Still MORE Old Articles -- Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and BEYOND

Here's another batch of old articles. This one actually has articles I LIKE in it.

 This first article, from 2013, was done after I had already left The Fresno Bee. It was just one of the freelance ones I do from time to time. I was going to Las Vegas anyway, so why NOT see what is new there and write about it?  There was a lot of neat stuff in this article.

The minus5 ice bar was novel (but Erich, my best pal and travelling companion. You'll see his name peppered about here and in some of the other articles if I needed a quote from someone and there was no one available. Ha!), wasn't too thrilled with it. Eli Roth's Goretorium haunted house attraction (sadly already history...) was okay. I'm glad I got to experience it. I really dug the bar it had. The KISS mini-golf...whatever. Not my thing. I loved the Neon Museum and the collection of vintage neon signs, That was so cool. Frankie's Tiki Bar...Oooooo. After visiting it that one time, it became my all-time fave. The Mob Attraction...was okay, but the Mob Museum was AWESOME and so immersive. Take a read, if you'd like. (Can you read it? Are the pages big enough? Hmm.)

 There's also a little "I, Spy" bonus on this first page of the article. Erich and I had our photos taken in the minus5 ice bar. We sent to friends (which included my former co-workers at The Bee) while we were on the trip. Weeks later, when the story came out, there we were, in the lower left-hand corner. OOPS! That was so not planned and not expected. I didn't mind so much, but erich was not pleased. Oh well. It was a "cool" experience.

This next article was a companion piece to the Vegas one above. If you drive to Las Vegas from Fresno, you pass by the tiny town of Baker, which is out in the middle of nowhere. But if you do drive that way, a stop is a must. There are some neat roadside attractions there that are fun. Here was my look at five of them (including the mysterious and enigmatic Zzyzx Road, just a little west of the town).

Here is an article on Palm Springs. It didn't come out as good as i had hoped, but...whatever. I got paid for it. My friends Bob Ruo and Thom Racina are quoted in it. They live there. I also mentioned the artist SHAG and his store. Ha!

This was a fun article to work on that required a lot of research. It was on the 50th anniversary and history of Storyland, a little kiddie amusement park of sorts here in Fresno. I was still in nursing school while I worked on this. There was so much cool stuff about the place I dug up. I hope the article came out okay. 

Here is a video I made at the 50th anniversary, if you'd like to see it. I shows more more vintage pictures and concept drawings than appear in the article.

This was fun to do, but also a lot of work. It combined several things I like to do when I go to Los Angeles (visit celebrity graves, see filming locations, go to has-been celebrity shows) mixed in with a few popular seasonal attractions (Universal's Halloween Horror Nights and the Halloween Costume Carnaval (spelled that way on purpose) in West Hollywood. 

Thanks for visiting.

CHEERS!