postcard: Best Western Space Age Lodge, Gila Bend, AZ
It's Memorial Day weekend, 2008. The NASA spacecraft "Phoenix" is about to land on Mars today after a 240,000,000-mile journey. That's some vacation trip. What's Martian-speak for "are we there yet?" and "just hold it for a few more exits."
In Gila Bend, Arizona, just off historic Route 66, you can visit a little bit of outer space yourself at the Best Western SpaceAge Lodge. Don't worry: you may have left Earth behind but the lodge promises "sparking clean rooms / oversize beds /color cable TV with HBO, ESPN / In-room coffee /24-hour restaurant serving American and Mexican cuisine." I picked up this card in person while tooling around with Chris in a red Dodge Neon rental on our way to San Diego from Tucson.
In 1998 the Lodge had some earth-bound problems: The Space Age Restaurant, which was built in the '60s during the space race, caught fire 10/21/98, when a neon sign sho
rted out and the roof caught on fire. The hotel next door wasn't damaged, but the restaurant was nearly burned to the ground.
A banner was placed across the structure, informing passers-by that the restaurant had been ATTACKED BY ALIENS. However, all's well that ends well: The Space Age has been resurrected, in most of its former glory. From the outside, it looks the same, flying saucer and all. The inside is more modern, cleaner, but considerably less funky. Returning visitors (none from Mars, unfortunately) report the new murals in the restaurant are interesting, but don't quite measure up to the old ones from the sixties. The outside has been restored, complete with neon and the tacky UFO on the roof.
rted out and the roof caught on fire. The hotel next door wasn't damaged, but the restaurant was nearly burned to the ground.A banner was placed across the structure, informing passers-by that the restaurant had been ATTACKED BY ALIENS. However, all's well that ends well: The Space Age has been resurrected, in most of its former glory. From the outside, it looks the same, flying saucer and all. The inside is more modern, cleaner, but considerably less funky. Returning visitors (none from Mars, unfortunately) report the new murals in the restaurant are interesting, but don't quite measure up to the old ones from the sixties. The outside has been restored, complete with neon and the tacky UFO on the roof.
If anyone makes contact with real Martians I'm sure we'll hear them before we see them, and I'm presuming they'll hear us too. Out in the New Mexico desert is a group of very large radio antennas, 82 feet wide, called, with unquestionable scientific logic, the Very Large Array. The data is combined electronically to give the resolution of a single antenna 22 miles across. It's like holding up a giant microphone to the crackle of the universe, waiting for the first "hello" from somebody besides ourselves -- scary, sure, but a greeting from the cereal-eating Quisp is exciting to think about. Another postcard I picked up on the road out west.
One of the wonderful things about outer space is that we don't know all that much about it, so that it remains a blank canvas for all kinds of artistic imaginings. Albert Einstein may have described how the whole shooting match works, but artists like Lenore Lasher really take us to the outer limits with her spage-age collage from 1989, Quantum Leap.
As my sister Rene writes on the flip, in July 1992, "How cosmic?! That seems to fit my interpretation of this card." The card offers a very humanistic (and colorfully mystical) view of the vastness beyond. So much for the "emptiness of space."It's kind of comforting to know that somewhere out there -- beyond the dazzling Indian, the whirling globes, and sparkling gems -- are bound to be cosmic Burma Shave signs, to entertain us as we spin silently past. If you have to ask what's a Burma Shave sign? you can look it up on that new-fangled internet you youngsters seem to like so much.
Free! Free!
A trip to Mars!
For 900
empty jars
BURMA SHAVE
If a trip
to Mars you earn
remember friend
there's no return
BURMA SHAVE
