Preservation Photos #72

The perfect sticker for anyone who adores historic roads.

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Preservation Photos #66

Call me a preservation dork, but it seems like this number deserves a match.

Route 66 in Foyil, Oklahoma in all of its pink concrete glory. Photo taken May 2006 by Kaitlin O'Shea.

Roadside Friday Links

Chilliwack, BC, Canada is losing its dinosaur theme park, Dinoland, which was originally affiliated with Hanna Barbara and named Bedrock City (who else loves The Flintstones!?) You can watch a video of its history and catch some Flintstone images here. The park will close forever on September 6, 2010. Why is it closing? The owner decided to sell the property for financial and health related reasons. Dinoland has the claim as “North America’s only cartoon dinosaur town.” Though it was only 35 years, roadside culture and amusement seems like it’s losing a bit of history.

The United States actually has a few Flintstone related parks: Flintstone’s Bedrock City in Custer, South Dakota and Bedrock City in Valle, Arizona. There is also Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota.

These Friday links so often seem to be roadside related. I couldn’t hide my obsession if I tried, so I might as well continue on today’s inadvertent theme.

On that note, abandoned interstates intrigue me and crack me up at the same time, like the I-189 interchange in Burlington that has been sitting there for decades. I’ve heard that the tallest filing cabinet in South Burlington is a monument to the amount of paperwork the interchange and road extension, dubbed the Southern Connector or the Champlain Parkway (another post for another time).  You would expect to find an abandoned old road, but an interstate? Apparently it’s rather common. Check out “Why the Lost Highway” and this page of abandoned freeways. The site itself is quite dated, but still entertaining.

Parkways and carefully designed highways are some of the most enjoyable. What will happen to the Pasadena Freeway and the Merritt Parkway? See this NY Times blog post. The Merritt Parkways is also on the National Trust’s 11 Most Endangered Places List for 2011. How do we adapt historic roads without destroying their character?

Is anyone attending the Historic Roads 2010 conference in Washington, DC from September 9-12? Please share! One attendee, Heidi Beierle has been cycling from Oregon to DC and chronicling her adventures along the way in the effort to research the impacts of bicycle tourism on rural communities. Talk about dedication!  Check out her blog and see her route.

Need more roadside fun? Of course. Check out the blog Go BIG or Go Home, for a family’s adventures as they travel to everything giant. I LOVE it.

Have I actually run out of new roadside photos to share? How about an old one?

The 2006 Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. Photo by Sarah O'Shea.

Summer corn, yum. Funny story: the restaurant that was supposed to have the best corn ever, located next to the corn palace, actually ran out of corn and we didn’t get to have any. It figures. Anyway, happy weekend! Happy Labor Day!

Friday Links

The Brooklyn Bridge Forest project brings yet another link to preservation + sustainability. The general idea? Growing and responsibly maintaining a tropical hardwood forest to replace the 11,000 planks of tropical hardwood on the Brooklyn Bridge when necessary, rather than using uncharacteristic synthetic wood.

Love Route 66? Scott Piotrowski has picked up his blogging again (hooray!) about Historic Roads in Los Angeles County, CA. He plans to uncover the final 66 miles of Route 66 in 66 different blog entries leading up to 2012 Route 66 Festival in Santa Monica. That sounds like quite the task – and interesting one at that! Leave a comment on his blog with suggestions & encouragement.

Speaking of Route 66, who wants to buy the NR listed Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico? It’s for sale!

And, if you’re a fan of the movie Cars you may know that Disneyland is opening “Cars Land” in summer 2012. Scroll down for a bit info and some pictures.

Anyone attending the Society for Industrial Archaeology’s Fall Tour in Vermont this September? I’ll be there, helping out with the Saturday Burlington tour.

Looking for a job? Many have been appearing on PreserveNet lately, many more than earlier in the summer.

Is anyone taking the Ivy Tech (Madison, IN) online course: Introduction to Historic Preservation? I’d be interested to hear about your experiences.

Any starting your undergrad major or graduate degree in preservation? Please share!

Happy weekend; hope the last one of August treats you well! Get out and about while it’s still warm and sunny!