Thank YOU Wisconsin for coming through today.  Perfect blue skies with pretty little white cloud accents.  Temps in the 70s.  Just enough visible water for the doggie stops without them driving me crazy.

Only one negative thing to report.  A couple little heart-stopping incidents from Dee (my camera, short for D-90):  an error code.  You could hear the shutter make a weird sound like it froze up taking a photo in mid-operation.  Instead of a pretty click sound, a half click.  In panic, I took out the battery, the memory card, turned on and off, changed battery & memory card — but still error message.   But then the error went away when I would just simply take another photo.   I hope Dee hangs in there since we’ve got about 17 days left here.

On with it the blue!  From Two Rivers – tiny little icebox gas station — now just a repair shop.  I don’t know the brand here — not seen a roof with that concave beveling before or that tiny tower on the left.  No sign of other colors under the blue and yellow.  Does anyone recognize this breed?

From Manitowoc.  Former Rummele Jewelry store from ca. 1932.  Vitrolite of the day + terrazzo:

Also Manitowoc.  I’ve never seen a Bubble Up sign before — though I certainly remember drinking the stuff:

More Manitowoc.  This is now a catering business — I don’t know the original occupant.  With those windows, it must be 1940s.  The vitrolite gets a 2nd place here because of all the crude patching.  Some of the tiles were replaced with mirrors and taped over red stuff.  But better than missing chunks.  I understand replacing this stuff is very expensive.

From Winneconne.  Most likely not originally Biggar’s — and I bet the martini glass isn’t even the original design.  But it’s all good.

From Wild Rose.  Nothing says summer like ice cream.  And although this is a tacky cone — I can’t resist including it because of the grandiosity and oddball purple.  Blueberry perhaps?

And speaking of ice cream — I did indulge myself in some today.  Though I didn’t have hot weather as an excuse.  This is actually gelato — mascarpone something with pistachios — and a whole lot of caramel.  It looks much bigger in the photo than real life.  But I know you want these dive-in close-ups, right?  Melty smooth and yummy:

The reason I stopped was to support this adapted gas station.  It’s owned by Christiano’s Pizza next door, in Wautoma.  Although it’s been messed with (stonework on the facade, ugly Wild West canopy), you known instantly that it was a Sinclair station by at least three things.  For those of you that like playing “name that station” here’s a mini primer:
#1:  the columns are placed in typical fashion, with little Deco-ish caps on them
#2 the tilework and the little peak above “Gelato” on the left
#3 the easiest bing-bing-bing identifier is the little green vertical tile details.  See the one to the left of the “Gelato” on the right?  The rest are pretty much removed.

A bunch more examples of these stations at this Texas Sinclair page that I was in the middle of working on before this trip:
http://www.agilitynut.com/gas/txsinclair.html

As I was eating my tasty treat, I came upon these guys in Omro.  It sure made me feel guilty for my evil dairy-consuming, cattle-enslavement ways.   I don’t know how or when I’ll ever make the shift from vegetarian to vegan.  But the expressions of these two really shamed me.

 

Another from Omro:

Old time photo studio in Oshkosh.  Extra points for being a freestanding building in the middle of downtown.  And big smile for actually being OPEN in this economy and digital age:

No secret society here — the F.D.L. refers to Fond du Lac where this place is located:

From Plymouth.  A swoopy break from all that monotonous turn-of-the-century downtown brick.  I’m assuming it’s 1960s.

Just across the street — neat window decals (protected by installation from the inside):

Love him:

And last one for the day from West Bend.  These guys are in front of the art museum.  I would’ve posed the dogs with them but there was some sign on the bench saying “monitored by video cameras 24 hours a day”.  Probably would not have been confronted or arrested but I was too wiped out to risk such an event.  Or some horrible catastrophe if a squirrel suddenly appeared.  Would not have been a good way to end the day.

Tomorrow, about a dozen stops and then onward to the Milwaukee area for at least a couple of days.