Stencilled Snowdomes?

For a long time, I tried to bring home the regulation tourist snowdome, because they were a perfect match for the tacky places that I would visit. I passed over the bottle domes, the square domes, and even the bigger jumbo size domes. I would laugh openly at any dome that didn't have its own nameplate, safely underwater and protected behind a hard plastic shell. Ha! No stencilled snowdomes for me! Snowdome fun is travelling across the world to hunt them. Bring home the keepers and let someone else buy the ugly ones!

Well, times got tough as they usually do. I would stagger out of my car into a gift shop after a 400 mile stretch of vacation driving and find no domes of any value to recharge my spirits. What to do? There always seemed to be shot glasses for sale everywhere. Was it time to start collecting spoons and refrigerator magnets?

So it was time to buy a stencilled snowdome. Is a stencilled dome is better than no dome at all? Someday I'll come back some day and find a real one.

Drive 500 miles for these guys?

 

 

Colorado and Montana really need something better than this to be remembered with. Wouldn't you rather see the little cable car hanging over the Royal Gorge. Even one of those ubiquitous buffalo domes is preferred over purple skies and blue mountains. On the other hand, Iowa really does looks like this.

Are these black, dark, nondescript domes are symptomatic of the downsizing craze that has swept corporate America. Has some hardnosed CEO fired all the snow dome artists? Are they all stamped out by a computer program now?

Do Black Domes use Black Snow?

	No, most of them use gold glitter, which winds up sticking to the inside of the dome and making it look even darker. The one on the left must be evoking the hazy smoke filled jazz clubs of Kansas City. The words JAZZ appear in its background but only under a halogen spotlight.
	Kansas City is next door to Independence, where you can visit the home of the 33rd US President, Harry S. Truman. In truth, it was his wife's house as she had more money. They lived there until he was chosen to be FDR's vice president. Later, the Trumans would come back from Washington every summer. I thought that rated a snowdome so I went there, but I was wrong. Not too far from the Truman house is the home of the famous outlaw Jesse James. Visit his old farm and see where the Pinkertons pumped bullets thru his back door one night. I also went there, imagining the snowdomes that could have been, but weren't. I had to settle for a Jesse James water pen.

 

The Dark Side

Ugh. Stencilled domes reduce variety. Why make a unique scene when a generic picture will do.

Beware of the collector with stencilled domes from exotic places..

The Lighter Side

After darkening your day with the dark images, I thought we should look at the brighter side. These stencilled domes are pretty nice.