I got the “Vulcan Mind Meld” — Primanti Bros. Style (the Anti Lent special) Pastrami, corned beef, slices of pickles, Swiss, provolone, slaw, skinny fries, hots,
tomatoes, and Thousand Island dressing on toasted rye, and some of the root beer they brew on site. How could you pass up a sandwich like that?

And it turned out to be a MONSTER!

Really delicious, with the appropriate amount of pickles (a lot), a really hot kick from the peppers and a super texture from the skinny fries. It was a pastrami sandwich that started hanging out with the wrong crowd and got an attitude.

Pleasureland RV Camping Center Richmond Highway

Anyone need a CB radio? A VCR? Apparently not. This Zenith sales and repair shop is now closed. Looks like it’s in a former gas station.

Fairview motel

Alexandria Motel

Broken Arrow

St. Clair ghost. Folded Plate

Virgina Lodge

Know what’s great kids? Drinking and driving! Especially when you’re talking large trucks! One stop shopping doesn’t get any easier.

Here are some shots, mostly Rt. 1 in VA, with some additional ones in Alexandria and the District that I took yesterday.

Colonial architecture

The Real Deal: Woodlawn- built between 1800 and 1805

The Rt. 1 Roadside Versions
Currently a Wachovia Bank. Built 1941.

Hybla Valley Vet. Built 1948.

Suburban Drive In Cleaners. Colonial meets mid century modernist architecture. 1950s?

Barn inspired
El Amanecer. Gambrel Roofed little place. Looks like it may have been an ice cream stand or something of the like in a former life.

El Pollo Primero. Straight up barn style right down to the weathervane.

Islas Restaurant and bar. Not sure what to really classify this one as, other than roadside mish-mash.

Mansard

The Peking Duck: Detached chimney, mansard roof and front porch give this place a Southern vibe in my eyes. I want it to be a BBQ place or some kind of southern family restaurant- the kind with sweet tea in enormous glasses.

Looks like the Peking Duck has been in the building since 1982.

Pseudo-ranch.

Ranch House Restaurant. Looks pretty vacant. Windows follow the traditional diner layout.

Tudor

Midcentury Modern

Folded plate and concrete I beams

Rhode Island Reds Cafe

Hamlin Liquor Store

Tivoli Theater

Bacon Funeral home. Not a fantastic sign. Just a fantastic name.

Nice painting on this one. Take a look- the two sides aren’t identical. Same image, but all the elements are shifted around a tiny bit. These are painted directly on, not just one image done and reproduced.

This 1950s Kullman dinette recently reopened as the Island Hut. They’ve done a lot of work on it- not top notch, but it looks a lot less trashed than it did. The color bands between the stainless are painted 2x4s, the bottom stainless has been replaced with some kind of plastic, as has the curved section over the door. The top stainless trim like some kind of hardware store jerry-rig. But I have to say I much prefer it to just stucco or stoning over the whole place like they could.

http://popeleighey1940.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope-Leighey_House

We visited this diminutive 1200 square foot Usonian today. The most striking thing to me about the house is its 6’8″ ceilings and pullman corridor width halls. This manipulation of space made the 11-1/2 foot ceiling-ed living room seem enormous.

There’s a lot of Usonian and Wright influence in a house in Rockville, which I’m still trying to find out more about.

We ran across some interesting stucco moderne architecture today. It has interesting stacking volumes.

This first one , a 2628 sq ft, 2 bedroom house on Flower Avenue was built in 1935.

The second, just around the corner, was built in 1938.

Great old Federal Hill rowhouses in a state of decrepitude. I wonder how long these have been vacant? It would be interesting to get inside and have a look around.

My dad and I took a day trip up to Baltimore today, with our final destination being Bertha’s in Fells Point for some Mussels and music by our friend Paul Wingo, who has played guitar there every Tuesday night for around thirty years.

Spotted a lot of good signage this trip. With better weather and more daylight, we probably would have been able to photograph a lot more.

>