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If your itinerary demands a Westerly drive, make sure you make time for St. Petersburg, postcard City of Green Benches where the Sandman Motel provides an essential stop for motel photographers. The sign features a twinkling figure with a trailing nightcap and bag of sand inviting strangers into the land of nod. Like a street mime or Olympic gymnast, the figure looks cute at first, but gets creepy after a while. Even so, the rooms provide an inexpensive respite from bay area traffic. Traveling up 19, you will find a dozen or so neon beauties along the quiet stretch of road, many oriented around the town of Perry. Here, the leisurely fantasy of 50s and 60s Florida, a land of shuffleboard courts and inexpensive t-shirts, seems to attract the kinds of travelers who never even heard of the whip-fast interstate just a few miles away.

Fort Myers and Orland Motel Postcards (click for larger view)

All text copyright Andrew Wood. Photos copyright Jenny Wood and Andy Wood.