{"id":33410,"date":"2026-06-18T00:36:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T07:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/?p=33410"},"modified":"2026-06-14T15:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T22:25:17","slug":"one-year-ago-today-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/2026\/06\/one-year-ago-today-14\/","title":{"rendered":"One year ago today&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_33411\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/256_7331-RAW-motel-west-wendover-clear.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33411\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/256_7331-RAW-motel-west-wendover-clear.jpg\" alt=\"motel west wendover\" width=\"1024\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-33411\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">June 18, 2025<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Sometime between when I took the above photo and August of 2025, the management of the Western Motel decided to refresh the above sign so that it says &#8220;Motel&#8221; instead of &#8220;M\u2205T-L&#8221;. Adding the &#8220;ERN&#8221; back after &#8220;WEST&#8221; was not in the budget.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33417\" style=\"width: 288px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/motel-western.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33417\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/motel-western.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"278\" height=\"814\" class=\"size-full wp-image-33417\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-33417\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google street view capture (August 2025)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Apparently the (partial) sign improvement didn&#8217;t help the business as it no longer exists. I&#8217;m not sure if the building has been torn down yet.<\/p>\n<p>These places always intrigue me, as we stayed in such motels back in the 1970s when I was a kid. I couldn&#8217;t find out much about the history of the Western Motel online, other than the fact that they have finally gone under, and the mayor of Wendover once owned the place. I did find these &#8220;blasts from the past&#8221; below though.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33412\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/western-motel-wendover-pennant.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33412\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/western-motel-wendover-pennant.jpg\" alt=\"western motel wendover pennant\" width=\"1024\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-33412\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Western Motel pennant<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_33414\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/western-motel-wendover-postcard-front.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33414\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/western-motel-wendover-postcard-front.jpg\" alt=\"western motel wendover postcard front\" width=\"1024\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-33414\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Western Motel postcard front<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Notice that the 2025 sign is a replacement sign for the one in the above postcard. The (now crumbling) raised planter box is the same. I&#8217;m guessing the postcard is from the early 1960s (or 1950s). They must have added the &#8220;COLOR TV by RCA&#8221; around 1970.<\/p>\n<p>Are the 116 and 428 still on the mountain in the background? <a href=https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/2025\/06\/the-midway-limo\/>Barely<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33413\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/western-motel-wendover-postcard-back.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33413\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/western-motel-wendover-postcard-back.jpg\" alt=\"western motel wendover postcard back\" width=\"1024\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-33413\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Western Motel postcard back<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A phone number of just four numbers? That&#8217;s before my time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometime between when I took the above photo and August of 2025, the management of the Western Motel decided to refresh the above sign so that it says &#8220;Motel&#8221; instead of &#8220;M\u2205T-L&#8221;. Adding the &#8220;ERN&#8221; back after &#8220;WEST&#8221; was not in the budget. Apparently the (partial) sign improvement didn&#8217;t help the business as it no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[175,560,1035,1010,151,110],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33410"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33445,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33410\/revisions\/33445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveljapanblog.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}