 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Portrait of me (PJ Chmiel) in front of Indian horse mural, Parson's Trading Post, Lake Delton, WI. I don't ordinarily wear a moustache, but at this point in time I had been growing one for a little over a week. | ||
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| More details of Indian murals at Parson's. I believe this place has been there since hte 1920s! | I love the colors and the stylized feet, look at how sharp those things are. | Great noses on the figures, very interesting characterizations. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Beautiful colors on the horse, it's not easy to paint on an irregular stucco surface like this. | Another nice detail of the Indian's buckskins with bead work. | The horse's tail had an interesting tomahawk tie on it... |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| The next group of shots are all taken inside Parson's. I love the packaging for this incense but it doesn't smell very good at all, and I am a fan of Pine stuff. | I love that you can still find stuff like this brand new in the Dells, other places would probably sell this same piece in an antique shop. Here's Looking at You! | Lots of aromatic Cedar items, these boxes have some incredible wildlife artwork on them, though it's usually a CMYK paper print shellac'd on, not sure about the longevity of one. I did buy one however (deer scene) and may report back someday... |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Wee Hunter souvenir letter openers. | These actually smell pretty decent, if artificial, and the packaging is amazing. Not sure what these odd little balls are made of (clay?), but they're all irregularly-shaped, so they've got to be manmade. | All-purpose Vinyl Poncho packaging is very nice too. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| A fantastic display of color postcards, could be original from the old days or faithful reprints from the original films; nowdays nice cards like these get taken into Photoshop and ruined with horrible type. The back usually reveals the vintage. | A couple of clandestine shots from near the main entrance to Parson's, just showing an "overall" of a few vantage points. | A couple of clandestine shots from near the main entrance to Parson's, just showing an "overall" of a few vantage points. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Our ticket for the Wisconsin Dells Army Ducks. We figured it would be bad when the choad driver wouldn't let us keep this for a souvenir, that's why I thought to take a photo of it before we boarded... | Some cool casino games in the lobby while waiting for our Duck. This one was called Cherry Master, with sweet graphics to match. | Another shot of Cherry Master. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Here we are on the Army Ducks boat tour, which sucked by the way. I went on the Original Ducks tour last summer and thought that was cheesy, it was far more scenic than the Army Ducks tour (with the same awful brand of "entertainment' by the driver). | The drivers tell jokes so painfully bad that you don't know whether to pity them, slap them or take your own life right then and there. A few old people laugh at them, but they'll laugh at anything, especially in groups. The denominator gets REAL low. | Check the motherfucking unstoppable brows on this gentleman, I'd estimate a projection of well over 2 inches from the forehead. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| House on an island with precarious dock, Dells. | Sandstone, not nearly as pretty as Pictured Rocks. | More island formations, the first of several "rednecks fishing in the Dells" shots. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| About as scenic as this tour gets, a good half of it is driving through subdivisions! | ||
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| More rednecks fishing the Dells. | This cavernous thing you could see all the way though, local teenagers like to hang out there and leave their beer cans and other garbage. Can't you just see the Indian fellow crying on top of the rock? | |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Buzzard's Ass or something, they give all these things anthropomorphically-suggestive names. | Vanessa puts on a bemused face despite wanting to kill the driver and herself. | Me enjoying the uproarious narration. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Same scam with both Dells Duck tours: Near the end, the driver stops, turns off the vehicle, and gives a pathetic pitch to sell you some overpriced postcards (after you've already paid $15 or $20 per person for the lousy one-hour ride... | the postcards aren't even nice, this is such a fucking sad racket, you can tell the drivers hate doing this (they're probably all alchoholics, I would be), it's super-uncomfortable for everyone involved and you just want to die while sitting through it. | Oh, and they also try to sell you a goddamn digital photo of yourself (oversaturated) for like $16 when you disembark! Come on, maybe $5, but they can shove it up their ass for that price. I got the better of them (sort of) by taking a candid shot of it. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Vanessa was debating buying this shirt, nice color but kind of bad design, reversing black line art to print white is one of my top-ten design pet peeves, it's so lazy and makes no sense at all visually. Dicks. | Now we're out of the Ducks nightmare and into a gift shop, I really wanted to buy some of these for the packaging but the scam artist wanted $3 for this, which shouldn't be more than a dollar. What the hell IS it? | Downtown Wisconsin Dells. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sun, Sep 18, 2005 |
| This big creepy bastard was an animatronic doll that sang and moved and jiggled at you, enticing you into a store. It worked for us! | A video of that creepy shit gnome troll goblin. See the previous photos to be amazed at the scale of the thing! | |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Lots of Moccasins in the Dells, including knee-highs. Nice. | ||
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| More cedar gift boxes with wildlife. | I'm a big fan of this sort of art, these aren't the nicest examples I've seen (those were at a truckstop believe it or not), but they show the technique. | Wolves in warm colors. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Deer in fall colors, nice. | Owl chotchky decorated with sea shells. | More sea-shell owls and a cat too! |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Magnet Map of the US showing various incarnations of this concept, each successive generation executed more poorly than the last with worse type, colors and illustrations. | Palm reader sign, downtown Dells. | Flinstones car thing, detail. |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
 Sat, Sep 10, 2005 |
| Vanessa in that Flinstones car. | Some "hot properties" for sale in the Dells area. | The Chalet, a landmark of the downtown strip, it's got shops on 2 stories! |
 Sun, Sep 11, 2005 |
 Sun, Sep 11, 2005 |
 Sun, Sep 11, 2005 |
| These last few photos are from Madison, WI, where we visited our friend Jean. U-V Free Tanning sign in fluorescent colors. | Jean drove us to Lake Mills, a nice little town about 20 miles east of Madison. They had a nice little public access and we took possibly our last swim of the season and had a picnic. | Jean and Vanessa on the beach. |
 Sun, Sep 11, 2005 |
 Sun, Sep 11, 2005 |
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| Picnic area. |