Tucumari, N. M. – Restored American motels keep popping up, a witness to the American need to preserve some of the more interesting parts of the American roadside, especially on Route 66. Here, the Safari Motel. Tell the kids it’s the sort of roadside attraction from Pixar’s Cars. The hotelMORE HERE
BELLEAIR, Fla. – G. Michael Harris, Titanic explorer, adventurer and one of the original founders of RMS Titanic, Inc., announced in a press release that his company, WLM, Inc. had made two offers totaling a combined $40 million to Premier Exhibitions as well as Sellers Capital, LLC, whose holdings includeMORE HERE
BRYAN, Ohio – Companies thinking they need a “factory tour” imagine frightening things, including expensive liability insurance, nightmarish staffing costs and other annoying things like fans who love your products. Yes, we do hate those people who love our products! How annoying! We take a different view. Product tours areMORE HERE
The idea that department stores are dead as an idea is disproven by the success of Mast General Stores. Our reader Chris, who was interested in the surviving downtown department stores, wrote us to tell us that Mast had gone into an old empty store, and opened it up. Greenville,MORE HERE
What’s America’s greatest contribution to world culture? It’s our music. And luckily, much of that African American music part of the heritage is alive, in museums and sites across the U.S. Here are some of the top music labels associated with African-American music. We know there are more (think BlackMORE HERE
WINTER HAVEN – Cypress Gardens Adventure Park is thankfully ditching its disastrous foray into becoming a theme park, and will rename itself Cypress Gardens with an adjacent Splash Island Water Park. Cypress Gardens closed on Nov. 17 and was the last day under old ownership for the park. Read theMORE HERE
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS — CSX has decided to send its West Virginia-based Greenbrier Hotel Corporation into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Greenbrier Hotel Corp., a subsidiary of the railroad CSX, is the owner of The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs. As part of the filing, CSX will continue to finance theMORE HERE
DETROIT – We found the rather spectacular website Artificial Owl with some hauntingly beautiful photos of Detroit’s empty Union Station. The site is all about photos of abandoned places. I cannot help but think of the parallels between Detroit’s waste of this great building, and the waste that is theMORE HERE
RICHMOND – Adweek has a Q&A with Virginia’s Gov. Tim Kaine, on the 40th anniversary of the Virginia is for Lovers ad campaign. Great insights into its birth, and where the campaign is going. It’s on their site with ads posted timeline style on their Adfreak blog. Amusing that KaineMORE HERE
It’s 1977, The Great Sign of Holiday Inn beckoned at the roadside. Well, actually, it didn’t beckon, it screamed. BIG arrow pointing into hotel. Very often, each sign had a letter board announcing upcoming meetings and conventions at the hotel. Turn off the Interstate, and into the Holiday Inn. GoodMORE HERE