Lots of miles between destinations today. Got stopped by a trooper for speeding: 70 in a 55 on a four-lane, straight-as-an-arrow highway. Traffic was light, conditions perfect. I thought traveling behind someone else going the same speed was a good tactic but no. I don’t even know how much the ticket is. I have to call to find out — how silly is that! So now I’m crawling around at 55 which feels like walking. Out of all my traveling, I always get nailed in Virginia. I usually get one ticket per year here as a souvenir.

On to the pictures (my goal is to turn off the computer by 11 pm).

Here’s a beautiful ruin from Axton:

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Here’s a puzzling sign from Alta Vista. It was located on a garage-like building behind a gas station. I don’t know if they were referring to employees or just people in general.

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My first attempt at close-up photography. I must say, I don’t have the patience for it. Does anyone know what kind of butterfly this is? I haven’t seen one like it before.

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And lastly, I present “Foamhenge”: a fun place in Natural Bridge. Not a soul around as the sun was going down. The dogs and I had the place to ourselves. More about it here:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/VANATfoamhenge.html

Hi there ya’ll from a new friend I made in Richmond, VA. Naturally, he lives at a muffler shop.

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Lots and lots of picture-taking today but I didn’t get as far as I wanted to. I’m about a half day behind schedule already. One more day alloted for VA stuff & I’ve got the whole western half to go. Since it’s already 11:30pm, let’s get to the photos.

Here are some more goodies from Richmond — an Egyptian Revival temple (the Egyptian Building, now a VCU medical building). The early morning sun was not helping me here:

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a fun plastic sign:

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OK, so is it me (vegetarian & all) — or does this make you a little queasy? I don’t know if the “special” is just unappealing by itself or if it’s the juxtposition next to snowcone, the plastic jugs of syrup, and the wadded up paper towels or whatever it is.

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Passenger seat as perch. You never know when squirrels might run by when you’re in residential neighborhoods:

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A magnificent sculpture on the side of the Police Building:

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I’m thinking of starting a light fixture Flickr group — anybody care to join me?

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I got an email from someone awhile back telling me that I needed to be on the lookout for these Dodge car signs with the stars on top. So for whoever you are, I hope you find this one. It’s at the Lawrence Dodge in Richmond.

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I came across this at the abandoned Prince George Motel (in Prince George, VA, of course). Who knew that prickly pears grew in Virginia? Do they just need sandy soil then to be happy?

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This is no ordinary shadow. No, it’s from the Muffler Man at Auto King Muffler in Newport News.

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And lastly, I’ll leave you to contemplate Isabel the Sea Serpent — made entirely from driftwood. She’s way out there in Sandbridge (south of Virginia Beach) where the dogs got one last run on the beach for the year (that’s what you said two weeks ago, mom).

This southern trip started off with a nice mix of planned destinations and surprises — and the weather was absolutely perfect. The “kids” got lots of time to romp in the marshes and Fixie found a dead possum to roll on. Great.

The only negative thing was that I discovered that the credit card that I usually use for roadtrips (gas rebates!) was blocked. Someone had stolen the number and gone on a shopping spree at a Wal-Mart in Georgia. I have no idea how this person got my number but the credit card company canceled the charges and my card. Luckily, I have a another credit card with me. My darling “Sparkle” is a bit of a gas-guzzler but she’s so worth it.

Let’s move on to the photos, shall we?

The former National Bohemian Brewery in Baltimore has been nicely restored/reused for various businesses. Each of the buildings has been renamed something lager-like and has these sweet bottle cap signs.

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I have always loved these sixties-looking lights. They might even be used-car-lot-specific since that’s where I’ve always seen them. They look a lot like giant blueberries. This example is from Brooklyn Park, MD. I wonder if they are still lit at night?

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There are statues on nearly every block in downtown DC but this one caught my eye. This guy with the unusual pose (agonizing over a book) is installed in front of the Croatian Embassy. Here are some more views of St. Jerome the Priest who is credited with being the first person to translate the Bible from Hebrew into Latin.
http://www.dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0001560.htm

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OK, here’s my artsy photo for the day. There are so many great mid-century buildings in the DC area. If you’re into poured concrete, it’s worth battling it out with all the other tourists that are there to see the Jefferson Memorial, White House & all that. This office building is in Arlington, VA. I love the criss-crossing lines of the stairways and overhead walkway against the building. And, yes, that wonderfully sturdy concrete post.

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This country market in Lyells, VA is probably as old as the earth. I can imagine hitching posts for the horses where the former gas pump island is. The woman coming out the front door said they are going to be “re-doing” it soon. Too bad — it’s so nice just the way it is.

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More Virginia stuff for the next couple days before heading gradually onward to Louisiana.

The good new: the corrupted camera memory cards were 99% restored. So I have a few more blog photos to share that were taken back on that fourth day of the trip that were nearly lost.

Remembering back, yes, it was very hot and the van’s A/C was on the fritz. Here are some shots of Fixie and I modeling the latest summer fashions (wet towels):

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The deer at Deer Forest in Coloma, MI wouldn’t budge from the shade:

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Although the goats couldn’t help themselves with their obsessive-compulsive need to climb:

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One more self-portrait, sans towel. I’ve always hated having my picture taken but now that I’m turning 50, I’m starting not to care. This was taken at Deer Forest in the wonderfully original 1950s cabin-like women’s bathroom. Love the mirror detail.

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A few old plastic signs caught my eye in Michigan. I’m not usually into the running chickens and pigs being a vegetarian and all but these are pretty cute.

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Is this the human equivalent of a dog rolling in something stinky?

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And lastly, a nature shot. I’d never seen blueberry bushes before. Taken somewhere near Hickory Corners, MI:

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More photos & blogging in October when the dogs & I head South.

No photos for today since it was all one grueling day on the interstate. I think half of Route 80 was under construction. But we are safely back in NYC and I’ve got about 1,000 photos to play with. Gradually, they’ll all be up at the website. It’ll probably take me a month or so.
http://www.agilitynut.com/whatsnew.html

The next big trip that I’ll blog will be in October. I’m planning a little loop in the South that will include coastal NC, SC, central & eastern TN, etc. I hope you enjoyed traveling along with the dogs and I and seeing these anecdotal photos.

I finished up my list for Minneapolis/St. Paul this morning by noon so I could hit the road towards NYC. In my mad scramble, here are a few things that caught my eye:

Minnesotans (is that the right word?) are “big” on Powerball. It seemed every time I bought a Diet Coke, there were people ahead of me buying tickets.

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Downtown Minneapolis had lots of fun and futuristic skywalks and spiral parking lot ramps:

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This wheel will be part of something called “Mill Ruin Park” being constructed downtown:

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Eventually, it’s gotta happen. I’ve been fighting adding this section to my website for a few years now but it’s getting harder to resist these contemporary buildings:

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Now it’s time to get some rest. 12 more hours of interstate to get back home tomorrow. What fun!

I did pretty well today with photo-gathering despite the fact that it was only a half-day. I found a nice independent car repair place in Oakdale, MN (thank you Maplewood Auto!) to address my thunk-thunk-thunk. It was a tire with some weird tread wear. Not noticeable really til you took the wheel off. Also the other front wheel had a mediocre bearing. That’s the tire I flattened a month ago driving around a pet cemetery and taking a bad bounce into a drainage ditch. Uh, it looked like a car path to me. Also the other tires were marginal, so this was a $998 bill for a full set of tires and replacing the bearing. Probably more than I should’ve (my mechanic back in Brooklyn would’ve chided me for being taken) but I feel a lot safer. I love my new tires — they feel like I’m driving on air and I relieved that the thunking is gone.

So I didn’t get started taking pictures til around 1pm. But luckily with summer and being very north, it doesn’t get dark around here til about 9pm. It also gets light enough around 7am to start back up again.

On with today’s show:

I love this little car wash I stumbled upon in St. Paul:

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Also in St. Paul was these wonderfully green building entitled the Spruce Tree Centre. Unfortunately, the sun was directly behind it and this is the best I could do:

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A nice rooftop sign — “Sport Dome” there now but I have no idea what was there before:

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I believe this was still St. Paul (too tired to check my notes). I haven’t seen this before — a Little Caesar guy filled and bouncing around by those air machines (what do you call them anyway):

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From the Wisconsin State Fair Grounds in St. Paul — these great little “Whitman’s sampler” buildings:

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A nice car wash sign that must’ve had neon originally — in conjunction with another sign with “ballies”. Now what idiot parked that white van in the way of my shot?

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And, lastly, here’s one that really has me puzzled. I went to this address in St. Paul in search of a Lustron house. As I proceeded into that area, the houses looked much too palatial and I figured it would be another disappointment (building removed or remodeled beyond recognition). I have no idea where I got the tip about this Lustron since I keep a huge master list with stuff from a million different sources (some referenced, some not). Anyway, sure the building had porcelain enamel panels like Lustrons — but there was fancy little detailing and it was a two-story building. I don’t believe the Lustron company ever produced anything like this. I wanted to take more shots but there were people in the window at the right already giving me nasty looks. It had been too long and hot a day to deal with being yelled at. Does anyone have any theories or information about this building?

I traveled hard today and got through a long list of places today. I’m going to sneak in a day of Minneapolis/St. Paul tomorrow. Then I’ll try to hit a few places in IA & IL on the way home the next day.

The only glitch might be the mysterious noise that is happening with the van. At about 20mph you can hear this faint sound that almost sounds like a flat tire. A faint thunk-thunk-thunk. At higher speeds it either goes away or is at such a higher rpm that you can’t hear it. The tires all look fine. I’m thinking it might be a bearing of some sort? The noise started yesterday afternoon and continued all day — not getting any worse. I decided that since today was Sunday and no auto repair places were open, I’d just keep an ear out and be prepared for disaster. But, luckily, nothing happened after many hundreds of miles. So tomorrow morning I’ll get it looked at and hopefully not lose a full day of shooting.

OK – on with the photos!

This is what a lot of WI looks like:

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Today’s regional junk food taste-test: the packaging looked a little scary but it was quite good:

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Chippewa Falls has a lot of these either restored or replica (I’m not sure which) wall signs:

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I’ve gotten attached to this little guy — seems like every town in Wisconsin has a Hank Hardware store:

I took tons of photos today and covered a lot of ground. Got to a good part of the northern Wisconsin stuff on my list. One more day and that will be about all I can manage before starting the journey home. I have four more days left on this trip before I have to be back at work.

We started the day out with a nice romp at a Wisconsin “dog area” in Manitowoc. I don’t know if it’s the hunting lobby that needs to exercise their working dogs or if this state is just dog-friendly but there seems to be a lot of these places. Here’s a great website for finding off-leash dog places all over the country:
http://www.ecoanimal.com/dogfun/

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From Green Bay, here’s another nice detail from a former car showroom (the building itself was a big brick — nothing interesting otherwise):

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I will admit, when no homemade ice cream is available, a Peanut Buster from Dairy Queen does me just fine. I love their photo-realist billboards:

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Speaking of junk food, here’s a new find for me today. Seems to be a Wisconsin thing — cheesecake on a stick! It was quite good and I might try to find another one before I leave the state.

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A sad sight today — an abandoned mini golf south of Birnamwood, WI:

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A nicely restored oil truck seems to be on regular display at the Shell station in Antigo:

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I love the anal-retentiveness of these giant labeled travel map signs:

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This was almost tempting enough to stick around Manitowish Waters for. I’d love to see a skiing skeeter!

I’ve somehow got to get settled in earlier at night so I’m not writing these in the wee hours of the morning. It was another beautiful day, took loads of photos for the website & Flickr and quite a bit for this here blog as well.

Without further ado then — since I should really be sleeping.

Here’s a pole that really needs removing. The profile shot is better but it’s nice to not have to make up for such things.

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Wisconsin-ites are very devoted to their cheese. They even have bumper stickers about it:

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This tractor trailer sign towers above the interstate near the Mauston exit:

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Though this is not really my era, these churches were quite stunning:

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A classic, simple and superb sign from just north of the Dells:

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This giant guy towers over a flea market. Sparkle provides a sense of scale. The dogs are just visible waiting patiently at the open door for the magic word to go for a run & sniff:

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Looking a little road weary at this point (but I bet I look worse):

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Here are a couple stunners from downtown Fond du Lac:

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A fine looking cleaners from Oshkosh. The plastic sign looks like it’s probably a modern recreation. Very cute anyway.

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It’s starting to get greener and pine-ier as we’re heading north. Lots of lakes and streams everywhere which is good news for ‘Nik the swimmer of the family. This stairway is near Roche-a-Cri State Park.