Despite a “half-day” today, I managed to stir up a bunch of photos for you all anyway.  Feeling quite exhausted from the heat, the stress, and still not quite right from basically no sleep on Friday night.  Aiming for a midnight bedtime tonight — so let’s dive in.

Got a shot of this sign before leaving Elyria:

Tidied up my little Ohio list with some stops in Toledo — a sampling:

Scary modern neon:

A fun hand-painted sign at Sweeper World:

Then over the border into Michigan where I came to my senses.  By 11 am, the dogs had already been for two big swims but we were all panting and delirious from the heat.  80s and climbing.  So when I noticed an open Firestone store, that was that.  Decided to sacrifice the start of a gorgeous, sunny day.  I’ve had very good luck with tire stores & Pep Boys repairs — and since this Firestone was one of the rare streamline moderne types, I felt it was a good omen.  (Yes that’s Sparkle on the left, ready to roll):

So the outcome was:  the brand new compressor that was installed last month, had died.  Hopefully, I can get some of my money back when I get back home.  I’ve got the old part boxed up in the back of the van.   So, four hours of sunlight missed and $600-something and we were back on the road.

A rusty crusty alignment bear (Bear Manufacturing) sign at Zorn’s Service in Ida:

Later, in the Irish Hills… in Onsted.  As a vegetarian for 20 years or so, I’ll never understand the gruesome humor or cuteness of all this.  I think the piggie head came from one of those classic mini golf statues:

The Hillside Lanes in Hillsdale:

From Sturgis:

From Three Rivers — that’s one of those red sputnik ballies — I’ve got a bunch here if you want a close-up and more examples — halfway down the page:
http://www.agilitynut.com/sca/roto3.html

A head-turner sculpture in Cassopolis.  The statues are just shy of life-sized.   “The Builders” is at K&M Machine Fabricating:

Last one for the night.  This neat bench made of snow skis at Douglas R Wyant Antiques in Cassopolis:

Sparkle and the rest of us are eager to dig in tomorrow.  No more boring interstate, no more sweltering heat.   More in the SW corner of Michigan and then eastward towards Detroit.  The plan is for approximately 12 days in each state.  Time for bed!

A quick P.S. to the newbie arrivals to my blog:  all the photos at my blog are clickable (meaning clicking on them opens them to larger photos).  The blog photos also appear at the Flickr roadsidenut account.  And different photos appear at the Flickr agilitynut account.  There are loads of photos that you won’t find either place that will start appearing at my website in the fall or winter.