Saddle Up Podner

 Long, long ago when I was but a wee FirstNative, there was a show on television called Hee Haw.  Every adult I knew LOVED this show.  It consisted of regional white stereotypes...holler dwellers, hicks, hayseeds, rubes and village idiots, all twanging to beat the band and singing Bluegrass, Country Western, Country Pop and Grand Ole Opry classics.  Nine-year-old me thought it was a mega cringefest from the first opening notes of it's theme song:

I am so sorry to have done this to you. 

Now to be perfectly honest, there were a lot of excellent musicians on this show.  It was the premise and the format that was so awful. Of course, it was typical mainstream 1960's fare too. I guess people gotta get paid. 

Hee Haw went off the air in 1992, but its memory lingers on.  One man living in Hinotes Corner, Washington U.S.A built himself an entire shrine dedicated to the show.  It resides in a restaurant called The Rusty Wagon, and it was created with the help of a local chainsaw artist.  It used to be that the entire place was Hee-Haw themed, but now it's relegated to part of the main dining room. And so as not to draw out the tension - because I know y'all are slavering - here you go: 

Here we are walking up to one of the most popular and longstanding restaurants in Whatcom County.  Yes it has a fake outhouse out front.  I spared you the cute motto above the door, and you are grateful.  Just hang on.  You'll get your cute motto fix.   

Right next to the front door.  Is this meant to be 'theme'? Yes. Is it meant to be ironic? ....maybe...maybe not. If you want to see open carry anywhere in Whatcom County, you'll see it here on a Sunday morning.  Right after church.  No kidding.   

The next few pictures are taken inside the Hee Haw dining room.  I had to 'Skip To My Lou' right purdy so as not to bother the diners with my picture taking!

    

Kids, I won't lie.  The one thing I enjoyed about 'Hee Haw' was Grandpa Jones picking.  That man was amazing.

This is the backdrop to the stage.  They have live music here on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. No I do not attend.  Someone might ask me to dance. I do not dance.

The stage.  Behind the glass you can barely see Rooster Cogburn aka John Wayne peeking out. Hi John!

Good old Minnie Pearl.  HOOOOOOOOOOOOOW - DEE!    

OK.  Now we're going to take a little trip around the rest of the place.

For a Western Themed restaurant, this is pretty restrained.  And yes - there on the dividing wall is The Rusty Wagon swag shelf!  On the other side of it is one of the last remaining salad bars in the wild. (Covid killed the rest.) No I didn't take a picture of it.  It's a salad bar. C'mon.   

This is the hostess station.  If you can make it past the zombie (center bottom) you're good to go.

Horse Advice.  Miss Rodeo America was a local girl back inn 2013.

The vestibule again.  

Left bottom there you can see a poster up for the Deming Logging Show.  (That would be the subject of a whole 'nother post.)  A logging show is an amazing thing to see, and all the competitors are local. They have events like spike climbing, log rolling, competitive chainsaw...sawing, customized chainsaw races (!!!), and other loggerly events.   There are men and women out here that can throw hatchets and axes with deadly accuracy, in case you were feeling frisky.  

The notice board.  Every good local restaurant has one of these the further you go toward Mt. Baker. They really are the heartbeat of a small town. Back when we had our motorcycle paint and custom business we got a lot of work using local notice boards just like this one (and that's how we flew without a business license for so many years!)

Not a prob.  -oh damn I gotta take a leak!  Well let's go find the bathroom.

Oh! It must be down this way! Thanks, Speedy!  

Ah. This must be the place.

Yup, this is definitely the place.

Well, that's enough of that.  

Yeah, I feel snarky about this place, but here's the thing - their food is FANTASTIC, the service is great, and the place is always sparkling clean. You have to give credit where credit is due. We've been here a handful of times over the past 30 years. Of course, one doesn't always feel like being surrounded by tchotkes, racism and Red politics being shouted across the room, so we don't feel like we need to visit at all these days.

Here's my question for you folks from Parts Foreign; and this is something I've always wondered.  Do  you have private-owned theme restaurants like this where you live, or is that an American thing?