Author: Carrie

Another Sunday Funday in Los Angeles

This past Sunday we headed up to Van Nuys for the annual Best of France and Italy car show. This show was basically Ed’s dream – it featured French and Italian cars mostly from the 1950s-1980s. It was not your typical car show! I have learned quite a bit through osmosis just by being with Ed for so long – so I must admit, I really enjoyed it too! Many of the cars you just wouldn’t see here in the States, and we were impressed by the variety and condition of the ones on display!


This little number was one of our favorites – a 70s model Citroen DS21! Ed and & I LOVE these cars. They look so space-age and so unique. Just a bonus that this car was red!

The DS models have these really cool lights on the back and just don’t look like any other car! We’d love to own one, but they are really tough to find stateside, and they are waaay out of the price range!

This is a fun 60s era ad for the Citroen – so space-age!
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Some other favorites were this Caravelle Convertible …

And, who could forget the Renault “Le Car”?!?

Then, as if Ed’s morning couldn’t get any better, he unexpectedly spotted his favorite car ever – an East German communist Trabant! These are extremely rare and even more random – this car had Hungarian plates!

Ed stands happily by the Trabi

After leaving Van Nuys, we decided to do something completely different – we headed down to Culver City to see Sanrio’s Three Apples art exhibition, which was celebrating 35 years of Hello Kitty!

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Hello Kitty was such a staple for girls in my generation growing up … the pencil cases, stickers, lip gloss, you name it – every little girl coveted their Hello Kitty stuff, and she’s certainly maintained her staying power through the ages! Three Apples was cool because in addition to showcasing TONS of HK merchandise throughout the years, they also had a lot of favorite low-brow artists showing work inspired by HK. The space was impressive and we had an awesome time!

Here are a few favorite art pieces from the show:

(L): Mermaid w/Hello Kitty by Gary Baseman, (R): Awesome Velvet Hello Kitty Elvis!


Tara McPherson’s HK piece


Loved the colors and “classical” twist to this one.


Crazy Lady Gaga Hello Kitty Portraits!


A darker side to HK

As I mentioned earlier, the show also did an entire product retrospective. All the stuff they had there was amazing! Our pictures don’t really do it justice – there were entire rooms just filled to the brim with stuff – but here are a few:

Notice the dress made of stuffed HK’s!


An obsolete “plug in” phone I would’ve loved as a kid! And, lots of HK sweet treats.

Just when our day couldn’t have possibly gotten more fun, we had dinner plans with our dear friends Britt & Wade. Wade was making us dinner – and when he cooks, its ALWAYS amazing! He ended up serving a beautiful salad and the tastiest beef stew we’d ever had!

Salad with greens, avocado, yellow and red tomatoes, onions and toasted walnuts = YUM!


An amazing Beef Stew to welcome the fall – who cares if it was 90 degrees that day? :)

And that concludes another Sunday Fun Day!

Ed on Fox Business News – successfully handles a curve ball!

Ed was asked to appear on Fox Business news again to talk about Ford and future automotive trends this morning. However, once he got to the studio, all Brian Sullivan wanted to talk about were union negotiations with Ford!

It’s a good thing that husband of mine is so smart, maybe he was not as prepared to talk about that, but he did just great! As Ed said this morning after the interview was over, “That’s show biz!”

Check out the video here:

If you have trouble with the video player above, click this link to watch on the Fox Business news site.

Southwest Road Trip Day 5: Painted Desert, Petrified Forest & Route 66

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Leaving Sedona was bittersweet for us – we were anxious to see more of the kitschy Americana ahead that we had planned for the trip, but Sedona ended up being so majestic that it was hard to tear away from the laid-back vibe there! But it was time to go, and this day it was back to Route 66 for awhile, where we’d end up in the furthest eastern destination of the trip – Holbrook, AZ – where we’d finally sleep in a teepee at The Wigwam Motel!

Route 66 Roadside Town #5: WINSLOW
First things first, we had to make a brief stop to pay homage to the town mentioned in The Eagles’ song, Take It Easy …

“Well, I’m a standing on a corner, in Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see …”

So as you can see in the photo, we aren’t the only ones to go to Winslow for this specific reason … :)  Unfortunately, this is about it for Winslow.  Aside from the eagle cleverly perched from the painted window sill above, and the reflection of the flatbed truck painted on the wall … that’s about all there is to do there!

PAINTED DESERT/PETRIFIED FOREST

We kept driving on east to get to the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest. When we arrived, it was apparent that this was quite the stop back in the late 50s/early 60s … Neutra-esque buildings in the National Park and the visitor center made of brick just oozed the boom and enthusiasm of the road-trippers during the middle of the century. It was definitely something we had trouble capturing ourselves, being novice photographers – but we sure did try, though! Eventually, we told ourselves  that we won’t obsess about trying to capture the moment, and instead just absorb it. Here are a few shots:

Route 66 Roadside Town #6: HOLBROOK

So, there was a lot of hype when it came to Holbrook – afterall, this was where we’d be staying at The Wigwam Motel! You can’t get more road trip kitsch than sleeping in a cement teepee, so we were pretty excited. So what if all the Yelp reviews said the guy running things these days is a weird Norman Bates type, or that one guest had a drunk Navajo indian knock on their door in the middle of the night asking for change  – it didn’t really matter to us, as long as we could get a reservation!  So off we went to see what was in store for us!


Things looked pretty good at the beginning – they had old cars parked outside to make it look like the old days, and the teepees looked really fun and cartoonish in person! (This was ours, #10)

Even though the hotel manager was just as weird as expected, we were still a little creeped out, but we decided to have a look inside to see what it looked like. We know you have been waiting, so here is the completely UN-authentic, average and extremely drab interior in all its glory!

No matter, we weren’t there for the interior, just the experience, so we kept our spirits high.  However, as sad as we are to say these words out loud – Holbrook is one freaky town!!! Unfortunately, Holbrook is the prime example of how these Route 66 towns completely died after the freeways were built.  This sad little town, which was once bustling with activity and enthusiasm due to The Mother Road, has been forgotten.  Modern times are harsh in Holbrook – things are so dreary and unkempt that the deterioration is unforgiving on these huge pockets of kitsch.  The people of the town are clearly struggling.  We won’t go into too much detail, but we’ll just say we have a number of stories about various individuals we saw in town.  Strange Rangers! The only way I can even describe it is that being in Holbrook was like being in a David Lynch movie.

We walked down to Butterfield, a SUPER kitschy looking restaurant next door to the Wigwam that looked promising, but despite the RAD windows with fake people silhouettes (see below!), it was 100% weird. We’ll chalk it up to yet ANOTHER EXPERIENCE!!!

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We want to leave our last memories of Holbrook on a positive note, so here are a few pics in honor of the real kitschy gems in town. Holbrook – we know you must’ve been quite something back in the day!

(The Twin Arrows Trading Post was just outside of Holbrook – on your way into town from the west.  We passed by it several times, and it was just too cool not to post!)

A brief interruption in our regularly scheduled programming …

Well, I think I am finally ready to talk about it …

My laptop was dropped. Yeah, it just fell to the ground. I don’t know who got hurt most by the impact – my dearest machine or my beating heart. I’m really not exaggerating – it’s no secret that next to Ed, my mac is the most important thing to me in the world. But the good news is, after crying for a few hours, Ed found a nice place in Mesa, AZ that we could take it to. It’s gonna be okay – everything is salvageable, my girl just needs a new LCD screen.

Yep, it’s gonna hurt, but not as much as a new laptop would! So, blogging on the road is on a hiatus for now. :( But, I get my laptop back on Saturday when we swing back through Mesa on our way home!