It was a fairly productive day though it seemed like I spent way too much time on the interstate. I’m trying to blast back and forth across the state in desperation to squeeze as many places in as possible. The weather has been much cooler the past couple days — and the glorious clouds continued again today.

I have quite a few photos to share and it’s already midnight so let’s get cracking.

Here’s a cute little shop in Milwaukee (second photo so you can see around the tree):

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Milwaukee has tons of great mid-century buildings. Even a committed apartment dweller like myself fantasized for a moment about living in a place like this. Note this is a back view taken while walking back to the van from shooting something else. I particularly like the breezeway (open area between the house and garage on the right).

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Okay. So what can I say about this one. Aside from the bumper stickers, I noticed an extremely foul odor emanating from this vehicle. Quite clearly it was a dead something smell and it was coming from the white tarped object in the back. Note no window there. I’m assuming it was a dead deer that a hunter had forgotten about? Could it have been a human body? Should I have called the cops?

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Westby, WI is quite proud of its Norwegian heritage and has references scattered around town. My favorite business name of the day goes to the “Uf-da-Mart”.

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Embossed plastic signs are really growing on me. Here are a couple of nice ones. The Singer sign is from Spring Green, WI (still a fabric and sewing store). The bakery sign is from La Crosse, WI.

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Here’s another old sign of sorts (though MUCH older). It’s part of the original Heileman brewery building in LaCrosse, WI:

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Here’s a building that I wish I could’ve gotten better shots of but there was construction completely surrounding it. The former State Bank of Spring Green (in Spring Green, WI, of course):

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And, lastly, a view from the end of the day from Onalaska, WI. That’s the Mississippi River and Minnesota across the way. I believe those are red currants at the left. Minnesota is very much on my mind all day as I try to figure out how to prioritize my stops for the remaining days of this trip.

Two words sum up today: Clouds and Traffic. It felt like I was getting nowhere with all the construction, detours, and traffic jams — but, oh, the scenery! I’ll spare you the photos of traffic but here are a couple of cloud shots.

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I started the day in Dubuque, IA at the SW tip of Wisconsin and ended up in Milwaukee at the SE tip. I tried to get as much done in on my list between the two cities as I could but I had to skip quite a few. At this point, I am seriously behind schedule and will have to narrow things down to priorities. I’ll have to do an additional Wisconsin trip another time to get the rest. The dilemma is whether to just to focus on the southern part of the state or to grab the most important stuff willy-nilly all over. I’m leaning towards the latter. And I would really like to grab some stuff in Minnesota as well (still holding out hope!).

On with the photos!

These two shots were taken at daybreak in Dubuque so the sun added yellowish-ness and wiped out the focus/detail. But anyway. There is no WAY in hell you could ever get me on this incline railway. It was truly terrifyingly steep.

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Here are three shots from Milwaukee.

I ran across this well-concealed former Burger Chef near the airport. The window shape at the left is a give-away. In case you’re not familiar with what the buildings originally looked like, have a look at this page:
http://agilitynut.com/eateries/bchef.html

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Just a few doors east was this drive-in restaurant which now focuses on ice cream:

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Just south of the Downer Theatre, I stumbled upon this little gem which crowns what must have been a car dealership or garage. The building itself is huge but nothing special and now houses a book store, Starbucks, etc. Sorry for the blur — I was shooting directly into the sun:

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This sign probably had nice neon at one time — gotta love the shape of it! It’s a nice big pole sign, in a sea of hideous modern chain store signs. But mostly I wanted to include this as a tribute to the fantastic customer service at Lundgren’s Photo in Rockford, IL. I’m back in action now thanks to the them. They gave me lots of good advice and sympathy. I got a wire for the camera-to-computer and another memory card. It seems the software for restoring cards usually takes a few hours and I didn’t want to waste part of a day doing that when I could be taking pictures instead. So I’ll deal with that when I get home.

I’m thrilled to be able to upload stuff to Flickr and here again — so here goes:

First, a photo from Detroit that I meant to include before this camera fiasco. A neglected building in a downtrodden neighborhood — this Mayan (or is it Aztec?) design:

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A nice mid-century building in Chicago. I wish I’d taken a close-up photo as the white textured part was quite incredible:

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Also from Chicago, this juxtaposition of old and new: nice detail vs. painted plywood.

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Now, how could I resist including this doggie sign/statue which hangs above an antiques shop / cafe in downtown Mineral Point, WI. More about him here:
http://www.mineralpoint.com/living_history/pointer_landmark.html

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The scenery on the long stretches between destinations has been spectacular. It’s amazing what can be done with corn!

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And lastly, here’s a shot of Sparkle (the kids are hard to see) basking in the hot sun. The Wisconsin portion of the trip has officially begun. I have managed to find a setting with the A/C that keeps things an almost comfortable approx. 75 degrees or so inside. Things are looking up!

Sorry to break it to you folks — I don’t have photos to share with you tonight either. I was in Chicago all day taking lots of great photos. I didn’t see a single camera store anywhere though. I need to either buy a new card reader or a new wire camera-to-computer. There’s no WAY I’m sticking my cards in my old card reader again. Olympus was basically no help. They say I need to take them someplace to have them try to restore the cards or use their suggested restoration software on-line. I think I’d rather have professionals do it than tackle it myself. Worst case: I’ve lost the 2nd half of Michigan and Indiana — a full day of shooting and great stuff — which kills me. Maybe I can repeat the loop next year.

I’ll get the wire tomorrow when I’m likely to be around more big box stores. Hopefully, I’ll get back on track uploading fun stuff here and to Flickr tomorrow night. I have a wire at home but I don’t want to wait that long. Olympus says the wire is much safer than a card reader. Is that really true? Has anyone else gone thru this sheer hell of photo loss? I’ve never felt so depressed. Thank god it wasn’t one of those 1 or 2 gigabyte monsters with the entire trip on it. At least I had copied the first two days of my trip to my computer before this happened. It seems like there should be better technology than this! Like there should be some sort of internal memory on the camera and on the disk. I’d pay big bucks for a camera with that capability! I never want to go through this again. Learn from my pain: back-up and copy everything as you go.

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?

I probably should’ve been driving home since I still had such a long way to go but I couldn’t resist making a few stops on in North Carolina. Got to see a few things that have been on my list for years. Downtown Durham has a lot of neat old buildings like this one (Brightleaf Square, a former tobacco warehouse):

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Got home at midnight and will now be working on getting the photos (approximately 1,000 of them) to the website. If you haven’t been following the flickr stream, I have about 200 photos from this trip there.

The Next Big Trip will be in July – focusing on Wisconsin and Minnesota. I’ll resume these blog entries then.

Ya know, I just realized this is Day 12, not Day 11. I don’t know how my numbering got messed up and I’m too wiped out now to try to figure it out & fix it.

We started the day in downtown Atlanta. I only had a couple stops there but some big running race event was going on and it took me about an hour to get across town. But for a giant chicken, it was worth the wait!

The other stops were in Atlanta suburbs, south and north. An old Zesto’s must’ve been bulldozed for new development. Got yelled at by the woman that lives in the giant guitar house in Fayetteville for taking a picture. You can’t really tell it’s a guitar unless you’re up in the air anyway. The Giant Knight made of car bumpers in Marietta is gone. The Chateau Elan Winery doesn’t know where their giant wine bottle is anymore. Also in Braselton, the Mayfield Dairy’s giant cow is also gone. I got a few midcentury buildings and a couple repurposed gas stations (both now restaurants). Those are the random things that come to mind right now.

In Hapeville, I ran across this now hideously encased Burger Chef:

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In Riverdale, the Hindu Temple of Atlanta is pretty spectacular:

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We crossed over into South Carolina at the end of the day. In Ware Place, I found this cement statuary place that had quite a few fiberglass figures. Those photos will be going up at the website when I get home. For now, I’ll share a cement doggie photo with you: