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Driving the rural back roads of 21st century Wisconsin isn't as romantic as the vintage postcards we've posted once portrayed it when gawking at the landscape was the only concern. Now there are texting teens, liquid manure spills, and farm implements wider than the road. The "picturesque" mid-century roadways depicted on postcards invited folks to jump in their cars with family and friends to motor to destinations throughout the state. Fall colors, rivers, scenic bluffs, and parks peppered the landscape. Being an attentive driver or "keeping your eyes on the road" seemed beside the point. A perfectly neurotic Wisconsin night driving movie scene is a highlight of Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall.  New York City comic Alvy Singer (played by Woody Allen) and night club chanteuse Annie Hall (played by Diane Keaton) visit her home town of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. Singer's Manhattan aversion to driving plays out in a scene with Annie Hall's brother Duane (played by Christoper Walken) confessing his psychopathic driving urges in his dimly lit bedroom: "Sometimes when I'm driving on the road at night and I see two headlights coming toward me fast, I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion, the sound of shattering glas, the flames rising out of the flying gasoline..." Modern Super-Highways with their smooth curves, reinforced dividers, and fenced-off roadbeds eliminate many rural hazards as drivers zoom between cities and suburbs. Still, the back roads remain the most intriguing Wisconsin driving as they weave through the glacial Wisconsin landscape, small towns, and woods with lush trees arching overhead.

Found: Antigo by Curteichcolor® 3-D Natural Color Reproduction and Antigo Card Service, Antigo, Wisconsin, circa 1960

The culture of eating, drinking, and refreshing in the age of the motor vehicles evolved from the full-service truck stop with restaurant (open 24 hours, seats 100, delicious food, mechanics on duty) such as the Adams DX, infamous for its appearance in Werner Herzog's Strozek. Now there's the Kwik Trip here in Wisconsin, established in 1965 and spreading into Iowa and Minnesota. It offers the 24/7 convenient consumption experience for motorists that the old truck stops once did. Besides gas, there's a range of food (from onions to Greek yogurt), a bakery, a dairy, hot coffee, lottery tickets, newspapers, and smokes. The Kwik Trip became the hub in the neighborhood near our studio by the mid-1990s. In the late 1980s, there were still a couple grocery stores within walking distance, a food co-op, news and video store, and there wasn't a lottery. All that's gone now and the Kwik Trip has filled the void, a lifestyle.

In a time of industrial scale agriculture and massive confinement barns that keep cattle out of view, cows grazing along the road have become a rare sight, even something the tourism department people want to nurture to create quaint views. Once America's Dairyland, Wisconsin has lagged behind in milk production to California. Massive farms pop up in Wisconsin as the small farms with red barns and a manure pile fade away to be replaced by big "dairies" with computers displaying commodity prices in the office, scores of employeees, human resource managers, manure lagoons and 10,000 cows always waiting to be milked. Cheddar cheese carving, artisanal cheese, and small operations are re-emerging and reinventing themselves as public interest in "local" grows.

Using poplar trees found onsite at our farm while channeling ideas and visions set out by Wisconsin natives, Buckminster Fuller his ideas about tensegrity, and the Domes in Milwaukee, we've been making wigwams for our upcoming exhibitions.

Found: The new Horticultural Convservatory, Milwaukee, Wis. takes shape at Mitchell Park. Plants from all over the world will be on exhibit in it when it is finished. The sunken gardens attract thousands of visitors annually copyright the L.L. Cook Co. from an Ektachrome Transparency, circa 1966.