   Here I watched fish building little hills by putting rocks in their mouth on one side of the tank, then depositing them on top of an ever-increasing pile on the other side.   I could've watched for hours.

The cashier station.   If you wanted a good table you could slip them a fin (Fish joke #32) 

The interior.

This is the table I got.   I guess a fin wasn't quite enough of a tip.

The banquet room.   As you can see, this wasn't exactly your Elk's Club rental hall.

I'll be sure to stop by for one last meal, and report back on the visit.   Be sure to make your own memory while you have the chance...



Travels with Joe: The NEON Museum

Last week I took a quick trip to Las Vegas and took time out to visit the Neon Museum and Boneyard.  To say that I found it delightful would not only be accurate, but it would be a really bad pun.   The Neon Museum is a relatively new attraction in Sin City.   Tours of the Boneyard have been available for years, but they were by appointment only.   Only the insiders knew about the tours.  The museum finally was able to get a visitor's center up and going and now offer official tours every day.
The main exhibits are actually found all over Vegas, particularly in the old Downtown area.   There, you can find several refurbished signs, lit up every night (as many of the Fremont Street residents are).  Here are a few examples I borrowed from Yelp:

However, the boneyard tour has very few operating signs.   Here, they store the remnants of Vegas's past, including signs waiting for a chance to be revived.  Several older signs are beyond repair, such as the one for the Desert Rose.   However, the recently demolished Stardust sign is here, in eight pieces, awaiting the funds to be rescued.  Here are a few pictures I took with my cell-phone...  I forgot to take my camera!

Here's the entrance to the Boneyard.   Nice touch, for a Neon Boneyard to have a neon sign...

The Moulin Rouge was the first racially integrated casino / hotel in Vegas.   It opened in 1955.   Big name entertainers like Sammy Davis could entertain in the Strip hotels, but were not allowed to stay there.  Most ended up at the Moulin Rouge.   Despite its popularity, it was only open for 5 months, closing due to mismanagement.  However, it made its mark on Vegas - the agreement to desegregate all Vegas casinos was signed at the Moulin Rouge.

The Sassy Sally's sign.   To its left, barely visible, is a small blue sign that used to stand at a gas station along the Strip.  It proclaimed, "Free aspirin and tender sympathy."  In the years the sign was up the station gave away thousands f aspirin tablets.  It used to be one of my favorite Vegas landmarks - nice to see it was saved!

 

Here is the original sign in its heyday.   As you can see, they also gave away Green Chip Stamps.  Should we get a rowboat or a sewing machine with our stamps?  Maybe one of you will get that reference.   Probably my brother Robbi.



The Tropicana's old sign, with the Silver Slipper in the back.

Ah, the Stardust.   The Stardust's neon sign was once the largest neon sign ever built. 

This giant pirate skull was once part of the Treasure Island sign.   Once Treasure Island decided to de-emphasize the pirate theme, these came down.   Our tour guide told us to look up the Neon Museum on Google Earth when we got home.   She said you would see piles of junk and a giant pirate head staring back at you..  Naturally, I did and saved the image below.  She was right! 

Avast, me hearties!   Welcome to ye boneyard!

The Sahara's sign, still in great condition.  In 1964, the Beatles played the Sahara and stayed in the hotel.

Boneyard...   the Final Frontier...  

I'll end with this picture of the Silver Slipper, and this great story:   The Silver Slipper casino was located across the street from the Desert Inn, where Howard Hughes had taken up residency.  This giant slipper lit up and rotated on top of the Silver Slipper's sign, and Howard watched it from his window every night.   Eventually, he became convinced that the shoe contained a camera and was monitoring his every move.   So, Howard sent one of his minions across the street to kindly ask the owners of the Slipper to remove the shoe from their sign.   When they refused, Howard immediately bought the casino and took it down himself.

Alaskan Cruise, Part Ate

Howdy, adventure seekers!   In our last thrilling chapter, we had visited our last port-of-call on our Alaskan cruise and were now sailing towards Seattle, our home port.   However, the adventures don't end there!   I will now regale you with tales about the drive back home to Pomona, and the (arguably) fascinating stops along the way!   Some of this may be broken out into Restaurant reviews, so that you can easily access them when planning your own trip up the coast.  Hopefully, I can finish these vacation posts before summer...

Our first stop was in Puyallup, for the Western Washington Fair.  The Puyallup Fair is one of the top ten fairs in the country, and a great place to spend an afternoon.   The large assortment of food, rides and other attractions is enough to guarantee a full day.  I could have literally eaten my way through the fairgrounds.   They have some great barbecue venues and other tempting treats along the way.   My travel partner's favorite was a booth that sold "the freshest ice cream in the world" and they meant it.  They actually made scooped ice cream to order via a quick-freeze technique that I don't quite understand, so please don't ask me.  I don't know, I tell you, so don't ask!   Another treat  found all over the fair was "Krusty Pups" which is just a fancy name for a corn dog.

However, the big item to eat at this fair is - believe it or not - a scone.   That's right, a scone.   To be more precise, a Fisher scone.  Fisher has been selling scones at the fair since 1915.  They bake the scones fresh at their booths, then lather each one with whipped butter and raspberry preserves.  Fisher operates several scone booths throughout the fair, and every one of them has a line.  They were delicious, but hardly enough to fill one up at the fair.  But they make a delightful appetizer before I headed to the barbecue stand (of which there were several)

The other big attraction at the Puyallup Fair is the rides.  They have a huge assortment of rides that take up a large part of the real estate.   Many of them are unique, one-of-a-kind rides that you can't ride anywhere else.   One example is Kersplash, which is pictured below.   It's kind of a mix between a roller coaster and a flume ride.

They also have a classic 1917 PTC carousel that was originally a portable fairground carousel until it was permanently installed here.  However, the piece de resistance is their wooden roller coaster.   Originally built in 1935, it's the last wooden roller coaster to be found at a fairground and has been declared a Roller Coaster Classic by ACE.   It is only open 21 days every year, making it a hard coaster for an out-of-towner like me to ride.  The entire structure has recently been rebuilt, and the coaster is running better than ever.   It's the most popular ride at the fair, attracting lines of almost 2 hours at the busiest times.  It's hard to get a good picture of the coaster due to the many attractions around it, but here are a few...

Beyond the food and the rides, there were plenty of other attractions to keep you busy.   My favorite was the sheep riding, where young kids pay money to try and ride a sheep, much like cowboys at a rodeo try to ride a bucking bronco.   They don't stay on long, but it was entertaining to watch.

Once we were done with the fair, we began our trip down the coast towards home.   We drove across the border into Oregon and stayed on the outskirts of Portland.   The next stop would be Tillamook, home of the infamous Tillamook service station.   I also heard that there may be some dairy goods there.   Stay tuned, more to come!