Charles Phoenix’s Slide of the Week: Wildflowers & Fried Chicken, Antelope Valley, 1955
Wildflowers & Fried Chicken, Antelope Valley, 1955
This almost could’ve been me last weekend. But it isn’t. However, I did eat fried chicken and sat on a rock surrounded by wildflowers. I just didn’t do it at the same time!
I’d never be above wearing a long-sleeved, pointed collar, Navy blue and white shadow plaid shirt with breast pocket flaps, tucked into cuffed, coco-colored gab slacks over argyles and hand-sewn leather slippers. This is, after all, the perfect afternoon ensemble for a gentleman to sit on a rock with a big pot of cold fried chicken in the middle of a field of lupine.
Speaking of chicken… last Friday night I had one of the best fried chicken dinners ever! I wined and dined with festive friends at the Hill-top House Supper Club at 3500 N. Rancho Drive in Las Vegas. This place has to be the last honest, old, mom and pop cocktail lounge-dining room combos left in “Jackpot Cityâ€.
It was on the darker side of twilight time as we pulled past the Hill-top House Supper Club’s aging, plain-jane-yet-seductive neon sign entering the half-empty parking lot. The neon wasn’t on yet. We got out of the car and as we walked up to it, it came on. When was the last time you saw SUPPER followed by CLUB in neon? It’s been a while – huh? It was an electrifying moment!
Originally this “dressy- diner†was a house built in 1954 out of railroad ties. It became a restaurant in 1961. The moment you walk in the door you could be in any decade. It’s timeless. The walls are wood paneled. The salad bar has pickled pigs feet! And the next time I may try their famous “sea and pond combination,†one lobster tail and two frog legs.
Last Sunday I was in the Antelope Valley sitting on a rock surrounded by miles and miles of wildflowers. The poppies, lupine and little yellow daisies that grow so thick they look like yellow shag carpet, are in full bloom. I could go on, but I can’t. There are no words to describe the beauty. Chicken leg anyone?
Here’s to fried chicken, wildflowers and you!
Charles Phoenix
PS. A final Downtown Tour date has been added – MAY 28, 2006, plus, join me at the Walt Disney Concert Hall for my Disneyland Slide Show, Friday May 19, at 8:30 pm & Sunday, May 21, at 2 pm.
Visit Charles’ site or join his Slide of the Week Mailing List.
i had to laugh at this pic. one time some friends and i went to see the poppies but apparently they’d died out early that year (or we were just dumb), so we arrived to yellow/brown, empty fields of nothing. we took pictures and did our best to enjoy ourselves anyway. it was funny as hell, but a huge floral disappointment.
I went to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve relatively early in the season last year (08 April) so few of the poppies had opened, but there were a fair number and also tons of lupines. At 8 AM, the only other people on the entire reserve were two guys shooting a nature documentary.
Pictures (low-quality) here:
http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g213/slightlyslack/AVPR/
I really enjoyed this piece. Kudos!