I lived through that era. And a circular bed without a mirror on the ceiling is just wrong. 
I haven’t stayed at the Madonna Inn, but I stayed at another place in SLO that had to have been inspired by it: The Apple Farm. I went with my martial arts instructor because we were going to train with a well known MMA instructor (John Hackleman, Chuck Liddell’s trainer) in the little town of Arroyo Grande just to the south. His wife booked the room, and we had no idea about what the place looked like. So, after a day of tough guy martial arts training we went back to this:
Our room looked like this.
What a delightful little gift shop!
Oh, the little millhouse is just darling!
Teapots and cozys and ceramic cats and canopy beds and crap all over the place. My mother would have loved it, but we found it both hilarious and mortifying. I think the place sucked all the testosterone out of us.
BTw, from what I hear, you ah, might not want to mention the SDMB when reserving your room. Jus’ sayin.
Kyla, I’m pretty sure you’ve finally lost it. It’s “lewis,” or as psy points out, “slow.”
I grew up there, it is definitely pronounced San Lewis or Slow by all the locals. To pronounce it like a Spaniard risks comparison to those comedy-skit newscasters who discuss the Central American nation of NI-HARRRAGWA. Technically correct, but wrong.
San Rafael is a similar deal, you’d think it was rah-fah-el, the locals say ruh-fell.
When I was in Illinois the campus commercial radio station had a great series starring Flush Bizbo, college freshman. In one show we discovered that his mother was Pepto and his father was Sam Louis.
In Spanish, Luis doesn’t have a stress on the second syllable: there is no second syllable, it’s a dyptong!
And San Jose is Sanazay.
Cool thread. As a former SLO resident, I knew this was about the Madonna Inn. And we always called it SLO, occasionally San Louis Obispo. And we shopped and clubbed on HI-gera (Higuera) Street.
More SLO trivia: California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, is the longest-named university in America. Go Mustangs!
I travel to SF semi-regularly, should see about maybe taking the time one of these days and spending a night there. Looks like quite the experience.
Watch out for the zombies.
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It’s only a few months old. That doesn’t bother us. Thanks for reporting it, though.
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