Charcoalburger

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know that I love old signage. I spied this hand lettered beauty a while back during my travels. I'm guessing that it was double sided, judging by the fact that the panhandle is facing the wrong way. It's a shame that I missed out on Oklahoma's finest malts just because I had the misfortune to be born a couple decades too late!

Totem Pole Park

On Sunday we took one of our meandering family drives with no real plan in mind other than to get out and enjoy temperatures that were only in the 80s and make a stop at one of our favorite spots on earth, Totem Pole Park. I never get tired of visiting that place! A few years ago, I even got to help repaint a bit of the Fiddle House there. It was nice to see how the renovations had come along since then. I'm so happy that this treasure is being preserved. You can see more of the park through the years in my first post about it, which was one of my very first posts on this here blog.

We also spied a little Route 66 shop that we hadn't before, but it was closed, so I snapped a couple photos of the outside. The cinder block walls are covered in the autographs of Route 66 travelers from all over the world.

We took a whole bunch of photos that day. I am trying to get better about having my photo taken, but it's hard for me. I don't want these girls of mine to grow up and not have a single photo of their mama! Here's one that the Mister took. I call this my Downton Abbey Meets Reform School Girl outfit.

I updated the "About" page with some more photos of that day if you'd like to see more of the place or my goofy mug.

Eat Ice Cream

That's really about all there is to be done during these dog days, though I'm trying my damndest to cut back on my sugar intake. My dreams are filled with peach cobbler, vanilla ice cream, and strawberry malts, all washed down with vats of sweet tea deep enough to drown an elephant.

Kiddy Land

There's a pretty magical place just up the road from us in Independence, KS. The Ralph Mitchell Zoo and Riverside Park are beautifully maintained and feel perfectly frozen in time. We headed up there a while back on a pretty, clear day.




Damn, playground toy dolphin, you scary.

Roadside Fun Postcards

I just added these fun postcard sets to the Sweetheartville shop! Get your kicks on Route 66.

The Shiloh and The Searcy House

On our little Arkansas trip, we stopped at a place that I'd wanted to visit for quite some time. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History is a truly wonderful little museum with interactive exhibits and close to a million historical images of life in the Ozarks housed in their research library.


In addition to the museum building itself, the pretty shaded grounds hold six historical buildings.




One of those buildings is the Searcy House, a home originally built in the 1870s, renovated in the 1940s, and donated, along with much of its contents, to the museum in the 1980s.




If you too are an Old Time Ozarkophile, I highly recommend a visit to The Shiloh. And lest you think this place is all butter churns and banjos, allow me to inform you that they offer podcasts on a range of fascinating topics, and that they (along with the rest of the free world) have a twitter account.

One of the very best things about the Ozarks is, of course, the music. The two cd collection of Arkansas folk music recordings culled from the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection that we bought in the gift shop has been on near constant rotation in the Hall household. I was also excited to learn today that a group of Sacred Harp singers meets there monthly. I don't think the Shiloh has seen the last of this gal.

On The Road To Chouteau

Ridiculously Exciting Kicks on Route 66

After being cooped up in the house with colds, Sugar Pea and I were ready for some fresh air yesterday, so we hit the open road bound for one of my favorite local attractions, Totem Pole Park. We hadn't been since she was a tiny baby, and I was eager to take her now that she could appreciate the excursion. It was a perfect late summer Oklahoma day, just right for driving with the windows down and the bluegrass turned up loud. When we arrived, I was a bit surprised to see that the largest structure was being repainted.

The initial restoration, done by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association over a seven year period, was begun in the early 90s. Therefore, some parts of the structure haven't been touched up in nearly twenty years. I struck up a conversation with a lovely lady perched on a ladder, paintbrush in hand. It seems that Ginny was chosen to spearhead the latest restoration of the park, but was coming up short in the volunteer department. Without a moment's hesitation, I asked if she could use my help. Secretly, I expected her to politely decline my offer. I thought her answer would be something along the lines of, "Thank you, but we only allow professionally trained artists and conservationists to touch brush to cement in this most holy of holy Folk Art Environments." To my great surprise, her face lit up and she asked me if I lived in the area. I said I most certainly did and that it would be my absolute pleasure and a great honor to play a small part in the conservation of this national treasure. And, just like that, my day took a turn I would never have predicted in a million and four years. I'm going to get to paint Totem Pole Park!


Ginny's been working from the ground up, so the giant bird and tortoise that form the base of the totem pole are sporting freshly pedicured toes.


Inside the Fiddle House was one of Mr. Galloway's beautiful fiddles that had not been on display the last time I visited. Many of his fiddles and other works of art were stolen or otherwise lost after his death, but some are slowly being returned to where they belong. I can hardly believe my good fortune that, at least for a few days, I get to belong there as well.

Turtles, Ticks and Dynamite

The Sweethearts went on a little excursion last Monday to one of our most favorite places, Osage Hills State Park. It's where we got hitched nearly seven years ago, and the first (and last) place Mr. Sweetheart accidentally threw a rock at my head. In fact, my head and various rocks have had more than one meeting at Osage Hills. But, those are stories for another time.
Thankfully, the days are getting a bit cooler, so, helmets on, we headed out for a nature hike on a rocky, wooded trail we had never been down. After a while, we came out into a little clearing where we stopped to smell the weeds and watch a deer bound down the hillside.


Then we met a turtle. Here the turtle is hearing all about our summer trip to Silver Dollar City, another of our most favorite places.


Eventually we came upon a couple of small rock buildings built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Most of the native sandstone structures in the park were built by the Corps, including the shelter where we held our wedding ceremony.


This tiny, dilapidated building in the middle of the woods was built to house blasting caps, dynamite being needed to build all of the sandstone structures, I presume. It stands only about five feet high, and entering would require you to crouch down and duck through a small door.


The heavy iron plated door still opens and closes, but the roof, made of corrugated tin supported by timber beams and covered with flat stones, has caved in.


Out there in the middle of the woods and rocks, the sound of the wind in the oak trees and the calling of wild birds were the only noises to be heard. It felt like we'd stepped back in time. Anyone that knows me knows that there is nothing I love more than stepping back in time.


I spent a very long time staring at the weathered wood and rusty nails on the inside of the door.


Then we hiked back to the car, came home, discovered about a million teensy weensy ticks on ourselves, and scrubbed ourselves bloody in the shower. The next day Sugar Pea and I came down with yucky colds that we're just, today, starting to shake.
Tick bites and a cold are small prices to pay for stepping back in time with my two favorite people.

The Faubus Motel

Huntsville, AR

Pioneer Girls

A while back, our friends Heather and Audrey accompanied us to The Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder's home site near Independence, KS, for a day of exploring and picnic-ing. I had not been since I was a little girl, though I've lived within a couple dozen miles of there most of my life. As a child, I was smitten with Ms. Wilder's books, and used to roam the pastures and creek beds of my grandparents ranch, pretending I was a pioneer girl, straying too far from the homestead. I loved anything old timey. I read all the pioneer diaries the library contained, and wanted more. I dreamed of one day living in a log cabin full of twig furniture. I desperately wanted a wardrobe of long period dresses to wear. I wanted to play old-timey instruments and sing folk ballads. Really, not much has changed. I'm still that girl. As much as I love the sleek lines of an Eames chair, and the futuristic, light-filled airiness of a Joseph Eichler home, the rustic simplicity of a bent Willow rocker just speaks to something deep inside me. I'm not inclined to believe in anything as magical as past lives, but if such a thing exists, then I must have once lived in a little cabin, tucked away deep in a mountain holler.
My little one doesn't yet have the attention span required for the Little House series, but soon enough, she will. I'm looking forward to sharing with her the books that were such a large part of my own childhood. For our Little House excursion, I decided to put her in a dress I had worn when I was her age, sewn for me by my mother. Here's my little Sunbonnet Sue in the dress her Nana lovingly stitched, nearly thirty years ago.
She and Audrey had a wonderful time exploring the site together.



It's great to have friends who share our love of the old-fashioned. I think a lot more adventures are in store for these pioneer girls.

A Belated Mother's Day

The whole family was finally able to get together to celebrate Mother's Day over the weekend. The hour or so drive to my folks' house is one we make often to just spend the day enjoying being together, and there are some pretty interesting sites along the way.
Here is a giant bovine alongside the road in Oologah, whose main street is named Cooweescoowee Avenue-y. We love us some Native American town names in Oklahoma. I used to work for a cell phone company where I would have to make regular calls to operators in Florida for help with phone activations. I loved to hear them try to pronounce small town names like Ochelata, Owasso, Talala, Watova, Nowata, Pawhuska and Vinita. The Floridians were always greatly amused by Miami, Oklahoma, pronounced "my-am-uh" by us Okies.



Tiny Oologah is also the birthplace of Oklahoma's most famous native son, Will Rogers, who never met a man he didn't like.


This is a small scale model of the house on Dog Iron Ranch, a few miles outside of town, in which Rogers was born in 1879.


One of my mom and step-dad's neighbors has a bowling ball fence. He also makes other things from the balls, including spelling out the alphabet vertically on the front lawn. He is now up to "M", and is always happy to receive donations of old bowling balls to continue his work.

Here is my Mama's present from me: a vintage card catalogue of over 700 types of plants called "The Greenhouse", Better Homes & Gardens New Garden Book from 1961, a 60's era "C-Ch" children's encyclopedia volume to use for making artist trading cards, and a vintage hand painted pine cone vase. She has a green thumb which I, unfortunately, did not inherit.


Mom gave me the best presents ever for my first Mama's Day, including some tiny magnet animals made from seashells to add to my collection of seashell crafts,


...a tiny vintage flamingo plate for that collection. Please ignore the dying Schefflera plant on my porch. I told you I did not get any of Mom's horticultural skills.


...a ceramic mermaid to add to still another collection of mine. Come to think of it, my mom is usually the culprit when I start a new collection. She'll find me some fabulous vintage tchotchke and that will begin a small obsession that just snowballs from there.


...some handmade vintage potholders for my Mexican/Spanish Fiesta kitchen,


...and the best part of all, a little purse she made from vintage fabric for me to use when garage sale-ing after I lamented not having the perfect tiny, long-strapped one when we went to Neosho this year. I did inherit her craftiness, at least. All of this once again proves my theory: my Mama is the coolest mama any girl could ever hope to have.

In blog housekeeping news, I'm getting really behind in posting all the great thrifty finds I've lucked upon lately. Instead of playing catch up with one or two huge posts, I'm thinking of posting a little each week, maybe in a "Thrifty Thursday" post. I know I promised more craftiness. Rest assured I'm working on it, Dollfaces. I have so many things I want to share with you all, I'm just about to bust. Lots more vintage beauty stuff, vintage craft stuff, thrift stuff, old signage, music, my collections, my aprons, vintage decorating--the list goes on and on. Also, I'm thinking of omitting the word "vintage" from all future posts as the keys used to type it are wearing out on my keyboard. Perhaps my readers could just mentally fill in said word a few times in each sentence, and save my beauty operatin' wrists from wear and tear. Ha! Who am I kidding? I could never live without "vintage". What do ya think of my brand spankin' new header? Hell, what do ya think of this whole silly project? I'd love some feedback on the type of posts my four devoted readers want more of.

Old Man River and The Fountain Motel

Mr. Sweetheart ended up getting an extra day off of work, mid vacation, so we decided to take a leisurely route home, stopping anywhere that looked interesting. We were very shortly enticed to drive five miles down a winding back road in Lucedale, Mississippi to tour Palestine Gardens, a miniature replica of the Holy Land set in the beautiful piney woods. This place was my childhood dream come true with tiny buildings tucked into shady corners all along a winding walk near pretty ponds and a towering bamboo thicket. An older gentleman who lives there in an RV appeared shortly after we drove up. He said he was really too busy to give a guided tour, but invited us to walk around the garden and visit the gift shop which contained mostly homemade plastic canvas crafts and religious tracts, plus a large box turtle that followed us around the tiny store, its shell scraping across the cool cement floor. Should you find something you wanted, you were trusted to leave the money for it in a donation box. If you ever find yourself in the Lucedale area, I highly recommend a stop.

We crossed the state of Mississippi along mostly empty Highway 84 until we reached historic Natchez, on the banks of the Mississippi, where we spent the night. I amused Mr. Sweetheart by reciting every nickname for the river I could think of each time we crossed it or came near it on the trip, ala Clark Griswold. "Old Man River, Big Muddy, The Mighty Mississip...." It never stopped being funny. Here is a picture of kudzu, the plant that ate the South, growing in full force on the banks of Old Blue.


Natchez is home to several antebellum homes, a few of which we saw from the outside. We also had some delicious barbecue at a place called The Pig Out Inn. Unfortunately, because the stop was unplanned and unresearched, as we prefer flying by the seat of our pants on road trips, we missed Mammy's Cupboard. I think Natchez and the surrounding area is worthy of a future road trip of its own, though.



As we crossed The Great River into Louisiana, we stopped in Ferriday, home of Jerry Lee Lewis and others, at the Delta Music Museum, which was, sadly, closed. We did take a picture of the slab of fame out front, though.


As we drove north up Highway 65, we were amused by tiny town names such as Waterproof (somehow a water tower emblazoned with that word struck me as hilarious) and Transylvania, Louisiana, whose water tower depicts its name in a scary font over a black bat.
We continued across the farmland of southeastern Arkansas, where Mr. Sweetheart decided more CCR was in order. We were headed to Hot Springs, where I had never been but have always wanted to see. Mr. Sweetheart played a gig there once and wanted to take me there. We have some old friends who live there now, but we rolled into town much too late to take Sugar Pea out to meet anyone new, and we were coming up against the deadline to make it home, so we'll have to visit them another time. We stayed at the rundown Fountain Motel, not recommended, but a cool little place that must have been something to see in its heyday.

I found this postcard circa 1964 for sale on eBay. There are two rooms in each little streamlined deco building, still with the original tiled bathrooms which haven't been scrubbed since this postcard was made, I believe. Seriously, we wore flip flops in the shower. The design of the buildings and some of the hardware inside led me to believe it must date from the 1930's, but I can't be sure as I am unable to find any history of the place anywhere on the internet. I fantasized about someday buying a place like this and thoroughly restoring it to its former glory, decking out each room in vintage style. Then I could charge big bucks to rent out rooms to hipsters the way Kate Pierson of the B52s has done with her fabulous Lazy Meadow Motel in the Catskills.


At one time The Fountain Cafe was attached, but the building is now vacant. Here is my pathetic attempt at nighttime neon photography without the necessary tripod.

Across the street was the El Rancho, which was for sale. If only I was el richo.


Next door was the Capri.


Don't laugh. I think the blurriness makes it seem very artistic, as if I meant to do it, don't you? I'm kidding. I did want to capture the colors of the neon, though, despite my limited photography skills.

Beautiful downtown Hot Springs is full of Victorian bathhouses and classic hotels that sprung up to take advantage of the 147 degree thermal water that flows naturally from underground.


Lest you think it's all quaintness and class, we paid to take one of those cheesy duck boat tours, which I would never have done had I found this before just now. Holy crap. My paranoid mind imagined this very scenario as I clutched the sleeping Sugar Pea tightly and wondered how one would ever grab the life jackets above our heads in time, especially with three babies aboard. Guess that was my first and last duck boat ride.
Okay, shaking that off and moving right along, the duck tour tickets were a package deal that also gained us entry to a rundown wax museum, where we saw these two vignettes in the Chamber of Horrors.

Here are some poorly done, over lit likenesses of Hot Springs' favorite native son and his missus, the Clintons.

Tawdry Marie Antoinette is about to have a wardrobe malfunction while a lecherous bewigged gentleman looks on.


Here are the likenesses of my ancestors Orville and Wilbur Wright.


Mmmm. Waxy Popey goodness.

The King.


Are you ready to enter the world of make believe? Step right this way.


Also known as "The World of Ladies' Rooms That Haven't Been Updated Since the 1960s". I love this wallpaper and the vintage Kotex dispenser (only 10 cents!). You should have seen the look on Mr. Sweetheart's face when I told him I wanted to take a picture of an old maxi pad dispenser. A look that was somewhere between,"that's my quirky but infinitely charming wife" and pity.


The Red King and Queen from Alice in Wonderland were by far creepier than anything in the Chamber of Horrors.


This bear might possibly have drained my living essence as I stared into its hypnotic eyes.

Either that or I'm worn out from vacation. Not sure which.