A very hot day. Covered hundreds of miles. Took hundreds of great photos. But. Something horrible has happened with my camera cards. Which means I can’t get them to read through the card reader and now when I insert them back in the camera, I’m getting formatting errors. My worst fear is that the card reader has “eaten” my photos. The cards were brand new and I tested them before this trip. I’m off to an electronics place as soon as I can find one open to try a new reader. If that doesn’t work, I’ll be calling Olympus to see if there’s some place that can extract the files.

I feel like crying as repeating that portion of the trip (Lansing, MI to Lansing, IL) would be gruesomely exhausting and just not as exciting the second time around. But that just might be the case. Maybe next year. Meanwhile, I’m freaking out with worry about the photos to come. I just can’t ever have this happen again. I guess I’ve got to start backing up to my computer several times a day just to be safe. I’m off to copy the files from my computer to disk right now.

Hopefully, I’ll be back in swing and have photos to post here later today.

I’ll get this one off quickly since I’m already behind schedule. It was a late one last night just getting to Lansing and working on the Flickr stuff and the regular email pile-up. So I didn’t get to this blog until this morning and the sun is already almost right for more picture-taking.

Yesterday was a tough one heat-wise. Low 90s I think and there was no miraculous healing of my A/C. If there’s anyone that can lay hands on my van and get it fixed (quickly) in Chicago area or Wisconsin, please let me know! Today’s supposed to get to 95 — not looking forward to that. At least the van is white and reflects some of the heat.

Let’s get on with today’s pictures. The day started in Ann Arbor with a sighting of a faux coffee pot of the non-architectural kind. This AirStream trailer (correct me if I’m wrong) has been converted into use as a drive-through coffee concession in the parking lot of Zingerman’s Roadhouse. More about the place here:

http://www.zingermansroadhouse.com/content/pages/home.php

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Here was one of the low points of the day — look how lovely this abandoneded gas station was:
http://flickr.com/photos/71288712@N00/402164567/

and look at it now as it appears to have been torched:

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One of the high points of the day was the sign collection at the Dort Mall in Flint, MI. I posted a couple photos of the signs to Flickr and there will be more to the website. But there’s also an amazing collection of non-sign stuff: advertising related objects, a miniature children’s carousel, boats, bikes, you name it! This is all the personal collection of Bob Perani who owns Perani’s Hockey World, a chain of 15 hockey equipment stores. More about the place here:

http://www.mlive.com/news/flintjournal/index.ssf?/base/news-44/1183870865155320.xml&coll=5

and here:
http://www.peranis.com/

I’ll include a photo of the giant elephant described in the article above and this Moxie promotional piece. I’m not sure if this Moxie car is real or a replica. The stirrups were used as accelerator and brake.

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A better photo of another Moxie car can be found here in New Hampshire:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/NHLINmoxie.html

Today’s Misc. Topic: Michigan Traffic Signals:

I have been to Michigan a number of times now but I never get used to seeing these. I believe they are unique to this state. Has anyone seen them elsewhere? And what are they called anyway? Signal boxes? I’m in too much of a time crunch to do any Google research so hopefully someone can fill me/us in with the history and info about these things. Some are cubes and some are slightly flatter. They are illuminated from within at night.

A glorious sunny day: perfect for picture-taking. I took about two hundred photos for the website (and put about 18 up at Flickr). I’ve got about a dozen for this blog as well.

Today’s news: The A/C in the van is officially dead. I stopped at a Chevy dealer and they poked around and assured me that it would be a big job: at least half a day to fix. So I’m going to tough it out til I get home. It’s been in the upper 80s in Ohio — not as bad as the 110 degrees in CA and NV right now. I’m managing to find lots of streams and lakes for us to play in to keep cool. In the afternoon, a lake proved to be more mud than water and the van’s interior is a lovely shade of gray for probably the duration of the trip.

I’m wiped out so let’s get to the pictures. Do keep in mind that I write these blog entries at the end of the day, just before going to bed. So I won’t be held accountable for spelling, grammatical errors, or incoherency.

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Maybe it’s the heat, but these ice cream stand signs are masterpieces in my opinion — from Wapokoneta, OH:

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Speaking of Wapokoneta, here are just a few of the fantastic buildings downtown:

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Wapokoneta has something for everybody, including the Armstrong Air & Space Museum. Here are the kids (looking hot and tired) with the Gemini space capsule mock-up:

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from Bucyrus at a replica Sinclair station is this cool police cruiser:

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and from somewhere in the middle of nowhere (I saw a LOT of corn fields today) are these two antique & restored tractors:

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I usually don’t photo painted wall signs — but this one in Lima, OH got my attention with both Vernor’s and Teem sodas:

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Here’s another nice, old Vernor’s sign from Tiffin, OH:

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Topic for Discussion:

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I’m sure you’ve seen these around — the Honda showrrom above is just a small example. What do you think of these modern retro Honda buildings? Do you like them or do they annoy you? What about the trend lately to incorporate “googie” elements into shopping malls, etc. — is that a good thing or does it dilute the impact/significance of the original buildings?

After a long drive from NYC, I started this trip with stops in Youngstown, OH. Then it was on Cleveland destinations. I managed to squeeze in some things in Elyria, Medina, Akron, Canton and elsewhere as well. During this trip, I will be summarizing the day’s events here and posting some misc. shots that won’t be appearing at the website or at Flickr.

The weather started out gray and dreary but changed into much nicer blue skies by afternoon. Something’s up with my van’s A/C. Sometimes the fan works, sometimes it doesn’t. The cooling effect also seems limited even when the fan is working. I could take it to a repair place but I don’t want to lose a day — or even an hour — of precious picture-taking time so I’ll just have to tough it out. Luckily, Wisconsin has lots of water for the dogs to romp around in if need be.

One of today’s highlights: I was letting the dogs stretch & sniff near a high school. Usually, the girls stay right nearby while I hurl Nik’s damned ball a few million times. But I noticed them missing — they’d only been gone a minute. I peeked around the corner and saw an open door and knew that must’ve been where they went. Sure enough, they were wandering among the high school girls who were having some sort of swim meet. I’m glad Nik hadn’t discovered the place of he would’ve been right in the pool with them. It was embarrassing enough!

OK — on to some sights from the day.

some nice Art Deco detail from Youngstown, OH:

an abandoned gas station in Cleveland, OH:

an abandoned theatre in Cleveland, OH:

a nice old building in Elyria, OH:

Elyria has a lovely little downtown. Each of the intersections on the main street has these flowering baskets & light posts:

Question of the Day: When will we have satellite technology to replace all the wires and poles so that we may take pictures of puffy clouds, buildings, and signs without them interfering?