By Request...The Wanderlust Motel

Here we have a postcard for the long-gone Wanderlust Motel in Anaheim, CA. This motel was located roughly on the land where Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel now stands. This motel was torn down to build this hotel which was originally called The Emerald before Disney acquired it.
The year is 1981 or 1982, I am not quite sure of the date at this point, but the Wanderlust had been closed down and was awaiting demolition. Like many such buildings in the area, it was a place of exploration for my friends and I. The place was completely unguarded and unlocked. I guess back in those days they figured, "why lock up what just going to get torn down soon anyway". These days they put security on almost any derelict site like this in the city. Anyway we went from room to room checking out the place and found that at some point in the motel's history, an artist was hired to paint scenes from some of the stories that Disney had set to animation. There were several rooms that had paintings from the Alice In Wonderland story on the walls. They did not actually look like Disney's versions of the characters, but rather more like the original Lewis Carrol book illustrations. They were a bit rough and even a bit scary. I am sure some young guests of this place had nightmares in these rooms inspired by the freaky wall murals. There was one room that had tons of door keys scattered around the place. We went back a few times, and I even shot some super 8 film of some of the rooms. I may have to put up some frame grabs of those in a future post. So one night, we decide to bring a case of beer up to one of the rooms that overlooked the now drained swimming pool. After a couple hours of drinking, we went down into the lobby and began to trash the place, literally tearing cabinets off the wall and smashing glass. One of my friends who tended to get out of control when he drank started punching pieces of an already broken window glass out. I told him to be careful or he was going to cut himself. Sure enough, he sliced the top of his middle finger something fierce and blood started pouring out of the wound. Right about the same time we hear sirens in the distance and assume they are coming our way, so we take off. My friend is running down West St. towards Katella and is waving his hand at cars that pass by and is splattering blood on them. I actually caught a glimpse of some tourists waving back, smiling, not realizing what was going on. I catch up to my friend at the Shell station that used to be at the intersection and see blood drops all over the sidewalk where he is talking to some attendant at the station. I urge him to go with me back to my parents house. Right about that time I see the police pulling into the abandoned Wanderlust and we beat a hasty retreat and I got his finger all bangaged up and got him back home. I can't remember if he ended up getting stitches or not. For weeks afterwards, I would laugh as I passed by the location and could still see his blood on the sidewalk and signs along the way between the Shell station and the motel. It was torn down a few weeks after that and the Emerald Hotel went up in it's place. If you look to the middle-right in the postcard, you will see five palm trees. Those small buildings below them on the horizon are some of the old original garden apartment rooms at the Disneyland Hotel.
Well, that's enough story time for now.
Sweet dreams.