A quick break before I dive back into my Nevada recap.

Lei chic did a nice roundup recently of swimwear (for ladies only, sorry men) from local designers. To their credit, a number of them have been making a splash, appearing in Sports Illustrated and on celebrities. The list of designers include Indah Clothing, Maui Girl, Letarte, Hula-la, and San Natura.

The article is a great resource if you’re looking to “buy local.”

And I might mention in the “local kid done good” category, Malia Mills. Born in Honolulu, now based in New York, Malia gained attention in the ’90s for making chic swimwear for “real women.” Since then she has built a small empire with several retail locations on the East Coast.

I want to say there are even more designers that should be on this list, but I can’t think of them right now. Did I forget anyone?

Continuing on the journey through Nevada, we arrived in Eureka to attend the wedding.

Eureka is one of twentysomething Eurekas in the country. But this one, like many other towns in Nevada, was a former mining center founded in the 1860s.

This photo was taken near the abandoned mine site called Ruby Hill. (It was awfully hazy due to the Northern California wildfires.)

The tiny town has it’s own quirky charm – kind of like the Old West meets a ‘60s hunting lodge.

Some views of the main street. Love that Louie’s Lounge!

Lots of great hand-painted signs.

Mounted stags in the supermarket, of course! (OK, maybe that’s a little creepy.)

Clever use of old wagon wheels.

The wedding was held in the Eureka Opera House. Here’s a picture of it with the historic Jackson House hotel on the left.

The opera house has a fantastic hand-painted curtain.

This was probably the most unique wedding venue I’d ever been to. I must say the cool locale made for a great event.

However, with the conclusion of the nuptials, our time in Eureka was up and it was time to move on the next morning.

Next stop: Stumbling upon one of the roughest towns in the West and a gorge.

Well folks, I’ve finally returned from my short vacation to Nevada. It was a wonderful whirlwind few days of road-tripping, in-laws, ghost towns, and desert heat. As I promised, I’d blog about interesting design I encountered along the way. Since there were so many places we went, I’ll be breaking it up into several posts over the next week.

So here begins the tour. The first leg required us to drive from Las Vegas to Eureka, Nevada, where the wedding was being held. We decided to take the Extraterrestrial Highway (Route 375) which runs past Area 51, as it was only a slight detour to our destination.

Unfortunately, most of the drive was pretty boring. It looked like this.

I thought there would be more sights along the way. But no. Nothing. And no UFOs.

The biggest attraction on the highway, besides the numerous unexplained sightings, is the little town of Rachel, named for the first child born there.

As I found with Nevada in general, there’s a lot of retro kitsch to be appreciated if you’re into that. I am, so I enjoyed the populuxe signs and the crazy clutter of the world famous A’le’inn.

The proprietor’s daughter told us that just last week Hannity’s America passed through, interviewing everyone (again) for Conspiracy Month. They didn’t use her interview though, since she doesn’t believe in any conspiracy. Guess it doesn’t make for good television. (You can watch the finished clip on their site.)

Here’s my husband sitting at the bar of the A’le’inn. Surrounded by alien art and knickknacks.

Close up behind the bar. Currency from around the world and more knickknacks.

Shots of the interior. Lots of little green guys for sale.

Check out the family in the back. Photos of “sightings” taped to the wall. Slot machines too.

I loved this poster.

Other than that there wasn’t much else to see, so on we drove…

Next stop: Discovering the charm of the old west in Eureka.

Next week, I’m off to the mainland to attend my sister-in-law’s wedding. It’s being held in a little town in Northern Nevada, so we’ll be flying in and out of Las Vegas. Blogwise, I’m starting my vacation a little early, so there’ll will be no new posts until I return, around the middle of July. I’ll be sure to keep a lookout for interesting design on Hawai’i’s “Ninth Island” and all along the Extraterrestrial Highway, which we plan to drive along. I’ll blog about what I find when I return.

In the meantime, you can check out Artspree 2008 at the Contemporary Museum on Saturday, July 12, from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. It will be a fun-filled day, especially for keiki, with a ton of art activities including clay, straw, and foam sculpture, Chinese opera face-painting. Storytellers, synchronized swimmers, acrobats, slam poets, and KTUH DJs provide constant entertainment.

I’m seeing more and more design that seems to “parody” the online experience.

Back in 2006, German artist, Aram Bartholl, created a scale model (at maximum zoom) of the Google Maps marker. Here’s his website. Bartholl also has some other interesting projects exploring the online world/real world theme.

In May, Yanko Design featured “Web is Nut Enough”, a performance piece by another German designer Ingo Schmid. Billing itself as the world’s first analog website, Ingo gives us a stage which mimics the layout of a webpage with Ingo, himself, running around serving as the cursor. When prompted, friends appear and play music.

Unfortunately his website, doesn’t offer anything other than a few more photos of the piece. It’s a shame, as I would have found it amusing if he somehow translated it into a real functional page.

Then there’s this new Canadian social-networking website called Lamato mentioned by Adverblog just last week. Watch all the promo videos to get the joke.

I guess they’re all trying to tell us that we’re spending way too much time on our computers… But I thought we knew that already!