We’re wrapping up a long weekend in Portland celebrating the end of Meda’s semester-long sabbatical, her latest book (due soon). Now winging it home. Much of yesterday was spent wandering through huge rooms at the Portland Convention Center filled by the annual Palmer Wirf Antique and Collectibles Show, which features some 1,400 booths filled with everything you can imagine, and lots that you can’t.

It’s the second year that we’ve timed a trip here to coincide with this spectacle, which is like walking endlessly through a vast museum of “stuff”. This year was mostly looking, not buying, at least for us.

My “find” of the day was the “Vintage Roadside” booth in the “overflow” area outside in the parking lot, where I met Kelly Burg and Jeff Kunkle. They’ve turned curiosity about places into a career as roadside historians and cultural collectors, part of which involves collecting visuals, the classic signs from now-defunct roadside businesses from the 1930s through the 1960s.

They’re building a library of vintage graphics, now available as t-shirts . Each shirt comes with a mini-history, and the offer of a free 1-year membership in the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Their passion was reported last month in an L.A. Times story, or so I discovered after getting back to our hotel last night and checking for more info. And a story last year in the Portland Oregonian describes one example of how they do their research that yields bits and pieces of modern cultural history.

You can also check out their photos on Flickr, or keep up with their blog.

No, they don’t have any Hawaii businesses in their library yet, but they do have some vaguely Polynesian items coming as they prepare for Tiki Oasis 9 in San Diego at the end of the summer.

Oh, did I mention they also organize road tours? Check their blog for news of those.

You can tell that I was very impressed with their products, but mostly with their vision and ability to put it together into a life project.