August 17, 2025 • 32 mins
Rolando Pujol, author of the just released book "The Great American Retro Roadtrip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana" was our guest, and he discussed the history of the motel (turning 100 in 2025), roadside "Giants" you must see, Googie architecture, and more.
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(00:52):
And welcome to the FromerTravel Show.
I'm your host, Pauline Fromer.
It is road trip season, and mynext guest has a road trip that will
drive you straight into thepast in the most delightful way.
His name is Rolando Pujol, andhe has written the Great American
(01:12):
Retro Road Trip.
It's a.
A celebration of roadside Americana.
Hey, Rolando.
So nice to speak with you andso fun to read this book.
Hey, Pauline.
Good to meet you.
Real pleasure and an honor tobe on this podcast.
I can't tell you how manyFromer's books I've read over the
years or have accompanied meon trips.
(01:33):
So it's really neat to be here.
Well, I think people, if theyhave your book and our book next
to one another in the car,they will be set.
And it also seemed like a goodtime for this interview because it
is the hundredth anniversaryof the motel.
Tell us a little bit about thehistory of the motel, and I'd love
(01:56):
to hear what your favoriteretro motels are.
Okay, those are all great questions.
So we're about to encounter anumber of big anniversaries in the
next couple of years.
We've got the motel in 20, 25,100 years, and of course, next year,
Route 66, which isintrinsically connected with the
motel as well, and the rise ofmotor courts in the car and all of
(02:17):
that.
But the motel itself has afunny little history.
It sort of sprung out of aneed, like so much of the roadside
architecture that's in my book.
It sprung out of the need andan opportunity presented by the widespread
use of the car.
People were traveling in theirautomobiles in the 1920s.
They're hopping into theirModel Ts and.
And they're going out there.
(02:38):
And these are adventurouspeople, because if you're a motor
car tourist in the early 20sor late teens, I mean, you're really.
You're not dealing with a lotof paved roads.
You're dealing with a lot ofcomplicated travel.
And researching thisappearance, I. I found this photo
on the Library of Congresssite of a.
Of a, I believe, like a ModelT or some car like that on the very
(02:59):
edge of a rocky road on the precipice.
And there's this one guybehind the wheel there.
And you just know it's acertain kind of person that undertakes
this.
So these were very, very hardytourists and adventurers who wanted
to get a taste for the Americathat they could not experience by
taking a train and paying allthat money and then staying in a
(03:19):
fancy hotel.
In downtown Flagstaff or wherever.
No, they wanted to see America.
And the only way they couldget there was with these cars.
And they were happy to pitch a tent.
That, of course, came with problems.
And so eventually these.
These auto camps emerged thatwere a step above simply, you know,
sleeping in your backseat ofyour car or in a little tent right
(03:42):
next to your car.
And by 19, by the mid-20s,there was clearly an opportunity
for something more sophisticated.
You were starting to seecabins emerge in cabin communities
where you could at least stayinside and kind of a glorified lean
to, but at least you wereinside and protected from the elements.
But by 1925, a fellow by thename of Arthur Heinemann, very creative
(04:04):
man, he's thinking bigger.
He's thinking about creating a.
Not just one, but a chain ofwhat they begin to call motels, which
is a portmanteau of the wordmotor car and hotel, A motel.
And of course, that fits morenicely on a neon sign than motor,
hotel or whatever else.
And so In January of 1925,there's an article in, I believe,
(04:29):
the Los Angeles Times thatfirst describes this vision for this
motel chain and talks aboutnumerous locations that will be opening
up between San Diego and Seattle.
Well, it turns out that onlyone opens, but it's a very significant
one, and it opens on December12th of 1925.
So I.
(04:50):
Now that we're having thisconversation, I'm thinking this is
a great day to be in San Luis Obispo.
That is where the MilestoneMotor Inn, this motel opens.
And eventually it is calledthe Motel Inn, and it is heralded
as the very first motel.
What makes it a motel?
Well, you know, those cabinsare no longer cabins, per se.
(05:10):
Now you're starting to see asituation where there are rooms,
you know, and people canactually stay in a place with running
water.
You are greeted when youarrive by a bellhop who makes sure
that you are taken care of.
You have a place to park your car.
This particular motel camewith the garages, which is kind of
cool.
Those.
(05:30):
Those eventually went away,and you can have this whole wonderful
experience.
So some of the comforts of ahotel, but also the practicality
of being right by the highway,staying in a safe room with running
water and electricity.
These rooms came with radiosand even telephones, although I can't
imagine making a telephonecall in those days.
(05:52):
The toll charges on that wouldhave been crazy.
But whatever, suddenly youhave an experience, and it wasn't
that expensive.
$50 to $3 at the verybeginning for a night in one of these
places.
So.
So versus the traditional ideaof planning a whole trip and staying
at a hotel for a week andspending all this money here.
You can come for the night andyou have a safe place to stay.
Your car is taken care of,you're taken care of, and you're
(06:15):
on your way.
And so that very first one wasin San Luis Obispo.
Remnants of that motor innstill exist.
The motel itself closed backin 1991, but there is an adjacent
lodging and place called, Ibelieve, called the Apple Farm.
And they own the one, thecomplex and what's left of it.
(06:36):
Most of it has beendemolished, but there is still a
wall left from portion of thelodging area.
And there's also the mainoffice area with its Spanish tower,
a bell tower.
You can actually still go toSan Luis Obispo and see the traces
of what was the very firstmotel, which I think is very cool.
Hyneman's vision of a.
Of a chain under his ownershipalong the west coast did not materialize.
(07:01):
He was thinking of a motelevery about 150 or so miles, which
was about what you could hopeto get in a day's travel back then,
given the state of roads andcars and that era.
And.
But that wasn't to be.
But the motel idea was out there.
The story goes that he triedto trademark the motel copyright
(07:22):
the concept, was not able to.
And soon there were many, manyimitators, motor courts and motels
that were beginning to prop upall around the country.
And to me, what made the lateriterations, but not much later iterations,
so unique were they.
The fact that they weren'tunique, they were standardized.
(07:44):
And so you knew if you weregoing to a Howard Johnson's, if you
were going to a Holiday Inn,you would get the same amenities.
The room would be clean, itwould be a certain look.
And back then, standardizationwas very sexy, right?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, this was a time when,you know, you've got families travel
by the 1940s and certainly bythe 1950s, in the aftermath of World
(08:08):
War II, you've got the GIsflushed with money and education
and they're starting their families.
Technology, science,organization, all of this is highly
prized in society.
And people want reliableexperiences when they're on the road
already by this point, by the50s, the dawn of the Howard Johnson's,
(08:28):
the motel portion anyway.
And the Holiday Inns motelshave been around at this point for
20, 30 years.
And even by then, they'realready starting to get an unsavory
reputation, right?
Their Open design, which was avirtue in the very beginning, becomes
a problem.
You can now sort of likeanyone can go in and out.
You can avoid having to dealwith the front desk.
You're not protected by theinterior hallway.
(08:49):
It's exposed.
And unseemly.
Things begin to happen at motels.
And by 1960, of course, we'vegot the Bates Motel and Psycho.
And so these entrepreneursemerge by the 50s that have the answers
for Americans.
And Holiday Inn, with itsbeautiful, stunning, great sign,
that gorgeous, massive neonsign that became the symbol of the
(09:10):
chain and was widely imitatedall around the country, you know,
emerges.
And Howard Johnson's twobecomes a place where you can not
only go and enjoy a safe placeto stay at night, but you also have
a very, very fine restaurantas well.
In fact, it began as a.
As a hospitality, as arestaurant business from a drugstore
in the mid-1920s.
(09:31):
So it's funny how you see thatevolution from auto camps to motels
to then these.
These chains, all in thecourse of about 30 years.
And so I gotta ask you, if youcould only go to one motel in the
United States this year, whathas the best retro spirit?
Okay, There are some realcompetitors for this, for this title.
(09:52):
You know, like the BlueSwallow in Tucumcari is along Route
66 in New Mexico, is atreasure and beautifully maintained.
There are so many of thesethat I'm a big fan of, and many of
them have been sort ofupscaled as boutique motels.
So they're a little nicer thanthey would have been back in the
day.
But that said, if I have tochoose one, it's got to be the Madonna
(10:12):
Inn.
We're back in San Luis Obispo,midway between San Francisco and
LA and the wonderful fantasyland created by Alex and Phyllis
Madonna.
You've never been to theMadonna Inn, and I think listeners
of your.
Of your show may have.
I certainly suspect they mayknow of it.
But if they haven't had theexperience, no amount of writing
or talking or examining ofphotos or videos or influencer videos
(10:37):
will do it justice.
You must go, of course.
The sign is absolutely stunning.
But once we get beyond that,the public spaces are something to
behold.
You've got this dining roomthat's a sea of pink leather banquettes.
Even the bathrooms are extraordinary.
There is.
In the men's room, if you arenot a man, you can sort of like,
(10:57):
ask for permission or say,hey, is it safe?
You should go inside becausethere's a waterfall urinal.
So the public.
I went in.
You made him.
You're crazy looking.
You gotta.
You just gotta do it.
You gotta go in incoming, youknow, and.
But the rooms are the big show there.
There's 110 of them and theyeach have like, different themes.
I've stayed in a couple.
(11:18):
I've never stayed in the.
The infamous.
The caveman room, which issomething out of prehistoric history.
There was once actually a roomthat was based on the Flintstones
that got them into troublewith Hanna Barbera.
And that was.
They had to remove theFlintstones imagery from the room.
But each room has adistinction, design and look and
feel.
And the Madonna's put realtremendous amount of effort into
(11:40):
making sure that rooms didn'trepeat that each one was unique.
And when you're staying there,you have the pleasure of being in
your own room, but you'retrying to catch a look at the other
rooms as well.
And in the morning, if you see the.
The.
The cleaning staff at work,you're like, hey, do you mind if
I can take a peek?
You also use one of the firstthings in your book, and I should
(12:00):
say this is a book that isfilled with photos that has histories
of many of the places it talksabout in all of the states.
You give one entire chapter toCalifornia just because it has so
much retro.
And when you say retro, youmean 30s through what era?
Yeah, it's a good questionbecause, you know, retro.
(12:21):
The more appropriate wordmight be vintage because retro tends
to be a modern distillation ofsomething that has the vibe of the
past.
But retrologist and retrosounds a lot better than vintageologist
or.
Or whatever.
But to me, yes, I think mostof the places in the book, earliest
ones are from the 20s and 30s,and they continue right on up until,
(12:43):
I would say the, The.
The old.
The newer ones are probably70s and 80s, although I celebrate
places that are.
That that were built yesterdayif they have a retro spirit or have
a roadside Americanasensibility to them.
And there are places in thebook that were constructed just in
the past decade that have that.
That vibe and understand thatvernacular and those marketing techniques
(13:08):
that made these places sospecial at mid century.
And they're doing it again andthey're enjoying great success.
Not to go on a bit of a detourhere, but Buc EE's I think, is an
extraordinary example of.
It's a.
You know, these conveniencestore gas stations that you'll find
that are spreading.
They began in Texas in the 80sand they've been spreading throughout
the country, mostly on theeast coast, but that they will.
(13:30):
You'll see them, I'm sure,farther west and also in the south
central area for sure.
And they use a lot of the samemarketing techniques as classic roadside
attractions like Wall Drug orSouth of the Border, building anticipation
through a network ofbillboards along the highway so that
when you finally get there,you just have to pull over.
(13:50):
You have no choice.
You want to see that cutelittle character.
You can gas up, use cleanbathrooms, pick up good food.
It's, it's really a veryinteresting thing and it's a fairly
novel concept.
Buc EE's first got on my radarin 2022 and now I'm obsessed with
it.
Well, it sounds like they tookthe formula created by Wall Drug.
(14:13):
Wall Drug.
Tell about the folks movingthere at the height of the depression
and what they needed to do andhow they did it.
It's so interesting, it wasalmost an act of madness.
Imagine taking your youngfamily, Ted Husted and his wife and
little Billy their son, andthey buy this dusty old drugstore
in Wall, South Dakota andthere's not much in the town.
(14:36):
And their family and friendsare trying to dissuade them from
making this potentially familyand life destroying decision, but
they decide they want to, theywant to make a go of it, they want
to give it a shot.
And they give themselves, youknow, five years to see whether they
can.
They pull this off.
And by 1936, things aren'tgoing that hot.
And his wife comes up with theidea of putting a sign by the nearby
(14:58):
highway where they can hearcars sort of whizzing by a sign that
promises free ice water.
Free ice water.
You know, if you just pullover at Wall Drug and they put that
sign out there and the carsstart pulling over right away, the
demand is almost immediate.
And of course people aren'tjust going to stop there for the
ice water.
(15:18):
If they have, they're going topick up food, they're going to have
ice cream, they're going topick up a prescription or something.
And so they begin to build abusiness, an empire of sorts, a roadside
empire there in the littletown of Wall.
But it was all, it all beganby simply a clever idea of marketing,
which was not that clever per se.
It was a clever application ofan idea that already existed.
(15:42):
Burma Shave, of course, haddone even before that had been using
roadside signage withsequential signs that told a little
story, encouraging people topick up this now obscure brand of
shaving cream.
You know, there were othercompanies, Mail Pouch Tobacco, that
they weren't using signs, butthey were using the Sides of barns
(16:02):
that were visible from roads to.
To attract interest in their product.
So it was a smart applicationof an idea that was out there, brilliantly
executed.
They assumed these signs weregoing up on either side of the road.
I first encountered Wall Drugon a road trip to Mount Rushmore,
which was part of the successof this place.
It was coming up at a timethat Mount Rushmore was being carved,
(16:25):
but nevertheless.
And of course the badlandswere near there as well.
But.
But when I first began to seethese billboards, I was instantly
hooked and pulling over andtaking pictures of them.
And when I finally got there,I must say I never had a more delicious
glass of ice water.
So, I mean, this kind ofmarketing really, really works.
(16:45):
And you see different examplesof this all throughout the country.
Yeah, yeah.
In the very front of the bookyou introduce the concept of roadside
giants.
Yes.
What are roadside giants?
And give us some good examplesof them.
Well, a number of them.
There's like different, Isuppose, categories of this.
(17:07):
Let's talk about the giants themselves.
The big.
They're known as differentthings as giant men or muffler men.
And they have differentiterations and different guises.
You know, they come, they comein the form.
There's.
There are male and femaleversions as well.
And they were manufactured bya company, now defunct company in
Venice, California, known asInternational Fiberglass.
(17:29):
Made of fiberglass.
And the reason that mostpeople call them muffler men is because
they were often outside ofauto repair shops or muffler repair
shops.
And they're holding a muffler.
And the gentleman is, usuallyhas a.
Is a rather stocky, you know,lantern jawed.
Here's a gentleman with a finebeard, a cap, a uniform of some sort
(17:50):
reflecting the work being doneat the facility where he has been
installed.
And he's usually holding aproduct that is connected to the
business.
So it's a muffler.
But of course, theapplications across the country that
you will see are many and varied.
And these spread like wildfireacross the country.
In the 60s and 70s.
(18:10):
There were differentiterations of them all other brands
as well.
There were the Texaco gasolinegiants as well.
There's a very fun one inAloha, Oregon that has been repurposed
into a giant bunny rabbitHarvey Marina, which is very fun,
but you'll see differentiterations of them.
In Dallas, I photographed oneat Ken's Muffler that looks like
(18:32):
the Mad Men in character.
Alfred E. Newman, you know,sort of Mortimer Nerd.
But there he is holding amuffler they're all over the country.
But their time in the sun wasin the 60s and 70s and the company
went out and they began to vanish.
There's one near and dear tomy heart is up in Elmsford, New York,
(18:53):
at what used to be an AMACOstation and then later became a BP
station.
And his colors changed fromthe red and blue of AMACO to the,
you know, to the yellow andgreen of bp.
But he is still there and heintrigued me.
And I as a kid figured that hewas the only one.
He was just there, Elmsford.
And so when I began to seeversions of him elsewhere around
(19:16):
the country, it was a greatsort of revelation.
I think a lot of people whoget into this stuff have these same
moments of discovery that thisstuff is that you're seeing in your
immediate environs as a child is.
Is far more widespread.
And giant men and roadsidegiants are having a great revival
right now.
There's a lot of interest in them.
A lot of it has been poweredby a gentleman named Joel Baker,
(19:37):
who began to document themonline and is now started the American
Giant Museum, which is inAtlanta, Illinois, which you have
to visit.
It's got plenty of examples ofrestored giants, great created exhibit
inside.
And there are other.
There's another giant in townas well.
A muffler man holding a hot dog.
(19:57):
And he used to be up inCicero, Illinois, a Paul Bunyan.
Paul Bunyan hot dogs.
And he ended up down inAtlanta, Illinois.
So that's a great stop.
So there are those very quickly.
Do you think that it was thedevelopment of fiberglass that made
these things possible and thuschanged the culture?
(20:19):
Because these are massivestructures that had to be fairly
light.
Right.
Because they're often on roofs.
They're on roofs or they're on.
You know, a big stiff windcould knock them over.
Right, exactly.
And I think it is.
I think part of what maderoadside travel so interesting in
the 50s and 60s was the factthat you saw these.
(20:40):
These architects and theseurban designers, these planners,
finding clever ways of usingtechnological advances to create
interesting experiences andinteresting attractions.
Right.
I mean, you see this a lot as well.
And just like the differentmaterials that, that you can now
more widely and more easily manufacture.
(21:01):
I know later on we're going totalk perhaps a little bit about Googie,
but you see that, Matt?
You see that.
Let's talk about it now.
What is googy?
Googie is a kind ofarchitecture that is sort of like.
I like to call it concretized optimism.
You know, I mean, it'sArchitectural optimism.
These are these buildings,they emerge initially in Southern
California.
(21:21):
And the Googie name isactually taken after what was a coffee
shop named Googie's inSouthern California that used these
principles.
So what are these principles?
They are for certain designelements that are found in most Googie
buildings.
Zigzag roofs or pointy roofs,massive plate glass windows, you
know, floor to ceiling thatlet you look into the restaurant,
(21:42):
which itself has thesespectacular lamps and leather booths
and rock walls and plants andfloor and, you know, all of this
sort of stuff that's going in inside.
Like you as the customer, asthe patron become part of the architecture.
And of course, the signageoutside uses imaginative, quirky
(22:03):
typeface.
There are sometimes towersthat rise out of the building where
the sign is applied that arevery, very dramatic.
When you see a Googiebuilding, you kind of know it.
And again, technologicaladvances allowed us to begin to build
buildings like this.
I mean, these were thebuildings of the future, right?
These were.
This was the way that we were going.
50s.
(22:24):
You start to see this in the50s and you'll see construction of
gookie buildings into the 60sand maybe even a little bit beyond.
But it's really petering outby the 60s.
By the, by the mid to late 60sthere is beginning to be the beginning
of the bland era that we'resort of in that I feel people are
now kind of trying to rebuffwhere you have a highway beautification
(22:46):
movement.
And local zoning boards aretrying to tamp down on the installation
of neon signs and they want torestrain the look and feel of buildings
because they're just a bit too much.
And they're trying to bring asense of decorum and they don't want
all that riff raff from thehighway in their towns.
And so people sort of turn onthis almost as quickly as they were
(23:08):
intoxicated and embraced.
Embraced it just a decade orso earlier.
It's really quite fascinating.
But you see examples of gookiebuildings not just in California,
they're everywhere.
And one of the greatestexamples right here on the east coast
is head on down to Wildwood,New Jersey, where the style there
is known as the Doo Wop style.
So kind of adapted to themusic of the late 50s and early 60s.
(23:31):
But it is unmistakably Googie.
And those buildings could justas easily be in California.
Huh?
I'm hoping to see some.
Are any at the Jersey Shore?
Oh, absolutely, yes.
When I think of the JerseyShore, there's sort of the center,
the central part of the JerseyShore, Right.
And that area.
But really it is worth makingit all the way down to the southern
end to enjoy the wildwoods,because that's where the greatest
(23:54):
concentration of thosebuildings are.
If there's one that I thinkwe're talking about favorite motels.
The Caribbean in WildwoodCrest is exceptional with its beautiful
cantilevered floors and theold plastic jersey palms, as they
call them, the plastic palmtrees and sign, which is just extraordinary.
(24:14):
I mean, there is just a.
Again, concretized optimism.
You see that building and you just.
It puts a spring in your stepand it puts a sense of excitement
and joy.
And I have stayed there acouple of times and really do love
it.
And there are some other greatexamples of that style, endangered,
by the way.
We've been losing them.
They've been dropping likeflies since the 90s.
And there are preservationistefforts underway, of course, the
(24:38):
Duoc Preservation League, notably.
But still, when a place isbuilt for commerce, it often falls
in the pursuit of neweriterations of commerce, sadly.
And we've lost.
We keep losing them, sadly.
Right before I lose you, westarted talking about motels and
chains.
There's a lot of fascinatinghistory in the book about restaurant
(25:02):
chains, some of which are goneand some of which are still very
much part of our lives today.
Like Dairy Queen.
I loved who the Queen is inDairy Queen.
Will you tell our listeners?
Absolutely.
There's a story then.
What is the Dairy Queen?
The Dairy Queen is, the storygoes, is the cow.
Right?
The cow from which all thewonderful ice cream can ultimately
(25:25):
be be traced.
Dairy Queen itself began inJoliet, Illinois in June 22, 1940.
And I marked the day everyyear on social media with a selection
of photos of what I liked.
The legacy Dairy Queen stores,which are the stores that opened
in the 40s and 50s and 60sthat have still survived.
(25:48):
The corporation has beenputting a lot of pressure on some
of these legacy stores to sortof update their look and move over
to the grill and chill concept.
But good number of thesestores still survive and they're
really worth checking outbecause for me, Dairy Queen is like
the.
The ultimate manifestation ofa benign chain, if you will.
(26:08):
They tend to be the classicones, these little, little ice cream
huts in the middle of town.
Small building, neon sign witha little askew ice cream cone with
a little curl on top.
And it's so deeply connectedwith people's daily lives, whether
it be just stopping there fora little ice cream after work or
after the game on Saturdaynight, or during courtship rituals
(26:30):
of one's adolescent years.
Dairy Queen is sort of always there.
It just becomes part ofAmerican life.
And, and so when I am anywherein the country and I know I'm within
easy reach of a small townDairy Queen, I'm right there.
To me, it's just, it's justsuch a nice slice of Americana.
So you discussed your online presence.
How can our listeners find you online?
(26:53):
If they.
And they should get the booktoo, the Great American Retro Road
Trip.
But online where?
Are you sure?
So you'll find me on Instagram.
Use the handle just my name,Rolando Pujol.
You can follow me there for my adventures.
And I've got over 2000pictures and stories there, so you
can go back over more than a decade.
(27:14):
I'm also on substack, GoogleVitrologist substack, and it'll come
right up.
And, and, and on other socialplatforms as well.
But, but I'm easy to find andI'm always posting and sharing.
Well, from this former historymajor in college, I'm going to ask
you a philosophical questionto end you've talked about the joy
(27:37):
that a lot of the design ofthese places brings.
And in the book you dig deepinto the history, which I think tells
us a lot about Americanhistory, learning about how these
companies came to be and whathistoric forces shaped them, like
the emergence of the highwaysystem and things of that sort of.
(27:57):
Why is it important to havethese buildings in our lives?
Why is it important to havethese glimpses of times gone by?
Yeah, you know, to me there'snothing more important than understanding
how we got here and where wecame from.
And these places are the mostvivid manifestations of our history.
(28:19):
And without them, we don'thave a certain we talked about joy,
but also texture and contextfor our lives.
There has been this, thisawful trend over the past couple
of decades of architecturalhomogenization where all chain restaurants,
which used to have verydistinct looks and feel have become.
(28:40):
They all look the same.
They're kind of these squarelittle gray boxes.
The fun is gone.
The interest is gone.
Having that thosearchitectural cues of our past simply
adds richness and joy to our experience.
And it helps us understand howwe got here and perhaps can also
inspire us in so far what kindof world we want to live in.
Because this is really abouthaving, having experiences and getting
(29:03):
to know.
For me, anyway, travel isabout having experiences and getting
to know your.
Your fellow human.
And the more that there areinteresting historic places that
can draw us somewhere and it'snot just a, a fancy hotel or A beachside
resort.
Nothing wrong with those things.
But there are other ways to travel.
I think the better we are, andit can sort of like, I think at a
(29:24):
time of a lot of division, itcan unite us if we, you know, really
begin to explore the countryand get to.
To visit these places.
Because behind all of theseplaces are stories and people.
And that is really, I thinkthe most important part of travel
is.
Is.
Is the people who.
Who create and manage and runthese places and live in these places.
(29:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Beautifully put.
And it's such a fun book.
Many, many thanks forappearing on the Fromer Travel Show.
What a pleasure to be here.
I only wish we had more time.
Maybe I'll.
Maybe I'll come back again.
That'd be great.
All right, that is it for thisweek's show.
I thank you so much for listening.
And to those who aretraveling, may I wish you a hearty
bon voyage.
(30:18):
Sour candy on the table Lazyafternoons in your sweatpants Watching
cable well it feels so faraway all the channels seamlessly
same Trying to remember allthe songs we like to play Cuz those
(30:44):
lazy afternoons don't come sofrequently these days oh it's been
so long and I cannot help butwonder Are you ever coming home?
I like you with your sourcandle be in the boat house on the
lake oh but I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate, I hate the
(31:10):
way it takes.
I can't.
Get you off of my mind Lookingout, out the window where we spent
so much of our time Cuz I missthe way it felt.
(31:37):
But I.
Guess you can't control thosedamn cards with Babe I know the both
of us are happy when we'refree but would it be so hard to find
your freedom here with me?
It's been so long and I cannothelp but wonder Are you ever coming
(32:03):
home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boathouse on the lake
But I hate, I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate.
And welcome to the FromerTravel Show.
I'm your host, Pauline Fromer.
It is road trip season, and mynext guest has a road trip that will
drive you straight into thepast in the most delightful way.
His name is Rolando Pujol, andhe has written the Great American
(01:12):
Retro Road Trip.
It's a.
A celebration of roadside Americana.
Hey, Rolando.
So nice to speak with you andso fun to read this book.
Hey, Pauline.
Good to meet you.
Real pleasure and an honor tobe on this podcast.
I can't tell you how manyFromer's books I've read over the
years or have accompanied meon trips.
(01:33):
So it's really neat to be here.
Well, I think people, if theyhave your book and our book next
to one another in the car,they will be set.
And it also seemed like a goodtime for this interview because it
is the hundredth anniversaryof the motel.
Tell us a little bit about thehistory of the motel, and I'd love
(01:56):
to hear what your favoriteretro motels are.
Okay, those are all great questions.
So we're about to encounter anumber of big anniversaries in the
next couple of years.
We've got the motel in 20, 25,100 years, and of course, next year,
Route 66, which isintrinsically connected with the
motel as well, and the rise ofmotor courts in the car and all of
(02:17):
that.
But the motel itself has afunny little history.
It sort of sprung out of aneed, like so much of the roadside
architecture that's in my book.
It sprung out of the need andan opportunity presented by the widespread
use of the car.
People were traveling in theirautomobiles in the 1920s.
They're hopping into theirModel Ts and.
And they're going out there.
(02:38):
And these are adventurouspeople, because if you're a motor
car tourist in the early 20sor late teens, I mean, you're really.
You're not dealing with a lotof paved roads.
You're dealing with a lot ofcomplicated travel.
And researching thisappearance, I. I found this photo
on the Library of Congresssite of a.
Of a, I believe, like a ModelT or some car like that on the very
(02:59):
edge of a rocky road on the precipice.
And there's this one guybehind the wheel there.
And you just know it's acertain kind of person that undertakes
this.
So these were very, very hardytourists and adventurers who wanted
to get a taste for the Americathat they could not experience by
taking a train and paying allthat money and then staying in a
(03:19):
fancy hotel.
In downtown Flagstaff or wherever.
No, they wanted to see America.
And the only way they couldget there was with these cars.
And they were happy to pitch a tent.
That, of course, came with problems.
And so eventually these.
These auto camps emerged thatwere a step above simply, you know,
sleeping in your backseat ofyour car or in a little tent right
(03:42):
next to your car.
And by 19, by the mid-20s,there was clearly an opportunity
for something more sophisticated.
You were starting to seecabins emerge in cabin communities
where you could at least stayinside and kind of a glorified lean
to, but at least you wereinside and protected from the elements.
But by 1925, a fellow by thename of Arthur Heinemann, very creative
(04:04):
man, he's thinking bigger.
He's thinking about creating a.
Not just one, but a chain ofwhat they begin to call motels, which
is a portmanteau of the wordmotor car and hotel, A motel.
And of course, that fits morenicely on a neon sign than motor,
hotel or whatever else.
And so In January of 1925,there's an article in, I believe,
(04:29):
the Los Angeles Times thatfirst describes this vision for this
motel chain and talks aboutnumerous locations that will be opening
up between San Diego and Seattle.
Well, it turns out that onlyone opens, but it's a very significant
one, and it opens on December12th of 1925.
So I.
(04:50):
Now that we're having thisconversation, I'm thinking this is
a great day to be in San Luis Obispo.
That is where the MilestoneMotor Inn, this motel opens.
And eventually it is calledthe Motel Inn, and it is heralded
as the very first motel.
What makes it a motel?
Well, you know, those cabinsare no longer cabins, per se.
(05:10):
Now you're starting to see asituation where there are rooms,
you know, and people canactually stay in a place with running
water.
You are greeted when youarrive by a bellhop who makes sure
that you are taken care of.
You have a place to park your car.
This particular motel camewith the garages, which is kind of
cool.
Those.
(05:30):
Those eventually went away,and you can have this whole wonderful
experience.
So some of the comforts of ahotel, but also the practicality
of being right by the highway,staying in a safe room with running
water and electricity.
These rooms came with radiosand even telephones, although I can't
imagine making a telephonecall in those days.
(05:52):
The toll charges on that wouldhave been crazy.
But whatever, suddenly youhave an experience, and it wasn't
that expensive.
$50 to $3 at the verybeginning for a night in one of these
places.
So.
So versus the traditional ideaof planning a whole trip and staying
at a hotel for a week andspending all this money here.
You can come for the night andyou have a safe place to stay.
Your car is taken care of,you're taken care of, and you're
(06:15):
on your way.
And so that very first one wasin San Luis Obispo.
Remnants of that motor innstill exist.
The motel itself closed backin 1991, but there is an adjacent
lodging and place called, Ibelieve, called the Apple Farm.
And they own the one, thecomplex and what's left of it.
(06:36):
Most of it has beendemolished, but there is still a
wall left from portion of thelodging area.
And there's also the mainoffice area with its Spanish tower,
a bell tower.
You can actually still go toSan Luis Obispo and see the traces
of what was the very firstmotel, which I think is very cool.
Hyneman's vision of a.
Of a chain under his ownershipalong the west coast did not materialize.
(07:01):
He was thinking of a motelevery about 150 or so miles, which
was about what you could hopeto get in a day's travel back then,
given the state of roads andcars and that era.
And.
But that wasn't to be.
But the motel idea was out there.
The story goes that he triedto trademark the motel copyright
(07:22):
the concept, was not able to.
And soon there were many, manyimitators, motor courts and motels
that were beginning to prop upall around the country.
And to me, what made the lateriterations, but not much later iterations,
so unique were they.
The fact that they weren'tunique, they were standardized.
(07:44):
And so you knew if you weregoing to a Howard Johnson's, if you
were going to a Holiday Inn,you would get the same amenities.
The room would be clean, itwould be a certain look.
And back then, standardizationwas very sexy, right?
Oh, absolutely.
I mean, this was a time when,you know, you've got families travel
by the 1940s and certainly bythe 1950s, in the aftermath of World
(08:08):
War II, you've got the GIsflushed with money and education
and they're starting their families.
Technology, science,organization, all of this is highly
prized in society.
And people want reliableexperiences when they're on the road
already by this point, by the50s, the dawn of the Howard Johnson's,
(08:28):
the motel portion anyway.
And the Holiday Inns motelshave been around at this point for
20, 30 years.
And even by then, they'realready starting to get an unsavory
reputation, right?
Their Open design, which was avirtue in the very beginning, becomes
a problem.
You can now sort of likeanyone can go in and out.
You can avoid having to dealwith the front desk.
You're not protected by theinterior hallway.
(08:49):
It's exposed.
And unseemly.
Things begin to happen at motels.
And by 1960, of course, we'vegot the Bates Motel and Psycho.
And so these entrepreneursemerge by the 50s that have the answers
for Americans.
And Holiday Inn, with itsbeautiful, stunning, great sign,
that gorgeous, massive neonsign that became the symbol of the
(09:10):
chain and was widely imitatedall around the country, you know,
emerges.
And Howard Johnson's twobecomes a place where you can not
only go and enjoy a safe placeto stay at night, but you also have
a very, very fine restaurantas well.
In fact, it began as a.
As a hospitality, as arestaurant business from a drugstore
in the mid-1920s.
(09:31):
So it's funny how you see thatevolution from auto camps to motels
to then these.
These chains, all in thecourse of about 30 years.
And so I gotta ask you, if youcould only go to one motel in the
United States this year, whathas the best retro spirit?
Okay, There are some realcompetitors for this, for this title.
(09:52):
You know, like the BlueSwallow in Tucumcari is along Route
66 in New Mexico, is atreasure and beautifully maintained.
There are so many of thesethat I'm a big fan of, and many of
them have been sort ofupscaled as boutique motels.
So they're a little nicer thanthey would have been back in the
day.
But that said, if I have tochoose one, it's got to be the Madonna
(10:12):
Inn.
We're back in San Luis Obispo,midway between San Francisco and
LA and the wonderful fantasyland created by Alex and Phyllis
Madonna.
You've never been to theMadonna Inn, and I think listeners
of your.
Of your show may have.
I certainly suspect they mayknow of it.
But if they haven't had theexperience, no amount of writing
or talking or examining ofphotos or videos or influencer videos
(10:37):
will do it justice.
You must go, of course.
The sign is absolutely stunning.
But once we get beyond that,the public spaces are something to
behold.
You've got this dining roomthat's a sea of pink leather banquettes.
Even the bathrooms are extraordinary.
There is.
In the men's room, if you arenot a man, you can sort of like,
(10:57):
ask for permission or say,hey, is it safe?
You should go inside becausethere's a waterfall urinal.
So the public.
I went in.
You made him.
You're crazy looking.
You gotta.
You just gotta do it.
You gotta go in incoming, youknow, and.
But the rooms are the big show there.
There's 110 of them and theyeach have like, different themes.
I've stayed in a couple.
(11:18):
I've never stayed in the.
The infamous.
The caveman room, which issomething out of prehistoric history.
There was once actually a roomthat was based on the Flintstones
that got them into troublewith Hanna Barbera.
And that was.
They had to remove theFlintstones imagery from the room.
But each room has adistinction, design and look and
feel.
And the Madonna's put realtremendous amount of effort into
(11:40):
making sure that rooms didn'trepeat that each one was unique.
And when you're staying there,you have the pleasure of being in
your own room, but you'retrying to catch a look at the other
rooms as well.
And in the morning, if you see the.
The.
The cleaning staff at work,you're like, hey, do you mind if
I can take a peek?
You also use one of the firstthings in your book, and I should
(12:00):
say this is a book that isfilled with photos that has histories
of many of the places it talksabout in all of the states.
You give one entire chapter toCalifornia just because it has so
much retro.
And when you say retro, youmean 30s through what era?
Yeah, it's a good questionbecause, you know, retro.
(12:21):
The more appropriate wordmight be vintage because retro tends
to be a modern distillation ofsomething that has the vibe of the
past.
But retrologist and retrosounds a lot better than vintageologist
or.
Or whatever.
But to me, yes, I think mostof the places in the book, earliest
ones are from the 20s and 30s,and they continue right on up until,
(12:43):
I would say the, The.
The old.
The newer ones are probably70s and 80s, although I celebrate
places that are.
That that were built yesterdayif they have a retro spirit or have
a roadside Americanasensibility to them.
And there are places in thebook that were constructed just in
the past decade that have that.
That vibe and understand thatvernacular and those marketing techniques
(13:08):
that made these places sospecial at mid century.
And they're doing it again andthey're enjoying great success.
Not to go on a bit of a detourhere, but Buc EE's I think, is an
extraordinary example of.
It's a.
You know, these conveniencestore gas stations that you'll find
that are spreading.
They began in Texas in the 80sand they've been spreading throughout
the country, mostly on theeast coast, but that they will.
(13:30):
You'll see them, I'm sure,farther west and also in the south
central area for sure.
And they use a lot of the samemarketing techniques as classic roadside
attractions like Wall Drug orSouth of the Border, building anticipation
through a network ofbillboards along the highway so that
when you finally get there,you just have to pull over.
(13:50):
You have no choice.
You want to see that cutelittle character.
You can gas up, use cleanbathrooms, pick up good food.
It's, it's really a veryinteresting thing and it's a fairly
novel concept.
Buc EE's first got on my radarin 2022 and now I'm obsessed with
it.
Well, it sounds like they tookthe formula created by Wall Drug.
(14:13):
Wall Drug.
Tell about the folks movingthere at the height of the depression
and what they needed to do andhow they did it.
It's so interesting, it wasalmost an act of madness.
Imagine taking your youngfamily, Ted Husted and his wife and
little Billy their son, andthey buy this dusty old drugstore
in Wall, South Dakota andthere's not much in the town.
(14:36):
And their family and friendsare trying to dissuade them from
making this potentially familyand life destroying decision, but
they decide they want to, theywant to make a go of it, they want
to give it a shot.
And they give themselves, youknow, five years to see whether they
can.
They pull this off.
And by 1936, things aren'tgoing that hot.
And his wife comes up with theidea of putting a sign by the nearby
(14:58):
highway where they can hearcars sort of whizzing by a sign that
promises free ice water.
Free ice water.
You know, if you just pullover at Wall Drug and they put that
sign out there and the carsstart pulling over right away, the
demand is almost immediate.
And of course people aren'tjust going to stop there for the
ice water.
(15:18):
If they have, they're going topick up food, they're going to have
ice cream, they're going topick up a prescription or something.
And so they begin to build abusiness, an empire of sorts, a roadside
empire there in the littletown of Wall.
But it was all, it all beganby simply a clever idea of marketing,
which was not that clever per se.
It was a clever application ofan idea that already existed.
(15:42):
Burma Shave, of course, haddone even before that had been using
roadside signage withsequential signs that told a little
story, encouraging people topick up this now obscure brand of
shaving cream.
You know, there were othercompanies, Mail Pouch Tobacco, that
they weren't using signs, butthey were using the Sides of barns
(16:02):
that were visible from roads to.
To attract interest in their product.
So it was a smart applicationof an idea that was out there, brilliantly
executed.
They assumed these signs weregoing up on either side of the road.
I first encountered Wall Drugon a road trip to Mount Rushmore,
which was part of the successof this place.
It was coming up at a timethat Mount Rushmore was being carved,
(16:25):
but nevertheless.
And of course the badlandswere near there as well.
But.
But when I first began to seethese billboards, I was instantly
hooked and pulling over andtaking pictures of them.
And when I finally got there,I must say I never had a more delicious
glass of ice water.
So, I mean, this kind ofmarketing really, really works.
(16:45):
And you see different examplesof this all throughout the country.
Yeah, yeah.
In the very front of the bookyou introduce the concept of roadside
giants.
Yes.
What are roadside giants?
And give us some good examplesof them.
Well, a number of them.
There's like different, Isuppose, categories of this.
(17:07):
Let's talk about the giants themselves.
The big.
They're known as differentthings as giant men or muffler men.
And they have differentiterations and different guises.
You know, they come, they comein the form.
There's.
There are male and femaleversions as well.
And they were manufactured bya company, now defunct company in
Venice, California, known asInternational Fiberglass.
(17:29):
Made of fiberglass.
And the reason that mostpeople call them muffler men is because
they were often outside ofauto repair shops or muffler repair
shops.
And they're holding a muffler.
And the gentleman is, usuallyhas a.
Is a rather stocky, you know,lantern jawed.
Here's a gentleman with a finebeard, a cap, a uniform of some sort
(17:50):
reflecting the work being doneat the facility where he has been
installed.
And he's usually holding aproduct that is connected to the
business.
So it's a muffler.
But of course, theapplications across the country that
you will see are many and varied.
And these spread like wildfireacross the country.
In the 60s and 70s.
(18:10):
There were differentiterations of them all other brands
as well.
There were the Texaco gasolinegiants as well.
There's a very fun one inAloha, Oregon that has been repurposed
into a giant bunny rabbitHarvey Marina, which is very fun,
but you'll see differentiterations of them.
In Dallas, I photographed oneat Ken's Muffler that looks like
(18:32):
the Mad Men in character.
Alfred E. Newman, you know,sort of Mortimer Nerd.
But there he is holding amuffler they're all over the country.
But their time in the sun wasin the 60s and 70s and the company
went out and they began to vanish.
There's one near and dear tomy heart is up in Elmsford, New York,
(18:53):
at what used to be an AMACOstation and then later became a BP
station.
And his colors changed fromthe red and blue of AMACO to the,
you know, to the yellow andgreen of bp.
But he is still there and heintrigued me.
And I as a kid figured that hewas the only one.
He was just there, Elmsford.
And so when I began to seeversions of him elsewhere around
(19:16):
the country, it was a greatsort of revelation.
I think a lot of people whoget into this stuff have these same
moments of discovery that thisstuff is that you're seeing in your
immediate environs as a child is.
Is far more widespread.
And giant men and roadsidegiants are having a great revival
right now.
There's a lot of interest in them.
A lot of it has been poweredby a gentleman named Joel Baker,
(19:37):
who began to document themonline and is now started the American
Giant Museum, which is inAtlanta, Illinois, which you have
to visit.
It's got plenty of examples ofrestored giants, great created exhibit
inside.
And there are other.
There's another giant in townas well.
A muffler man holding a hot dog.
(19:57):
And he used to be up inCicero, Illinois, a Paul Bunyan.
Paul Bunyan hot dogs.
And he ended up down inAtlanta, Illinois.
So that's a great stop.
So there are those very quickly.
Do you think that it was thedevelopment of fiberglass that made
these things possible and thuschanged the culture?
(20:19):
Because these are massivestructures that had to be fairly
light.
Right.
Because they're often on roofs.
They're on roofs or they're on.
You know, a big stiff windcould knock them over.
Right, exactly.
And I think it is.
I think part of what maderoadside travel so interesting in
the 50s and 60s was the factthat you saw these.
(20:40):
These architects and theseurban designers, these planners,
finding clever ways of usingtechnological advances to create
interesting experiences andinteresting attractions.
Right.
I mean, you see this a lot as well.
And just like the differentmaterials that, that you can now
more widely and more easily manufacture.
(21:01):
I know later on we're going totalk perhaps a little bit about Googie,
but you see that, Matt?
You see that.
Let's talk about it now.
What is googy?
Googie is a kind ofarchitecture that is sort of like.
I like to call it concretized optimism.
You know, I mean, it'sArchitectural optimism.
These are these buildings,they emerge initially in Southern
California.
(21:21):
And the Googie name isactually taken after what was a coffee
shop named Googie's inSouthern California that used these
principles.
So what are these principles?
They are for certain designelements that are found in most Googie
buildings.
Zigzag roofs or pointy roofs,massive plate glass windows, you
know, floor to ceiling thatlet you look into the restaurant,
(21:42):
which itself has thesespectacular lamps and leather booths
and rock walls and plants andfloor and, you know, all of this
sort of stuff that's going in inside.
Like you as the customer, asthe patron become part of the architecture.
And of course, the signageoutside uses imaginative, quirky
(22:03):
typeface.
There are sometimes towersthat rise out of the building where
the sign is applied that arevery, very dramatic.
When you see a Googiebuilding, you kind of know it.
And again, technologicaladvances allowed us to begin to build
buildings like this.
I mean, these were thebuildings of the future, right?
These were.
This was the way that we were going.
50s.
(22:24):
You start to see this in the50s and you'll see construction of
gookie buildings into the 60sand maybe even a little bit beyond.
But it's really petering outby the 60s.
By the, by the mid to late 60sthere is beginning to be the beginning
of the bland era that we'resort of in that I feel people are
now kind of trying to rebuffwhere you have a highway beautification
(22:46):
movement.
And local zoning boards aretrying to tamp down on the installation
of neon signs and they want torestrain the look and feel of buildings
because they're just a bit too much.
And they're trying to bring asense of decorum and they don't want
all that riff raff from thehighway in their towns.
And so people sort of turn onthis almost as quickly as they were
(23:08):
intoxicated and embraced.
Embraced it just a decade orso earlier.
It's really quite fascinating.
But you see examples of gookiebuildings not just in California,
they're everywhere.
And one of the greatestexamples right here on the east coast
is head on down to Wildwood,New Jersey, where the style there
is known as the Doo Wop style.
So kind of adapted to themusic of the late 50s and early 60s.
(23:31):
But it is unmistakably Googie.
And those buildings could justas easily be in California.
Huh?
I'm hoping to see some.
Are any at the Jersey Shore?
Oh, absolutely, yes.
When I think of the JerseyShore, there's sort of the center,
the central part of the JerseyShore, Right.
And that area.
But really it is worth makingit all the way down to the southern
end to enjoy the wildwoods,because that's where the greatest
(23:54):
concentration of thosebuildings are.
If there's one that I thinkwe're talking about favorite motels.
The Caribbean in WildwoodCrest is exceptional with its beautiful
cantilevered floors and theold plastic jersey palms, as they
call them, the plastic palmtrees and sign, which is just extraordinary.
(24:14):
I mean, there is just a.
Again, concretized optimism.
You see that building and you just.
It puts a spring in your stepand it puts a sense of excitement
and joy.
And I have stayed there acouple of times and really do love
it.
And there are some other greatexamples of that style, endangered,
by the way.
We've been losing them.
They've been dropping likeflies since the 90s.
And there are preservationistefforts underway, of course, the
(24:38):
Duoc Preservation League, notably.
But still, when a place isbuilt for commerce, it often falls
in the pursuit of neweriterations of commerce, sadly.
And we've lost.
We keep losing them, sadly.
Right before I lose you, westarted talking about motels and
chains.
There's a lot of fascinatinghistory in the book about restaurant
(25:02):
chains, some of which are goneand some of which are still very
much part of our lives today.
Like Dairy Queen.
I loved who the Queen is inDairy Queen.
Will you tell our listeners?
Absolutely.
There's a story then.
What is the Dairy Queen?
The Dairy Queen is, the storygoes, is the cow.
Right?
The cow from which all thewonderful ice cream can ultimately
(25:25):
be be traced.
Dairy Queen itself began inJoliet, Illinois in June 22, 1940.
And I marked the day everyyear on social media with a selection
of photos of what I liked.
The legacy Dairy Queen stores,which are the stores that opened
in the 40s and 50s and 60sthat have still survived.
(25:48):
The corporation has beenputting a lot of pressure on some
of these legacy stores to sortof update their look and move over
to the grill and chill concept.
But good number of thesestores still survive and they're
really worth checking outbecause for me, Dairy Queen is like
the.
The ultimate manifestation ofa benign chain, if you will.
(26:08):
They tend to be the classicones, these little, little ice cream
huts in the middle of town.
Small building, neon sign witha little askew ice cream cone with
a little curl on top.
And it's so deeply connectedwith people's daily lives, whether
it be just stopping there fora little ice cream after work or
after the game on Saturdaynight, or during courtship rituals
(26:30):
of one's adolescent years.
Dairy Queen is sort of always there.
It just becomes part ofAmerican life.
And, and so when I am anywherein the country and I know I'm within
easy reach of a small townDairy Queen, I'm right there.
To me, it's just, it's justsuch a nice slice of Americana.
So you discussed your online presence.
How can our listeners find you online?
(26:53):
If they.
And they should get the booktoo, the Great American Retro Road
Trip.
But online where?
Are you sure?
So you'll find me on Instagram.
Use the handle just my name,Rolando Pujol.
You can follow me there for my adventures.
And I've got over 2000pictures and stories there, so you
can go back over more than a decade.
(27:14):
I'm also on substack, GoogleVitrologist substack, and it'll come
right up.
And, and, and on other socialplatforms as well.
But, but I'm easy to find andI'm always posting and sharing.
Well, from this former historymajor in college, I'm going to ask
you a philosophical questionto end you've talked about the joy
(27:37):
that a lot of the design ofthese places brings.
And in the book you dig deepinto the history, which I think tells
us a lot about Americanhistory, learning about how these
companies came to be and whathistoric forces shaped them, like
the emergence of the highwaysystem and things of that sort of.
(27:57):
Why is it important to havethese buildings in our lives?
Why is it important to havethese glimpses of times gone by?
Yeah, you know, to me there'snothing more important than understanding
how we got here and where wecame from.
And these places are the mostvivid manifestations of our history.
(28:19):
And without them, we don'thave a certain we talked about joy,
but also texture and contextfor our lives.
There has been this, thisawful trend over the past couple
of decades of architecturalhomogenization where all chain restaurants,
which used to have verydistinct looks and feel have become.
(28:40):
They all look the same.
They're kind of these squarelittle gray boxes.
The fun is gone.
The interest is gone.
Having that thosearchitectural cues of our past simply
adds richness and joy to our experience.
And it helps us understand howwe got here and perhaps can also
inspire us in so far what kindof world we want to live in.
Because this is really abouthaving, having experiences and getting
(29:03):
to know.
For me, anyway, travel isabout having experiences and getting
to know your.
Your fellow human.
And the more that there areinteresting historic places that
can draw us somewhere and it'snot just a, a fancy hotel or A beachside
resort.
Nothing wrong with those things.
But there are other ways to travel.
I think the better we are, andit can sort of like, I think at a
(29:24):
time of a lot of division, itcan unite us if we, you know, really
begin to explore the countryand get to.
To visit these places.
Because behind all of theseplaces are stories and people.
And that is really, I thinkthe most important part of travel
is.
Is.
Is the people who.
Who create and manage and runthese places and live in these places.
(29:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Beautifully put.
And it's such a fun book.
Many, many thanks forappearing on the Fromer Travel Show.
What a pleasure to be here.
I only wish we had more time.
Maybe I'll.
Maybe I'll come back again.
That'd be great.
All right, that is it for thisweek's show.
I thank you so much for listening.
And to those who aretraveling, may I wish you a hearty
bon voyage.
(30:18):
Sour candy on the table Lazyafternoons in your sweatpants Watching
cable well it feels so faraway all the channels seamlessly
same Trying to remember allthe songs we like to play Cuz those
(30:44):
lazy afternoons don't come sofrequently these days oh it's been
so long and I cannot help butwonder Are you ever coming home?
I like you with your sourcandle be in the boat house on the
lake oh but I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate, I hate, I hate the
(31:10):
way it takes.
I can't.
Get you off of my mind Lookingout, out the window where we spent
so much of our time Cuz I missthe way it felt.
(31:37):
But I.
Guess you can't control thosedamn cards with Babe I know the both
of us are happy when we'refree but would it be so hard to find
your freedom here with me?
It's been so long and I cannothelp but wonder Are you ever coming
(32:03):
home?
I like you with your sourcandy in the boathouse on the lake
But I hate, I hate, I hate, Ihate, I hate.
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