Vintage roadside Americana

  Driving down New Tampa Highway we've passed some beautiful old motel signs. I've always had a soft spot for vintage americana and yesterday we made a quick stop to take a few photos.

I love the faded colors and texture. They're just hauntingly beautiful.

There is also a still operating Drive Inn theater close by. We'll definitely go out for a movie some night.

...maybe not the Lego movie though.

It's a great little stretch of highway, visually.  In addition to the signs and drive inn, I also spotted the fabled mythical land of Shangri-La! Unlike fabled it's not in the Himalayas. It's on New Tampa Highway!

"Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, and particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangri-La 

  I didn't meet any of the almost immortal inhabitants of this mythical utopia, nor did I dare go investigate further as there was a no trespassing sign ...which is probably the reason Shangri-La  continues to remain shrouded in mystery.


  There was a cheerfully colored vintage mobile home by the entrance.




 I really like these old trailers for some reason. They have a kind of a charm to them (...and they go well with plastic lawn flamingos. See previous post.).
  I remembered seeing a great looking peach colored one, but as per usual I couldn't exactly remember where... My husband decided we could go drive around a bit to see if we'd come across it.

  We headed toward Plant City, which is one of our favorite destinations for sunday drives, in case I had spotted it on the side of the road in that direction.  We kept our eyes peeled for the mobile home but couldn't find it. We did pass an old motel with a really haunting look to it.

There were some nice vintage cars on a near by lot.  My husband snapped a few shots of them.

We decided to cease quest and pop by my husband's parents, abandoning the search for the elusive peach colored trailer for the time being.