Sinclair Sideshow

Remember that first day we were in Minnesota and I said we were looking for a heater and ended up places we didn't plan to be?  One of them was at the Shopko in Luverne, and across the street was this fella.

I hope he puts a Santa hat on him at Christmas, a few wrapped boxes on the footrest and lights on the cart.  I know I would.

The oil memorabilia property owner in question also seemed to have a fancy for lighting rod finials and cupolas. (Had to look that up, luckily it was easy to figure out.)  I can see why he liked them, can't you?

Man Code and Hip Chic

I can't believe we've been back home for 5 days.  Especially since I just spent the last 3 days helping Katrina with her move.  We got home on Sunday, I worked on Monday, then I drove up on up to the Marinette/Menominee area on Tuesday.  Wednesday was cleaning, organizing and shopping, Thursday I was back on the road home again.  I'm tired and for a change I don't want to travel anymore!  Katrina is working in Marinette, Wisconsin, but lives just over the bridge in Menominee, Michigan.  That's right, I have my very own Yooper!

But,  I still have vacation stuff to talk about yet, and I was too busy to do any sightseeing the last few days anyway.  (Don't worry, it won't be long before I'm wandering  around the U.P. with a camera.)

I know you're dying to know about the title for the post. While on vacation a few signs caught my attention.  Sometimes signs do, usually old neon, but sometimes newer ones have some flair as well.

The above signs were on the same block as the State Theater in Sioux Falls, I just liked the look of the whole collection.  Here's a closer look at the sign on the theater by itself.

I loved the Palace Theater sign in Luverne, bet it looks awesome at night all lit up.

The theater didn't seem to have a regular blockbuster type movie showing while we were there, but they are showing Despicable Me 2 at the moment, just once a day.  Wasn't that showing at the Fargo Theatre back in June?  Hmmm....

The mosaic tile in front of the doors was neat too, here's a peek, it was kind of a sign as well.

Yankton, South Dakota, had quite a few signs that caught my eye.

The Yankton Rexall Drug store has been in business for 88 years, and has held a liquor license since the end of prohibition.  I'm guessing the sign was probably from the 1950's or 60's by reading the history of the store.  Does that sound right to any of you that would know about this style of sign? Has that atomic age look to it, I thought.

Found a nice link for Yankton's  Dakota Theater, apparently it was remodeled on the inside to its original Art Deco look, but I didn't get a look inside.  I've got to start hanging around long enough to look inside some of these theaters, or return with a plan to get inside when they're open.  I labeled the posts now, so I can easily see which ones I have to return to.  My list of labels is growing, but I've also noticed that this year there is an obscene amount of architecture compared to nature adventures.  We'll definitely take care of that little problem come October when I get to the Smokies!

Lakota Sun

Last solo sculpture I'm showing, this one because I also got a cool reflection shot of it.  It's called "Lakota Sun" by Shawn Morin from Ohio.

The lighting was just bad, the stone was much prettier in person.

Anybody else out there a fan of "the Killing" on AMC? The season 3 finale was awesome! This show gets better every year, and not enough people are watching, so spread the word.  It's one that you can watch season 3 without watching the first two seasons and jump right in.  Mireille Enos is fantastic as the lead, and every season they have great guest stars, this year it was Peter Saarsgard.  Best portrayal of a prisoner I think I've ever seen.  The tone and the content are depressing, yes, but the acting and writing really can't be beat, so if you're into quality give it a look.

Don't Play With Your Food

You didn't think I was through with the sculptures, did you?  Two more that I thought deserved some special attention.  This one was called "Don't Play With Your Food" by Julie Jones-Denker from Indiana.

Too much cute? I don't think so!

Phillips Avenue SculptureWalk

Time to talk about Sioux Falls' Sculpture Walk.  Long story short, best one I've ever seen.  The town has done a nice job of keeping ones from previous years as permanent sculptures, like the one I posted about 2 days ago at Falls Park.  Sit back and enjoy!

"Sentinel" by Carl Sean McMahon, BC

"Gorgeous Gertie Grouper" by Sherrill Stone, only $9,500

"From the Waters" by Ray Kobald, IL

 When we walked passed this one again  later some lady was trying to sit on the sofa.  It's art, people, not a park bench!

Sculpture and a clock -  SCORE!

"Butterfly" by Jacque Frazee, SD

 All of the above sculptures, and many more, were within easy walking distance of the Phillips Avenue Diner so we had lunch there.

We walked around for 20 minutes and then went inside to continue our wait for a table.  Three tables were empty for 10 minutes before we finally asked the hostess why we weren't seated when there were empty tables.  Food was good though, and that 's high praise from me because I'm seldom satisfied with the food.  After lunch we walked a little further up Phillips Avenue to see some more sculptures.

Reading the diner menu while waiting

"Brimstone" by Martin Eichinger, OR

"Threading the Needle" by Joellen Domenico, CO

Best way to enjoy a city, in my opinion.  Yankton had one also, but none of the sculptures were half as good as the ones in Sioux Falls.  I wonder why?  Higher entry fee? Better artists wanting more exposure in a bigger town?  Who buys these?  Well, the local library bought the one with the book theme one year!

Postcards From Luverne

Luverne, Minnesota's one and only mural I found had a different way of highlighting the town's history by using a "postcard" format.

Linking to Monday Mural, as usual.

By the way, commenters are not getting my replies apparently, which is weird because when I checked blogger I had my settings set correctly for it to be enabled.

 Blogger says set comments to "embedded" and blog feed to "full" and that's all you're supposed to have to do.  They talk about it in blogger help when you search under "threaded comments".  I reset it and hit save again, maybe that will fix it, but if anyone knows why this wasn't working and has a tip I would love to hear it.  I don't reply to every comment, but usually at least once for every post, sometimes to all of them if the discussion is lively.

For Which It Stands

"For Which It Stands" was a bronze sculpted by James Haire and was the People's Choice winner for the 2006 SculptureWalk.  The sculptures were mostly downtown, but this one was in Falls Park.

Personally, I just adored this little face.  And the ducky was divine!  More on the SculptureWalk in Tuesday's post, I just felt this one deserved to stand alone.

We're on the way home today.  We spent the last two nights in Rochester, MN of all places.  We left Yankton early due to lack of things to do.  We'll get to that later, of course.  Not much to do in Rochester for folks like us either, but the full hook-ups were a nice luxury and we went to the mall for a few hours before hitting Trader Joe's for dinner fixings.  They had buffalo burgers again!! Haven't seen those there in years, maybe it only happens in August?

By the way, when my readers post a comment I sometimes hit "reply" and make another comment.  In theory this is supposed to alert the original poster of my reply.  Is this happening?  Someone please let me know!