England 2026 - Plague Village

When I excavate at Vindolanda there is that pesky in between weekend where they require us to put down the tools and rest.  It is usually the occasion for our little band to do some sort of interesting road trips.  This year the Saturday road trip started here:

Welcome to Throckrington.  The ancient church and an adjacent farm is everything that is above ground.  It is a plague village, a community of the dead.

Evidently it used to be a thriving place.  But in 1847 a sailor returned home....with cholera.  There were so many deaths that the village was abandoned, its structures burned to the ground.  Today it is a wind swept, lonely place.

Some of the tombstones make me think it may have been a bit peculiar even back in the day.

And....

If you squint through the lichens it says:

In Memory of ISABLE Wife of 

JACOB COOK, who died

May the 11th 1814 aged 75 years

Also JACOB COOK who died on 

the 9th of March 1817, in the 78 year of his age

For more than fifty years he was

deeply acquainted with experimental

relegion.  He lived a holy and an use

ful life, and died a happy and triumph

ant Death.  

(It does go on to list various other members of the Cook family, squeezing some grand kids in right down at the hard to read bottom edge).

Another notable burial in the place is Lord Beveridge.  At first glance I thought it was Lord Beverage, which would be interesting. I might have been thinking of a later stop on our itinerary.

Lord Beveridge of Tuggal is a pretty recent addition to the graveyard.  He is said to be one of the architects of the modern British welfare state.  I'd say he was lucky to have gotten into hallowed ground, as he described himself as a "materialistic agnostic", and dabbled in Eugenics.  He also - along with Albert Einstein - was part of a People's World Convention that post war was proposing to draft a Constitution for the Federation of Earth.  Rather Trekky.....

It was a busy Saturday, and I'll have to save the strange antiques market and Mad Sufferegette for another day.  But we ended it in style, with a visit to the brewery and tap room of the First and Last Brewery.  They make the Best Bitter that I enjoyed frequently at The Bowes.  Mmmmm for now all I can do is remember a pint of Reiver after a dusty day of digging.....

FIRST Robotics 2026 - Tournament Number One

Off with the team to Appleton Wisconsin for a long, tiring weekend.  It's a three hour drive. 

A successful outing that proved the merit of our design and construction, and showed off what a group of talented kids can accomplish with hard work.  We astonishingly started by winning our first nine matches.  This has never happened before, and statistically may never happen again.

By the end a bit of wear and tear was showing, so our time in the double elimination final rounds was short, but for a first event it was excellent.  We have a limited amount of time to repair, recharge and in selected cases upgrade.  We are off again in about ten days.  

As usual, some oddity photos.  I'll try to add a link to our matches when it becomes available.

This event was in a big high school gym.  It's actually nicer than some of the arena type venues we've been in.  Maybe you can feel a bit of residual energy from generations of kids excited about things going on in front of them.

Our driver actually seems a bit pleased with the damage our robot's name plate took in an intense match.  

There are as always little event freebies.  In keeping with our school mascot we had these little plastic cardinals.  Somebody arranged them in this pattern.  Various stories were concocted about what was going on here.  Some were a bit dark, court martials and such.  I suggested the vibe was "Teach us oh Eldest and Wisest".  But maybe I was projecting.

Not as many mascots as in earlier days.  Those suits are hot and awkward, so when you do see them it is towards the end of the event.  I of course had to ham it up with a couple of birds.  It's me doing my best bird imitation.  It's not very convincing.

More to come.  

Link to video of our matches  https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/5826/2026

 

In the Shadow of the Great Prairie Dog

I have not been traveling much this summer.  But some family members are.  Steeling themselves for the ordeal of long distance vacation driving my son and his family headed Out West.  Somewhere generally around Phillip South Dakota, on the edge of the Bad Lands, they encountered the World's Largest Prairie Dog.  It watches over a sort of gift store.

 

Well, that's not actually one of the pictures they sent me.  I borrowed it from Roadside America.  The latter is a fun site, I've sent them a few curiosities over the years.  Here's their write up on The Ranch Store and its guardian totem. 

The picture I actually was sent was taken as the blistering sun was getting low in the sky.  Still, it was 102 degrees at 5:30 pm.  Yikes.  I think the big guy looks a bit sinister seen from this angle.....

Mooching around in the only available patch of shade are a batch of actual prairie dogs.  They live there, enjoying an indolent existence where there are no predators, but a steady stream of tourists willing to feed them for one dollar a bag of "Dog" chow.

And, ya know, they are pretty cute little buggers.  Unless you happen to know a few things about them.  Like that they have been documented to transmit several diseases to humans.  Monkey Pox would be kind of bad.  And would require a bit of explaining.  But, helpful hint of the day, prairie dogs can transmit bubonic plague!!!  Lookin' a little less cute now???

In the Wilds of Wisconsin

I promised our British friend that we'd show her things here in flyover land that she'd never encounter on "the coasts" or in conventional media depictions of America.  I think we delivered...

The Bloody Mary as a fully developed art form needs to have lots of pickled "stuff" and a chaser of beer.  The best of several she sampled was at Garmish on Lake Namekagon.

England has a few puny lakes.  But no Lake Superior.  Touring the Apostle Islands on a wind swept day.

Fall colors.  I kept telling her to step back.  Just a bit more.....but she's known me too many years to fall for it.  Or off the pier.

Other natural beauty.  Sometimes we saw wildlife.  Deer, eagles.  Wild turkey amazed her.  A chipmunk jumped right over her shoulder and shook her up considerably.  Just missed the jugular I told her.

There were lots of other things that I should have documented.  A Lutheran church meatball supper.  The trip to the rural "guy store" with a huge hunting and fishing department.  A gun safe big enough for her to hide in.  Muskrat traps.  Gallon jugs of bear attractant.  "Why would you want to ATTRACT them?"

Anyway, on our drive back to the big city at least I got to show her Elmwood Wisconsin.  Their annual town festival is UFO Days in memory of long ago sightings.  And we found a bit of odd lawn art to convey her homeward.

At one point I explained Cheeseheads to her.  She seemed intrigued but we were unable to find them during her stay.  Soon afterwards my wife ran across them in a store we'd driven past several times.  Alas.....  Next visit maybe.

Signs of the (Discontented) Times

As the world slowly started to step out of pandemic lock down I decided to take a brief road trip to see "what was out there".  I routed through some small towns that were just enough off my usual routes that I was seeing them for the first time.  It was refreshing to visit a Drive In and order up a Chili Cheese Dog with a Root Beer Float, and accompanied by a batch of fries that would give my Belgian friends pause....

As one set of troubles is seeming to wind down of course a whole new batch was starting.  I'm not going to go into politics much in this space but I'd be remiss if I did not mention that two of my favorite commercial establishments on earth, and places that I doubt had anything to do with social injustice, were struck hard.

Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Book store was burned to the ground.  Axman Surplus had extensive looting and is currently closed.   These developments make me profoundly sad. Axman will be back.  But Uncle Hugo's may be gone forever.  Such a rare place.  When you kill the last unicorn there will never be another....

But on to the discoveries of a sunlit day in rural Wisconsin.

This is actually a rather well done sign.  Eye catching, simple idea conveyed.  For some reason I think it might be locally created.  

I was not sure what to make of this next one.  We live in Post Ironic Times so might this be someone dialing down their harsher negative opinions?  Or might it be a Republican with a sense of humor?  I did a bit of sleuthing and discovered that this was the first possibility.  It is an official street name and was the work of a WWII Vet and Democrat.  I guess that makes sense.  We are no longer allowed to have humor in our political life after all.  The story evidently goes back a ways...

According to the Eau Claire Star-Telegram, Darn Republican Street dates back to 1955, when the already-named street was on private property and deeded to the city of Chetek only on the condition the name be retained. And retained it has been; we’re surprised political candidates don’t show up along quirky street names like this more often!

Humor still exists however, if you look in obscure enough spots.  Almena Wisconsin qualifies.  Here's what I believe to be the main drinking establishment of this tiny hamlet:

The sign says TESTICLE FESTIVAL and in small print mentions Food Provided by Almena Meat Company.  The 16th celebration of....er....something or other, will be in September 2020.  What I can puzzle out suggests bands in the street, alcohol consumption and a menu that should be parsed carefully and with sober eyes before ordering.

Monument Rock

Down in the general vicinity of Viroqua Wisconsin I drove by an unexpected landmark.

It is called Monument Rock.  My photo hardly does it justice, it is, well as you'd certainly expect, monumental.

It is apparently a chunk of really old rock that just laughed off the glaciers that scoured the area during the last Ice Age.  It balances on an alarmingly skinny base.  Worthy of a moment of admiration although the stories of the Native American population revering it are likely nonsense.

I did get up a bit closer and was happy to see an absence of graffiti.  It looks a parlous climb but I figured local adventurous young people still clamber up it.  What they do up there, oh, best not to imagine.

But before we write off the current gen as scoundrels and scofflaws, I leave you with an image from a 1909 post card:

Graffiti top to bottom and a couple of ads for a patent medicine/health food!  It appears that generations past were also at times scofflaws and scoundrels.

Road Trip Trees

A couple of Tree Shaped Tombstones from a June road trip.  Odd balls today.

I don't usually bother with this style of monument.  There is something unimpressive about a stack of logs.  But this one caught my eye.  The base is of the usual limestone that I have become so fond of.  The top log is red granite.  It seemed quite odd to see them mixed this way.  I wondered if this was a repair job.

Still not sure, the two stone types did overlap in popularity and the fit is pretty good.   

I ran across this new (1970s) tombstone in a tiny hamlet.  On the one hand it pleases me that people are, or at least recently were, still creating these in something like the old style.  On the other hand, those bears gotta go.  It got me thinking about what my own "Spirit Animal" would be. For now I am going with Capuchin monkey or Possum.

This one got me thinking, because it had the look of something created more by machine than by hand carving.  I theorized that CNC technology has advanced a great deal since this was made, and that perhaps my long standing (and hopefully long delayed) wish for my own elaborate Tree Shaped Tombstone might be practical.  Courtesy of You Tube here is what stone cutting CNC can do in the 21st century...

Gas Station Time Warp in Orfordville

When I am on a road trip I consider it appropriate to be lost a certain percentage of the time.  Maybe 5% if my wife is along.  But when I am by myself - and with a looser definition of lost - more than that is fine.  Of course when meandering down obscure back roads you must keep an eye on the gas gauge and on a recent southern Wisconsin jaunt I was watching the needle drop as I traveled over some very rustic territory.

So I pulled into a little town I might othewise have skipped, Orfordville Wisconsin.

On Main street there was a dingy looking 1970's gas station that appeared to be closed.  But across the street?  This:

Whoa.  My first thought was that the place on their sign where it said "Established 1964" was totally wrong.  This was a vintage gas station and a much earlier business.  So I pulled in to check it out.

Out of habit I started pumping gas before....a guy came out to do it!  Guy also gave the windows a good squeegie and was happy to chat about the weather, the gas station, etc. 

As it happens it is a vintage building, dating to 1926.  It was a livery stable before it became a garage.  Most of their business is repair work.  The owners of Sather's are buying the dingy 1970's station across the street so that they will have pumps that can be self serve after hours.  The pumps you see here are pre-credit card.  The weather looks OK but "might rain later".

It's not a total time warp.  Sather's has its own website and Facebook page in which more is explained.....

Weirdly Orfordville had another vintage gas station just a few blocks away.  It seems to be inactive now, its most recent incarnation being some sort of ice cream shop.

The gas pump out front does look original.  I remember seeing a few of these still in operation when I was a very young lad.  The little glass "eye" filled up with gasoline when you ran the pump.  It swirled around when the gas was pumping.  I found them vaguely frightening.

Odd how gas stations and their fixtures age with such grace.

Leaving Orfordville I passed a nice new gas station/convenience store complex on the edge of town.  They seemed to be doing well.  I suspect it is the successor to the down town 70's gas station.  I hope they get along with Sather's and that both the old and new enterprises succeed.

Treasure City (Michigan) Another Classic Gone

A while back I wrote about "Treasure City", an over the top tourist trap in Minnesota. It was on the road to our cabin up north and on rare occasions our parents would give in to constant pleading and actually stop there.  It had rocks, minerals, lots of shells, cheap pirate themed stuff, etc.

It was one of many such establishments but seemed to be the most flamboyant, the most unapologetic.  Remarkably it has survived for over half a century even with the main road being routed elsewhere.

So I was pleased to learn that there was another, apparently related Treasure City along the route of our drive through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Old images were promising (I think on study that this is the Michigan version).

The "U.P." as they call it is certainly not free of tacky commerce, so I had high hopes. Alas, it was not to be.  Here is Treasure City in early July of 2017.

Clearly it is a new building.  The snarling bear might look impressive but it is modern fiberglass, not in the spirit of the garish plywood of the original signage.  The sign says: Treasure City - This is It! Largest Gift Shop in the North.

As to the contents, I could not bear to take a single photo, or to linger long over how the kitchy have fallen.  It is a huge place, new, absolutely immaculate.  I did find a single table each of sad looking shells and unimpressive colored stones.  Otherwise it was T-shirts, sweat shirts, fake license plates, endless variations of cabin signs, cheap Chinese made toys... and not even any pirate stuff.  We just wanted a Jolly Roger flag and perhaps some fake doubloons for an upcoming "Treasure Hunt" when the extended family gathers.  But no.

It is the kind of place that grandma might go to and buy you a souvenir of your vacation.  Or in the case of the grandma in our party, not.

Contrast it with this recent(?) picture of the Minnesota incarnation of Treasure City:

Pirate Pete is not happy with you folks up in Michigan.  Not happy at all.

For more images of what I now consider The Real Treasure City, go HERE.   If you are in Michigan and want to find something similar, I suggest Shell City in Grayling.

For entirely forgettable stuff for your cabin and/or grand children, you can go anywhere.

Road Trip June 2017

Some pictures from the road.  Scenic beauty?  Nah, just the things I find odd and interesting.

First up, an establishment in Northern Wisconsin:

The sign reads SPA BAR-BOWLING.  Now, likely as not it just means that the name of the establishment is Spa, but I rather like the image of northwoodsy women, heck maybe some men too, lounging back in easy chairs getting pedicures with cucumber slices over their eyes...with the sound of crashing bowling pins in the back ground.

Next up, Christmas Michigan.  Which is pretty much a couple of tourist trap stores and this garish casino.  Hey, who's that in the background?

I'm afraid so.  Its a two story tall Santa beckoning you in to roll the dice on whether you can afford to buy your tots presents this year.  

 Sometimes the notices in bathrooms go beyond the basic, necessary info:

Destination for the journey was Ann Arbor Michigan.  A fun college town.  So all telephone poles in the hip down town area are festooned with posters for local bands. Except this one.  Did it just reach carrying capacity for staples?  Or is it in its own way some kind of performance art?

The Super Cows

Monroe Wisconsin calls itself "The Swiss Cheese Capitol of the USA".  That pretty much tells you what you need to know about the place.  It was settled by Swiss, so the place is quaint and immaculately tidy.  And they really like their cows.

So when we were passing through on our road trip and saw a sign announcing "Super Cows - Historic Town Square", we had to turn off.  What I was expecting to find was, well, exactly what we did find.

Stationed around the old brick central square were carved figures of assorted bovine heroes.  

Batman Cow looking suitably dark and mysterious.  Perhaps inspired by the Black Angus variety.

The Incredible Hulk is not looking happy here.  Somebody has broken off his right horn.  This will not end well.

Superman Cow.  Now admittedly I am a full generation removed from farm life but even I know enough about male bovine anatomy to state with confidence that the skimpy shorts worn by "Supe" and by the Hulk above would not meet any standards of modesty!

On a similar note it probably does not bear thinking about what it would take to squeeze udders into the capacious but poorly located brassiere of Wonder Woman.

The Flash has a bit more "giddyup" than most cows.  It appears he has just received instructions from the Mayor or Commissioner Gordon, or somebody in the Courthouse directly behind him.

Thor, looking decidedly non-Swiss.

One last pleasing bit of art.  Super Girl Cow posing demurely next to a small community garden plot.  Most farm families have genuine affection for their cows and consider them as both "girls" and most decidedly "super".

At the Corner of Faith and Judgement - Summer 2016

A few pictures from our recent road trip.  Much more of course to follow in the weeks ahead.

Shullsburg Wisconsin has some fascinating street names:

You can STOP at the intersection of Faith and Judgement.  Judgement is the main street in the town and it also meets up with Friendship, Peace, Truth and Cyclops.

If you had somehow forgotten that Sheboygan is a very Teutonic city that likes to have a good time, just look up as you walk down 8th Street.

I really should not seek out signs entirely for the purpose of upsetting my British pal MooseandHobbes, but it would be hard to find more anti-vegetarian sentiments than this sign snapped through the window of a small town meat market.  They have been turning Bambi into Burgers since 1890.

A 19th Century tobacco warehouse in Edgerton Wisconsin.  It was just after a nice rain shower so the "ghost signs" were visible.  The middle section has scraps of meaning.  "...N FOR MEN" "HENRY"  "5 c".  We thought it was an awful lot of artistic effort for a surface that would only be seen by people riding on the trains.

At their home base in Kohler Wisconsin the eponymous Kohler Corporation has their amazing Design Center.  More high end plumbing fixtures that you can imagine, designer bathroom displays that cost more than I paid for our house, booths where you can turn on a dozen different shower nozzles all at once and so forth.  I especially like the forty foot tall Wall of Tubs and Toilets.

Because she likes puns and I am feeling a little badly about the carcass drop off photo I shall mention to M&H that I dubbed the triumphant figure at the top "The Emperor Commodus".