The American Motor Lodge

There is something beautiful about vintage motels and Polaroid film. It's like they were made for each other. In my travels across the U.S., I've made it my goal to try and capture and preserve the great American family vacation culture. Reminiscing about times growing up when these motor lodges were the place where memories were made. Back then times were simpler and customer service was about quality, not just quantity. These motor lodges possessed a certain individuality to them that you don't see anymore in the cookie cutter style hotels of the modern era. Among that individuality was the sign that posed as a "first impression" of sorts. This sign was something that the customer would see coming down the road and depending on how unique and individualistic your sign was could determine whether or not a family would pull over for the night and also how they would remember their stay. These iconic motor lodges are fading out of existence, but the photos that I hope to show of them still hold a lingering breath of the original spirit of travel in the mid-century United States.

Stats: Polaroid Colorpack III, Polaroid 690 Instant Peel-apart film
San Pedro Avenue, San Antonio, Texas, October 2000

Garish: The Cutting Room Floor

Neon signs from Earl Abel's fabulous restaurant and coffee shop

Broadway, San Antonio, Texas, October 2002

One of the many things for which I am most thankful, now that Thanksgiving in America is over, is the great diner food at San Antonio's fabulous Earl Abel's.  A fixture of San Antonio dining for almost a century, so were its customers at its old location, at the corner of Broadway and Hildebrand.  

It was the kind of place that had its last facelift sometime in the late 1950s or early 60s, and where you could find comfort food freshly cooked, along with an amazing selection of scrumptious pies and cakes.  As the Welsh say, "lush."

I don't remember them ever having a "wall of fame," but everybody who was somebody stopped by the legendary eatery.  The most famous story about Earl Abel's was when Democrat congressman, Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez ate there.  A fellow diner called him a "communist," and Henry B. apparently wailed on him. True story (I think).  Who knows?  It's fun to tell.

This photograph was taken on Polaroid's legendary (and, also defunct) 669 film, a nighttime double exposure, with my trust Colorpack III camera.  For a tripod, I leaned against one of the convenient telephone poles which lined the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

Sadly, Earl Abel's -- the most beautiful example of Art Deco architecture still surviving in San Antonio -- met the wrecking ball in 2006.  It was bought out by Red McCombs, a car dealer who throws a lot of money around to local charities to make a big show of how magnanimous he is.  Instead of following his policy of benign neglect that he employed previously as owner of the Minnesota Vikings, McCombs razed Earl Abel's to make way for yet another boring high-rise.  Real class.

Fortunately, the Earl Abel's name was bought out by the Elias Brothers restauranteurs and though, architecturally, it's but a shadow of its former self, you can sate your appetite for lush food at its new location at 1201 Austin Highway.

Here, kitty kitty!

Jane Eyre, San Antonio, Texas, July 1997

Pictured is our lovely cat Jane, who was born in late 1996.  We named her "Jane Eyre," as she was orphaned.  She suffered a horrendous mauling under the wheels of a garbage truck, but held on for life, and was nursed back to health by a dear friend who worked as a veterinary assistant.  She was adopted soon after her recovery.

She is still quite an active cat, going on fourteen and living a lazy life of eating, sleeping, and protecting her territory.