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The trees reveal the passage of time in rephotography projects. A seedling in the 1950s is an overgrown tree turned stump half century later. The Hi-Way 8 in Ladysmith has survived severe storms for decades and the the influx of chain hotels and restaurants. The rates are cash-only cheap (less than $45 with taxes for two). The room we last stayed in had a vintage pink tile bathroom and a microwave and a coffee maker. Since the 1990s, we stayed there each time we traveled to Ladysmith to see dance performances at ChaliceStream.

The important art in Milwaukee was once housed in the basement of the county owned 1958 War Memorial Center--located on a street named after Abraham Lincoln. The futuristic Eero Saarinen building has been expanded to accommodate the growing collection of art and programs based on the designs of two additional architects: Kahler completed a brutalist concrete gallery expansion to the east in 1975 and Santiago Calatrava completed a white and glass winged wing to the south in 2001). A third expansion is again being contemplated for this crazy quilt of a building at 700 Art Museum Drive.

Spotted on a spring bike ride, the Serendipity Storage facility in Appleton is described online as: "Categorized under Household and Commercial Storage, our records show it was established in 1995 and incorporated in Wisconsin, current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of $180,000 and employs a staff of approximately 3." Shopping for appliances and furniture in 2011, we checked Craigslist where we found people liquidating items they'd found in a storage space they bought. A&E premiered the reality TV show Storage Wars in December 2010 thus indicating some advanced stage consumerism side-effect where ordinary people paid monthly rent to store material possessions they would ultimately lose.

Sometimes hidden in the trees, buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright haunt the landscape of Wisconsin. Taliesin holds forth in Spring Green offering guided tours while the Annuciation Greek Orthodox Church hovers in Milwaukee offering a futuristic spiritual retreat. Racine is graced with the Johnson Wax headquarters and Wingspread both commissioned by Herbert Fisk Johnson, Jr. about 1938-39. Family continues to run the company, but Johnson's house, Wingspread, was donated to the The Johnson Foundation twenty years later in 1959 for use as an international conference center emphasizing causes related to water, health, and community.

Completed in 1884, the former Temple Zion is now home to Wahl Organbuilders. Houdini's father, Mayer Samuel Weiss, was brought to Appleton as the city's first rabbi and the Temple Zion was to be his synagogue. He was dismissed before it was opened because he preached in German in a time that English was becoming prevalent. The German craftsman style building served as a synagogue until 1932.

Holy Innocents Catholic Church (affectionately known as HI), dedicated in 1950 by Bishop Bona, features a giant light-up rosary (far right). Hovering over statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary, praying children, and lambs made of concrete, the grouping commemorates the secret message of Fatima. The blue electric rosary remains one of our favorite after-dark Manitowoc sites and is easily viewed from the car while cruising down Waldo Boulevard. The church was named for the martyred Holy Innocents more specifically for the male infants that were "slaughtered within two years following the apparition of the star to the Wise Men." HI and five other churches were "consolidated" into one named St. Francis of Assisi Parish to serve all of the city of Manitowoc in 2005.  Names like Holy Innocents or  St. Boniface were jettisoned and the facilities are now referred to as the Waldo site or the Marshall site, etc. relating to their street address. We knew these churches best through their basement rummage and bake sales held in the fall and spring and orchestrated by community-members to raise funds for church operations. In the 1990s, these sales were ripe with mid-century consumer goods like dishware, rhinestones, wool suits, statuary, hankies, and LPs for sale for nickels and dimes. In contrast the St. Francis website features an apparel store along with the church bulletin, a media center, and updates on the school. The mission statement remains as mysterious as the Virgin Mary's message at Fatima: The Manitowoc Catholic Community exists as a sacramental body of Christ, to love as Christ loved, by boldly proclaiming our faith, teaching our youth, spreading the Good News of Jesus, and serving one another and others in an ever-changing community.

Located in a residential neighborhood yet near to a Citgo, Pizza Hut, ATM and Video Now Productions the Apostolic Truth Church (ATC) is devoid of grandiose pretensions. The functional yet vast architecture shows only minimal symbolic decoration and features ample parking. ATC has three core "desires" according to its informational website. Members want to: "know Jesus Christ, grow in Jesus Christ, and show in the love of Jesus Christ." Musicians "who love Jesus Christ prepare church-goers to hear the Word of God" at Sunday services.

Built in 1901 and run as a sanitarium until 1909, St. Mary's Springs was operated as a rest resort with hot springs according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. The Sisters of Saint Agnes turned it first into a Catholic girls college prep school and later a Catholic co-ed K-12 school. The building on the right, Boyle Hall, was torn down in September 2005 after years of benign neglect. The building on the left does not appear in recent photographs.  Ghost stories about a stillborn baby and the suicide with crucifix of the nun who delivered it in a Boyle Hall elevator were dispelled by ghost hunter Chad Lewis.

 The faltering discount chain, Kmart, still has a store in a small Wisconsin town known as the birthplace of the Tombstone Pizza. We stopped there for underwear on a road trip in the Rambler en route to Phillips, Wisconsin believing it was our only option given the rural-ness of our route. They mostly had Hanes granny panties, a 6-pack for $9.99 and seemed to be a hub of commerce in the community.

 A quick google search reveals no trace of the "fascinating Wonderfall" today other than the occasional abandoned mall shot. Truly a work of public art placed in the democratic space of the shopping mall nearly half century ago. These fountains apparently made of nylon strands and glycerine are described briefly on the Mall Hall of Fame blog and are notoriously difficult to maintain according to artist Brian Ulrich whose photographs and research have focused on the mall in recent years. Brookfield Square wasn't the only mall with a "Wonderfall" though, other malls had them and newspaper ads described them as "mystifying." There seems to be little trace of giant operating Wonderfall in malls these days. Everyone can remember small scale versions in nursing home and supper club lobbies and home versions turn up frequently on eBay and the occasional nostalgic video.

This is where people live in the 21st century. Not far from the strip malls and franchise restaurants.

Oblivious to the forces of nature, the suburban shopper of the late 1960s could browse the mall in climate-controlled comfort once the car was parked outside in the lot. Fully enclosed expansive shopping malls seem quaintly historic in the age of Target and Amazon. But you wouldn't think so by looking at survivor mall websites like the one for Brookfield Square, which first opened in 1967. Avoiding the topic of "history", Brookfield Square has been re-envisioned for the 21st century as a bright and airy social spot with world food and trendy clothes. Still, the traditional Sears and JC Penney stores serve as anchor stores rather than the defunct Woolworth's with abundant ficus plants shown on this postcard. The Woolworth's store at the Mid-Cities Mall (opened in 1968) in our home town of Manitowoc, WI was a hot spot and frequent destination when we were teenagers. Woolworth's sold records, magazines, parakeets, house plants, lip gloss, colorful tights, and had a restaurant that served grilled hot dogs and a particularly fluffy lemony cheese cake within its walnut Formica paneled interior.

Not far from Lake Winnebago, this mid-century motel on Highway 55 still operates

with a restaurant and deck to view sunsets.

What was once obvious becomes an enigma over time. Could "The Great White Way" caption on this lithographed postcard refer to the first electric Christmas lightsinstalled on College Avenue in 1908 illuminating the December snow? Appleton is the home of a several electrical firsts. It's the site of the first hydro-electric station in 1882, the first electric streetcar in 1886, and the first electric street lights outside the east coast replacing the earlier gaslights in 1912. The postcard illustrates the culmination and evolution of these technologies in one graphic shot.

Chanting the Mantra Peace on Earth in Wayside, Wisconsin 2013. Do they believe it? Do they live it?

The abandoned Tinker Tot Drive-In survived the Ladysmith tornado of 2002.

Many places in the town did not. We always admired its "ruins" standing
along Highway 8 across from the Hi-Way 8 Motel.

In his 2003 essay Simulating Culture: Being Indian for Tourists in Lac du Flambeau's Wa-Swa-Gon Indian Bowl, anthropologist Larry Nesper wrote that "After the Second World War, increasing numbers of tourists traveled to the Northwoods of Wisconsin to recreate. Lac du Flambeau Chippewa Indians encouraged this process by availing themselves as fishing guides and by building in 1951 the Indian Bowl, within which they staged Indian dances and related cultural performances." Nesper goes on to argue that a simulacrum of Indian culture in the Northwoods was produced. Today this roadside attraction, illustrated with a photograph from the road showing a brand spanking new 1951 Cadillac parked out front, is now in peril and needs support. Organizers of a restoration effort no longer criticize crass tourism, but acknowledge its importance and that tourism dollars are key to preserving the historic Indian Bowl and outdoor amphitheater. The Indian Bowl facility hosted Pow Wows, Ojibwe dance, and cultural events for decades. The plan it to create a unified multicultural native arts center to be known as the Lac du Flambeau Cultural and Performing Arts Center with a mission to preserve and showcase native culture and heritage.

The Boys' & Girls' Brigade established Camp Onaway near Waupaca in 1910 with a goal of "building leadership" through providing an isolated place for kids to "rough it" hence learning survival and leadership skills. Perhaps the aftermath of French explorer Jean Nicolet's romanticized mission and the legendary fortitude of subsequent wilderness explorers in the pursuit of freedom.  Board member Don Weber in Native American costume presides over a smoking fire at the camp on this postcard.

The "Landing of Nicolet" postcard interpretation of a 1910 mural painting by Milwaukee-based panorama painter Franz Edward Rohrbeck illustrates the mythic landing of the young French woodland explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nicolet had been living with the Alqonquin tribes (his guides are shown in the canoe behind him) in the wilderness as part of his hot pursuit of fur (mainly beaver) and an ocean trade passageway to China. Native Ho-Chunk people are shown as exotic and cowering while offering the ceremonial calumet while rock star Nicolet, clad in ostentatious silk robe (said to be Chinese damask) accesorized by glistening pistols, asserts his authority. Another artist in another time may have illustrated the spectacle as more peaceable and cooperative, but this performative show of domination apparently resonated culturally in the early 20th century in Northeastern Wisconsin. Based on a mural painting (restored by Conrad Schmitt Studios in 2010) at the Brown County Courthouse (100 South Jefferson Street, Green Bay), this postcard reflects an American social milieu where Native peoples were marginalized and colonialism was rationalized. So culturally canonical was this scene, that a version was used on a U.S. postage stamp in 1934 celebrating the Wisconsin Trecentenary of Nicolet's landing at "Red Banks".  The stamp version was based on an earlier circa 1907 mural at the State Capitol in Madison by Edward Willard Deming who is said to have associated throughout his life with Native Americans and hence more clearly articulated the humanity of the natives in his mural. Note the phrase "The first white man"used in the postcard caption with no white guilt. The Wisconsin Trecentenary was also marked by ceremonies and a speech by FDR. The image can be read as evidence of the American power and identity struggles that enabled "the white man" to separate native peoples from their homelands.

Found: Wisconsin Trecenenary (1634-1934) postage stamp

Found: Landfall of Jean Nicolet in Wisconsin (1907)  by Edward Willard Deming on view in the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison

Come autumn, the I-43 corridor heading north can be bumper to bumper with cars and SUVs especially when "fall colors" are peaking in Door County and/or when there's a Packers game at Lambeau. Taking a drive "up north" provides an escape and in fact a tourism slogan once read "Escape to Wisconsin" which locals often modified to read "Escape Wisconsin". Postcards such as this promoted the idea of Sunday drives to view the landscape as seen through the automobile wind shield.