URC Extra: Kaukauna and De Pere post office murals

By Ryan Urban A family gathering in Sturgeon Bay took me back to the eastern side of the state for Easter weekend.  Wisconsin’s greatest concentration of post office murals are in that region, so I had to make a couple stops, of course.  It became an old-fashioned adventure of sorts, as my phone battery died

Remembering George, a prolific traveler

This article was originally published in the May 1 edition of the Barron News-Shield. By Ryan Urban Last week I came across news of a bicyclist being struck and killed by avehicle in Fairfield County, South Carolina, on Monday, April 22.The victim was a legendary travel cyclist, George Christensen, 73, ofCountryside, Illinois.Since 2001, Christensen has

URC Extra: Kewaunee and Sturgeon Bay post office murals

By Ryan Urban I like to visit post office murals in the season depicted in the mural.  Kewaunee’s mural is “Winter Sports” by Paul Faulkner.  The scene appears to be set atop a hillside overlooking the frozen Kewaunee River, which flows into Lake Michigan. There are ice skaters, hockey players, tobogganers, ski jumpers.  I think

A taste of times past; old-fashioned brewing

Sometimes I feel as if I should have existed in a different time. I should have been born a century ago or more.  I think the world post-invention of the train and bicycle but before the automobile would have suited me well. A time when books and newspapers were widely available, but before television appeals

URC Extra: Mural quest halfway update

I’ve been working on my post office mural quest for a little over a year now, and I’m about halfway through visiting Wisconsin’s 35 post offices built in the New Deal Era. So here’s a quick update, including photos of a mural that was moved out of the former Hudson post office to a museum

URC Extra: Park Falls Post Office Mural

This column is part of a series documenting my quest to visit Wisconsin’s 35 post offices with murals created as part of a New Deal program. For more background information on the program and my inspiration, check out this column. I finally got there. The Park Falls post office has been at the top of

URC Extra: Waupaca Post Office Mural

This column is part of a series documenting my quest to visit Wisconsin’s 35 post offices with murals created as part of a New Deal program. For more background information on the program and my inspiration, check out this column. After quite a few months off the beat, I was happy to get back on

A long voyage south: Part 2

This is part 2/2. Click here for Part 1. The true highlights of my Antarctic voyage happened when we got off the ship and set foot on the continent. In Zodiak boats we cruised among icebergs in calm bays, getting close views of a few different varieties of seals and penguins.  Every time we set

A long voyage south: Part 1

There are people who go south in the winter. And then there are people who travel way south.I was one of them for the latter part of December, and by way south, I mean Antarctica.It was only 203 years ago that a Russian expedition first laid eyes on Antarctic islands. Roald Amundsen’s Norwegian expedition was

Monkey business—Setting the record straight

I subscribe to a newsletter called “The Mix” by Robert Simonson, an accomplished food and cocktails writer whose work appears frequently in the likes of the New York Times.  His Aug. 8 edition of the newsletter caught my attention because the photo at the top was a bright yellow building with a gorilla sculpture perched