The camera thought Smathers Beach was roiling with fog when I switched it on. That was just the effect of sudden exposure to the warm damp breath of morning after a night in the dry sub arctic office. While the picture looked evocative I had to stand around for ten minutes enjoying the dawn and waiting impatiently for the Camera to adjust to conditions. Testing, 1,2,3:
The mass of humanity jogging by on the sidewalk didn't even notice me standing there peering into the black box and grumbling. I have a lot of patience to learn as we go in to the Peak Oil period and high energy tasks start to take longer and longer. Waiting for a camera to get ready to take a picture will require the same patience as waiting for a bus. Good things come to them as wait:
Above is Smathers Beach looking west towards the harbor and not a soul in sight, while below the view is east towards the Airport. These pictures make Key West look like a beachy resort town. It's amazing how easy the illusion is to foster with just a couple of pictures. 
The ride out of town was easy this morning, not much traffic, not much headwinds and an open dry highway. The Bonneville has hit 13,000 miles since I bought it last October and I have slipped into the groove of familiarity with it. The handlebars fall right to hand, my feet fit comfortably tucked up on the foot pegs, the engine response is smooth and full of torque, the clutch light, the gearbox smooth. The engine with stock exhaust purrs quietly at sixty miles per hour across the Saddlebunch Keys. I manage to offend a dawdling Debonaire Air Conditioning van by passing him easily and quickly where the speed limit increases to 55mph, and he eventually puts down his cellphone or his sandwich or his newspaper, whatever the distraction was, and floors his boss's accelerator, damn all expense in a mad effort to catch me up so when he does manage to grow big in my mirror, I use him as an excuse to pull over and take a picture of this castle in the air:
I miss riding in Italy, where most drivers pull to the shoulder to let motorcycles go by, and pause at stop signs to give right of way to let the bikers disappear ahead of them. Here instead passing is a comment on manhood and even women drivers get upset because they want to dawdle and you don't, so as you pull past they speed up as though to deny my 865cc twin the open road? Days when I want to dawdle I pull over when vehicles catch up to me, days when I want to go faster people hunker down and block my way. People are weird. The clouds are fascinating by contrast, all bunched and black and full of empty threats of rain.
As dawns go today's was a bit of a bust, some mornings the sun rises all angry and red illuminating the horizon from end to end with white rays of light bursting from the edges of the clouds like a renaissance painting of the Transfiguration. Though I'm not religious there are mornings when I am surprised God in a white beard doesn't appear from behind these stunning arrays of light and cloud to descend onto the Overseas Highways and present me the Ten Commandments, or in a fit of absentmindedness to demand the life of my eldest (and non existent) son. The burning bush by comparison to these light shows was but a feeble ember. I ride with awe on my face and wonder why everybody doesn't pause in their commute to drink in the beauty of it all. But they don't, they're too busy, and on a pale colorless morning like this I hardly blame them, but I stop anyway to enjoy the gray and steely views and force myself to take a picture:
It costs me a few pennies more to fill my three point two gallons of fuel at my neighborhood Chevron, since they don't give me the five percent rebate I get with my Shell credit card . Nevertheless I like to patronize my local business. 
Three point two gallons of 89 octane with 141 miles on the trip odometer equals...um...forty three miles per gallon? All this open amazing road all 27 milesof it from my workplace, enjoyed for less than the cost of a con leche. Why do they commute by car?
Shark Channel, east of Geiger Key has seen an increase in anchor out boats, many of which I suspect are liveaboard homes. The waters around Key West are becoming more inhospitable as expensive beachside homes spread across slivers of formerly open land used to park dinghies. The result is an increase of anchor outs further up the Keys:
For Key West residents not used to the wilds of the Lower Keys this particular island is known for one thing, a bar of course, and a place that likes to rival Schooner Wharf as a slice of the "old keys way of life." There are no signposts to Geiger Key RV Park, Marina and restaurant but its there hidden away off a side road:
Alongside the working dock there is a sort of Tiki bar and a decent restaurant serving, of course, fresh fish. There is a certain sense of humor required to run a place like this, which styles itself the "backside of paradise," but success brings with it the usual crop of complaints. There are more homes scattered around Geiger Key than might at first appear and the arrival of live music and lots of patrons at the marina caused the usual rash of grumbling, which the business appears to have weathered:
And there is what passes for a small muddy park just beyond the marina where one could stand and contemplate the mangroves if one felt so inclined. Sitting isn't an option as the pea rock isn't that comfortable:
If one seeks a well-to-do tropical lifestyle such as is frequently touted around Key West, one doesn't seek it on Geiger Key. This is a rather more down at heel neighborhood, more like a comfortable old pair of bedroom slippers than a pair of name brand high heels. Homes around here are either double wide trailers or their newer replacements, homes, frequently modular, on stilts:
Either way their occupants get to enjoy waterfront living, decent sized yards (by Keys standards) and a certain level of privacy guaranteed by the absence of tourists or tourist related advertising. Canals were dug into the rock decades ago when such acts of environmental vandalism were not only permitted but encouraged in Florida's mosuqito infested swamps, and the happy result is easy access to boating in lots of places otherwise landlocked in the Keys. There are two types of canals prominent here:
This is a regular boating canal with direct access to Hawk Channel and the straits of Florida. A double wide for sale on one of these canals is advertised at $499,000 though I doubt the owner will get that sort of asking price at the moment. In 2005 people were lining up to buy these trailers at those prices, until Hurricane Wilma flooded them out. In the next photograph w see what's known as a swimming canal, a place where engines are not allowed and access to the canal is shallow enough that only a kayak could possibly might make it in and out. This particular canal emerges into the shallow back country of Boca Chica Key, the navy base west of Geiger Key:
These homes on canals are grouped into a small community known as Tamarac Park, not to be confused with the city of Tamarac on the mainland. Realtors advertise this area as "Key West" frequently because the zip code is the same as the city's (33040) but that's just because the post office in Key West delivers out here. This is unincorporated Monroe County, and as rural as one can get ten minutes from the city of Key West:
Supporters of urban chickens in Key West frequently make the claim that were the fowl removed from city streets insects and the dreaded scorpions would make life unbearable. Those claims notwithstanding there are wild birds, quieter and less invasive that quietly go about the same business. I prefer their gentle dignity myself, but tourists don't want to see egrets and herons and ibis gently pecking the public flowerbeds of Key West. They want chickens, until they settle in Key West and learn the pleasures of being kept awake at night by barnyard fowl. These guys are just minding their own silent business:
The other big disadvantage of Geiger Key is that it sits next door to Boca Chica Naval Air Station, a large military airport just across the water. Even since the island of Vieques, next to Puerto Rico was closed down as a military base, flight training has been moved to Boca Chica and the Florida panhandle. The result is frequent low passes by navy jets and concomitant noise. This of course produces complaints and counter complaints ("aircraft noise" versus "sound of freedom") with the Navy patiently pointing out they have been there longer than anyone else. Indeed every time a development is proposed in their neighborhood they protest for safety reasons and the county moves smoothly ahead supporting further civilian development which will lead to more noise complaints etc etc... 
Outside the rather limited developed areas Geiger Key is a swamp of mangroves and shrubs and these rather peculiar grasses. There are trails among the mangroves but because I am a law abiding sort I don't even try to slip behind the institutional green hurricane fences put up by the Navy and I limit myself to yearning from afar:
Of course I happen to think even mangroves are enhanced by the presence of a Triumph Bonneville:
Well worth a gallon of 89 octane even at $4:25, in my opinion.
And you've got the convenience of a busy gas station right outside your bedroom window. All this at a time when rumor has it real estate is tanking in the US. Nobody said Key West is grounded in reality; why would I keep a diary if it were?
When is a bike shop not a bike shop? When the landlord's real estate office burns down and he needs to relocate upstairs. I found it quite telling when the realtor admitted in the paper that he would like to return to White Street but there may not be enough money in real estate these days to allow him to make the move. God knows the realtors' association is spending a fortune advertising to try to get people to buy homes. The bike shop seems to be doing okay, every square inch of space packed, as is usually the case in Key West:
I am not much of a shopper, I insist on pointing out, but this shop window struck me. I like the term "upholstery" not least because it's not a term (like "haberdashery") one sees that often in modern shopping America. But it's on display on Truman Avenue along with cushion covers of a typically Key West leafy style:
Upholstery certainly isn't the oldest profession, as old fashioned sounding as it may be. For that one wanders across the street to the not inappropriately named "Bare Assets" because for reasons lost in the mists of time it has been deemed illegal for men to pay women for sex, so this rather sordid and sad activity has to be masked with all sorts of euphemisms:
They are advertising for help among women who want to "make money, have fun and always feel safe." The ad goes on to say that they offer "full nude pole dancing lap dancing, and VIP rooms and private champagne rooms." Call me cynical but it quacks like a whorehouse to me. I am forced to rummage around the want ads owing to the fact that I have never been inside Bare Assets and I confess I would rather drink champagne alone than in their company.
Key West boasts lots of yoga and spa and fitness centers of one sort or another. This is one of two gyms in this very part of town. The other, more bzarrely is located behinmd the used bookstore, a place that deserves an essay of its own. I find Iron Bodies about as intimidating as Bare Assets. And while we're on that subject there is another outlet that never seems to have a customer but that appears unlikely to go out of business:
And you thought the Internet made "Adult Stores" passe. Truman Avenue should be renamed Euphemism Way, come to think. I did like the bike rack, a very Key West touch I thought.
And some stay in business. I liked the homely abandonment to the night of this architect's office. It looked like a stage set to me, blueprints, desk chair and artwork all laid out just waiting for the players:
On the one hand the desk offers splendid people watching possibilities, on the other all those people get ot look in as you doodle your work day away. I wonder how architects face up to the reality of Key West architecture, rooted in ship's carpentry, rigidly encoded and hemmed in by tradition and expectation. There are some nice examples on Truman Avenue:
There was also another example of Key West architecture across the street with a fine example of a shadowy Key West resident taking in the midnight air, warm and humid, and greeting his friends and neighbors in two languages, as they passed beneath:
Further up the street is a business (no, not that!) which my wife has enjoyed with friends as I am not excessively fond of raw fish served on rice balls. Don't get me wrong, I'll eat sushi and sashimi but not with the gusto demanded by the price. Kyushu enjoys the sort of architecture that I notice every time I ride by and though it cannot be obvious in this picture they shade their window panes with white paint to simulate rice paper. I find it charming and goofy:
Across the street, sort of kitty corner to Kyushu is one of those confounding addressesKey West specialkizes in, Wong Song Alley. When I first received a call for service on this street early on in the 9-1-1 center I had no clue where the nice lady was calling. "Yes," she sighed, "the cops always have trouble locating this address." She was very patient. So, as I always do when I get an address I don't recognize, I took a ride to find this secret alley. It's not really hard to find especially if tou are looking for it, though I discovered it is hard to photograph effectively. I include this shaded picture in homage to Wong Song Alley's elusiveness:
Wong Song it turns out is a bit like Sasquatch, and photography only increases the doubt...look hard under those trees, stranger, and find a grassy lane that leads away to the south, they say it was a wong song, though what the white one was I wouldn't know.
I went to Blue Heaven but many people looked happy enough breakfasting at the scene of last night's debauchery while these two fine specimens of vacationing womanhood were enjoying their private terrace at La Concha, ignoring the toiling masses in the street below their hotel:
The cab driver saving gas by keeping his windows open while he waits for a fare:
The street sweeper cleaning up the debris in the gutters:
Then there is the city employee hosing down the sidewalks to prepare the street for fussy visitors who prefer not to wade through trash on their way to get toasted:
Some are already busy at the bar in Sloppy Joe's at 9:19am (I checked my watch):
And I am forced to wonder how many tourists in Key West have ever seen The Bull looking like this:
Nothing quite so forlorn as a bar all closed up. I caught this guy, an advertisement for a real living wage if ever I saw one, toiling up Rose Lane: 
All those beer bottles that get thrown away empty, not recycled, arrive on Duval by human power, even in the early 21st century. And there is the vendor at Duval and Eaton who will spend the day getting toasted on his own (by the sun) selling Key West made trinkets. He starts his long day hauling his cart into position by hand:
While across the street at St Paul's relief is at hand if only one has the patience:
And don't forget the lunch time organ recitals which are delightful and free and start at 12:10pm and last about half an hour, in the cool recesses of the church.
The operator at the Hyatt booth was kind enough to help out some faceless visitors seeking directions:
Some other early birds on Caroline Street were getting last minute instructions on bicycle riding, as they wheeled off their rentals:
Bicycles are an excellent low stress way to get around town, especially if you're on vacation and it doesn't matter if you show up sweaty and hot. Mopeds are a close second and for those who rent cars I found these next two pictures, shot on Charles Street, to illustrate an obvious parking point:
Bear in mind these are likely locals vehicles and it usually doesn't pay to park like a local in Key West as parking enforcement and property owners usually know and recognize vehicles that belong in outlandish spots. Technically its not legal to lock a bike to city sign or street lamp but it would be an unlucky tourist that got her bike removed by Public Works during a brief stop. Riding the wrong way down a one way, even on a bicycle can get you a ticket, especially if you have a shitty attitude. As far as parking goes you can't beat a bicycle. And, by the way, if you have a few extra bar stools you don't need this is where you can dump them apparently:
I've remarked previously on the rather poor taste of many of the t-shirts displayed on Duval Street and some people think bongs, typically used to smoke marijuana shouldn't be on sale either. But there they are all lined up for inspection. Rather more prosaically there is a small grocery store on Duval Street and goes by the name of Shorty's, and I've never even stopped off to buy water here, but for some reason, probably because the air conditioning beckoned, I stepped in.
It was quite the revelation actually, like a real grocery store with all sorts of useful items for the forgetful tourist. I ended up spending $13 on stuff that looked pretty good to me. I got the Turkish coffee as a taste test for my wife who has a trip planned there (Turkey, not Shorty's) with some girlfriends in September, and I'm quite partial to Patak's curries so I bought a couple of meals in a box I'd never seen before. I've since eaten one and they are quite decent too, hurricane food or for a quick dinner at work:
Most tour guides tell the story that people who jump always leave behind a glass of chardonnay at the top of Key West's tallest building. Don't ask me I've never checked. And with that crowd shuffling off I found Duval starting to wake up with both eyes open and thus it was time for me to go home and enjoy the last hours of my "weekend" off.
Blue Heaven beloved by tourists, not so much by the city. Controversy, blessed be they name in a small town with a reputation to keep up! Blue Heaven has been in the city for years, gracing the corner of Petronia Street and Thomas Street in the middle of Bahama Village. It's owned by two real people who offer a mish-mash of Caribbean food al fresco under large shady trees, umbrellas and portions of roof with chickens underfoot and spaced out wait people who are to all appearances happy to work there. Neighbors routinely complain about Blue heaven to the city and to the newspaper. When I parked my Bonneville there yesterday morning the chickens and these dudes chatting were louder than the noise from the restaurant behind the bamboo fence:
Furthermore Blue Heaven isn't the only restaurant on this corner. Conch Town Cafe, closed at the time, is advertising a fund raiser for schools in Trelawney Parish, Jamaica. Very laudable, and a reminder that Key West is connected to lots of places around the Caribbean Basin:
Across the street from the Cafe is Johnson's Grocery advertising the coldest drinks in town. Also not available at the breakfast hour:
And across from the Grocery is the old Lemonade Art Studio whose only name as far as I could tell might be thusly, making more hay off that 90 mile connection I wrote of the other day:
Or perhaps its still the Lemonade Art Studio, complete with the old mural on Petronia Street. In any event whatever it's called it now sells t-shirts and related stuff:
However these are t-shirts with a difference, politically motivated of a kind that I used to see in University bookstore windows when I lived in a University town. Blue Heaven remains as it ever was:
And outside the Thomas Street entrance one can find people dithering about whether or not to go eat there which I find unusual. Blue Heaven is off the tourist track a bit and most people read about it (it's listed in all the guides) and march there with determination:
If you've never eaten plantains or rice and beans this is a good place to experiment. And for all that Key West struggles to sustain a genuine Mexican restaurant, Blue Heaven continues to offer a US variant on hardcore Caribbean food, a type of cuisine much more common around here than any variant on Mexican. Blue Heaven's version is aprticular to this restaurant. Get there early as tables fill up.
Parking is always an issue, unless you ride a Bonneville because there is two wheeled parking on Thomas Street. On the Petronia Street side, the same plea, minus the parking as there is no parking no place anywhere the length of Petronia:
Blue Heaven has always maintained it is a good neighbor and were it not for a few disgruntled people all the kerfuffle about noise and tables and parking would never have been noticed. The thing is gentrification changes a lot of givens in a small town. Blue Heaven stays the same and the neighbors change and what was a cute bistro becomes an interruption to their residential lifestyles. And they won't hesitate to let you know how much they paid for their Conch residences, forgetting Blue Heaven was there first.
And inside the atmosphere is similarly Caribbean-funk:
I rather like playing the tourist, I wear a clean shirt and brandish my camera to click away at whatever catches my eye. From time to time my cover is blown when a cop drones by and waves, or someone I know yells out and asks me what am I doing downtown. At Blue Heaven I forced myself to obey my wife ("it doesn't hurt to ask!") so I asked if there was a local's discount which there isn't and though my breakfast was splendid, fluffy banana pancakes with real maple syrup and strong coffee, it came to $12,50 plus tip (I am overly generous according to my wife but I have, in the past, relied on the generosity of strangers, unlike my wife). Little wonder IHOP on the Boulevard is the local's favorite:
The trouble with this sort of breakfast is that five days later you are hungry again, as the joke goes. With my nocturnal lifestyle I rarely take breakfast out but thanks to Sandratee's request I have become reacquainted with Blue Heaven's breakfast and I may just have to come again. And, by the way, not all neighbors find this place disruptive or loud, even when I am eating there and crackling the newspaper:
It may look like a feline to you or me but this could very well be a dog if only one could see it in it's proper perspective. When in Key West it pays not to be judgemental, if you really want to enjoy island living.
Downtown Key West is busy enough but a few short blocks from Duval and Elizabeth Street under the afternoon sun looks empty enough to shoot a canon. Looking closer at the front of the Key Lime Store a couple of visitors are taking advantage not of the free Key Lime taffy (fools!) but the misting spray:
At the monument I found one visitor pretending he was in the Empty Quarter of Arabia.
The parking lots on Green Street were packed with ten dollar-a-day parked cars, some few in the shade, locals no doubt, but most in the white glare of the open pea rock, fully exposed to the summer sun. The demarcation line was quite dramatic:
The parking lot attendant was making no waves, sitting tight and waiting for sunset:
Locals abandon the tools of their trade in the heat of the midday sun, fork-lifts can roast and vinyl seats can burn as though under a magnifying lense when parked out under the suns rays:
But mad dogs, Englishmen and tourists will happily stroll the sunny side of the street:
Some sun-mad lunatics come to Key West to eat by the water and nothing will stop them from fulfilling the desire to eat fish outdoors and they scarf in the inadequate shade of an umbrella at Conch Republic Seafood:
To me the murky waters of Key West Bight even managed to look inviting, as they sat there all smooth and cool and wet:
But some people are just cool no matter what the ambient temperature and relative humidity:
Call it a paradox but the brick building housing Peppers of Key West looked cool and inviting: 
Inside they were offering their usual hot sauces and barbecue recipes and cute though it all was it was too warm for me:
I don't mind the heat, as long as I'm not working out in it. I talked to a cop the other day who was lamenting that on the day shift he has to get out of his car and walk around in his polyester uniform. He looked hot and uncomfortable just talking about it. Other people have to do physical work like moving stuff under the sun:
This guy left his Mercedes just like that and his trailer just like that for the entire forty minutes I was wandering around taking pictures. I think he planned to come back later to finish the job,m whatever it was. My little stroll worked up a sweat of my own:
I was all damp and ready for cold air when I got back in the car, and only feeling slightly traitorous in that I had had to leave the Bonneville at home yesterday. I love summer.
Thus it is I work for the Southernmost Police Department, and South (south...get it?) Street boasts the southernmost everything, from a modest Deli, a Bikini shop, several hotels and on and on and on. All of which speaks of lack of imagination to me but they keep on coming our way to be southernmost and closer to Havana than Miami. The embargo notwithstanding; perhaps making Cuba inaccessible makes it all the more alluring, we hope that next year all will be revealed, ninety miles south of the Southernmost City.
Having only one point that is southernmost (perforce!) creates all sorts of weird anomalies. Across the street from the Southernmost-Point-Guest-House lies another house that claims to be southernmost, the red roofed structure visible above and owned by a long time Key West family that defies geography in claiming southernmostness. 
Indeed a few years ago the city commission in response to protests from the less commercially inclined neighbors was ready to move the point from its location elsewhere. Geography is flexible in the Conch Republic. And there are people who choose to just live in this neighborhood without pretensions to paint, or tourism or anything much:
The actual southernmost point is...further south behind a fence:
And is only visible from South Beach's newly refurbished pier. The satellite dishes and antennae should be a clue. This is a top secret (more or less) listening station to listen to the Communists in Cuba. It all seems a bit over the top to me; Radio Havana comes through loud and clear on my car radio, 950AM, nevertheless there is a real southernmost point, owned by the Navy:
I suspect that the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor is further south than south beach but I am not going to take my GPS to test all the theories out. I prefer confusion.
Or tangling your lure around your out-of-school son: 
Or Selling nondescript stuff, jewelry perhaps while staring at women in bikinis on the beach: 
People keep insisting life in Key West is tough. Which may be true but some people try to keep a sense of humor:
Instead I mind my own business. Like this dude: You know he's not a tourist, long pants penny loafers and a smug air of this-is-my-daily-transportation look about him as he swings smoothly past the point:
Locals have their suave balconies to look down upon the masses:
And yet there are still buildings for sale just a block from the point.
Even if one could afford it one would have to have the self delusion of a dictator to find this pile the least bit attractive surely? And still I can hear the realtor announcing, convincingly, "...just ninety miles from La Havana." 
We haven't had much rain lately, just the promise not fulfilled, watching the clouds blow in from the south or the west. And where are these blusterous winds coming from? the south? the west? what happened to the comfortable, usual southeast trades? The winds blow, thunder cracks and the rain clouds hustle off to the horizon and I take a bucket and pour water on my fledgling palms using air conditioning condensate.
I stopped on my way into work to photograph the splendid colors of summer's near shore waters and all I got was what you see, shades of green not reflecting at all the turquoise and aquamarine I see out there with my eyes but that I cannot seem to capture with my Canon. Grrr. I did capture this liveaboard going home after a hard days labor (maybe). He buzzed out to his boat from the Highway One causeway which crosses the north side of Newfound Harbor. Today was one of those days we envy the liveaboards snug in their floating castles, cooled by fresh breezes on slightly ruffled waters.
Further up the highway I pulled off to hit some back country I'd cycled through this morning. I spotted a collapsing shed, or boathouse on the edge of the sparkling waters of Niles Channel when I rode my bicycle out to the park known as "The Pool" which is simply a saltwater indentation in the coastline. The Bonneville snuck into the old structure picture as it always does, somehow. And in this case rather overwhelmed the old structure in the distance. I thought the shed looked rather Bahamian in its decrepitude.
I know I am enjoying the Bonneville, even after my vacation riding the super powerful, extra smooth, rented BMW. I know because when I stopped for gas I found I'd got 45 miles to the gallon (18 km/liter) which is two mpg more than usual which means I've been ambling more and revving less. Smelling the roses one might say. And because i stopped at the Big Coppitt Key Shell I got that five percent rebate with the Shell Mastercard, which at $4:34 per gallon of mid strength gas is a nice savings:
Of course Shell is making cash hand over fist these days, and I recently read an interview on the BBC with the jug eared leader of said corporation. He argued that more exploration would find more oil and high prices help to cover the cost of finding and extracting the new oil supplies. I figure we've already proved we're willing to pay $4 a gallon so why would they ever drop the price? The US has cut consumption by an anemic one percent and car dealers in Key West tell the Citizen newspaper that SUV sales continue apace. I have been saying for some time that if you want to see $2 gas, double the mileage of your vehicle and in Italy, where they pay nearly $9 a gallon they drive 60mpg cars. Which means they effectively already pay less than we do...and a Nissan Micra Convertible is a cute car, believe it or not, even if it is small. In the Keys I am seeing more two wheelers out on the roads and in people's driveways. Not all the riders dress the part of Serious Motorcyclists . This dude was wearing a leather flying cap of a style that went out of fashion before World War Two:
And his exhausts were loud enough to wake the dead. I think the lady in the car at the pump next to me thought I was the cause of the ruckus as I thumbed my quiet little starter at the exact same moment. I thought my engine had blown up and I think she wished it had. 
The Bluewater Key RV resort is quite nice (we had a look when we were house hunting years ago) but its not really a solution for someone looking for a home. Its a space for someone who owns a quarter million dollar 4mpg motor home who wants the same parking spot winter after winter... and seen from the Highway it is quite attractive, in a South Seas sort of way:
Tiki huts and palm trees on the waterfront, with AstroTurf for the RV and all for a cool half million. Astonishing ain't it? People will pay astronomical sums for this stuff.
I'm going to keep on riding the Bonneville and photographing the Florida Keys. Now I just need the lap top back from its long hiatus while it was getting repaired. Today they say it should be back on my desk at home after a month without regular Internet access. I really miss having a computer in my home and its been a long month away from the Web. 
When we were kids Giovanni spent his summers at this end of the street and I lived in the castle at the other end, which I photographed by day:
The family mansion has been empty since I left and it was sold to some businessmen who had grand ideas for the grand structure that they have managed to do absolutely nothing with. There it sits dominating the village and deteriorating as only grand old homes know how. It looks like someone is in the downstairs study, but its just a street light reflected in the glass.
That picture evoked for me the endless winter nights sitting by the fire reading and waiting for the short cold days to pass. It was not a happy time for me. Not many people live in the village, even fewer than when I lived there and nowadays most of them are temporary, the equivalent of snowbirds in Florida. The empty square damp with June's extravagant rainfall I found had all sorts of angles for the camera:
The village was dedicated to the proposition that grain harvested had to be stored so they built large stone warehouses to pile the stuff into. Just because the buildings had a purpose didn't mean they couldn't be stylish:
And off the main piazza there's a road leading down to the back of the village where a few more hardy souls live, year round.
And of course there is a little shrine in the wall, the sort of shrine one sees anywhere in the world, even Key West. I photographed a similar display one night on Flagler Avenue and published the picture in this blog. Here's the shrine in the wall in Morruzze, taken with a flash:
And speaking of shrines this isn't the only one. The bigger of the shrines is at the entrance to the village, a chapel sized building surrounded by boxwood hedges and live oak trees:
The altar cloth was providing a snug residence for a couple of locals seeking shelter from the unseasonable rains:
My front door looks out on the main piazza and it was for many years my garage door as my first Vespa lived inside the door in a vestibule under the stairs as did all my early mopeds and motorcycles when they were small enough to fit:
Later I took to parking them in the main courtyard under the house, an area I stuck my camera in and fired off a flash. The "new" owners don't seemed to have developed a grasp of what to do with the space. I had the same problem:
Just looking at the pictures makes me miss my snug little 800 square foot berth on a canal in the Lower keys. Less is best, it turns out.
Architecture, History and Art, and I turned my back on it all. There's a proverb that comes to my mind when people ask, breathlessly why I left. "Those with teeth don't have bread while the people with bread don't have teeth." The bread for my teeth lies in the islands off the tip of Florida, not in the mountains of Umbria. Weird but true.
My childhood friend Giovanni rewards his 
I am rather less into labels than Giovanni, and less fashion conscious and generally rather less cool than I would have to be had i stayed in Italy. Therefore when we drop by the dealer to pick up my rental which is a favor to Giovanni, I get what I am given. Last year it was a single cylinder 650, this year it was a screaming 1200. "It goes from zero to 100 kilometres per hour (60mph) in about 2.4 seconds" 
163 horsepower is almost three times the power of my modest air cooled Bonneville twin at home, a motorcycle that will cruise happily at 80 miles per hour on the freeway and pull from 40 miles per hour in top gear, a motorcycle devoid of visible electronics. The BMW by contrast is a machine dedicated to being fast and smooth as only a wealthy mid life crisis machine can be.
Riding around town was a bit of trick what with the low handlebars which forced me into a hunched crouch, useful on the freeway but rather awkward to look over one's middle aged shoulder. I hunkered down behind the big hump of a tank and struggled to make sense of the famous clunky BMW gearbox. Once I got into second gear the street was mine- a quick twist of the gas and I was past any obstruction rolling along in front of me. this being Italy I was expected to flash past cars, squeeze through the narrowest of openings and pull past cars waiting at a light. the head of the line is the motorcycle's place in Italian traffic and the K1200R made short work of lines.
On the open road things worked a little better as the riding position eased the flow of wind and the handlebars gave me a firm grip to hang onto as the BMW accelerated like the hounds of hell were after us. It was astonishing.
After the pottery interlude I set off across open country towards the low lying hills west of 
It took me a few miles to get used to the immediate power response but I manged to ride through a couple of small towns without killing humans or cats and I started to feel I was getting the hang of the thing. The day was perfect, cool and crisp around 70 degrees (20C) with bright spring sunshine and big puffy clouds in the sky. Threats of rain seemed greatly exaggerated as I took corner after corner riding into the pine forests on Monte 
I found the BMW easy to ride on the open road, the position was perfect to control the beast on the turns, and when i caught up to the slow moving cages on the road it took but a second to evaluate the road and wind open the gas and flip past the offending obstruction. At home it happens that a slow moving car (any car when its a matter of the BMW!) appears as an obstruction, but in Italy motorcycles routinely ignore the lines in the road and car drivers often pull over to the shoulder to help faster moving motorbikes get ahead. Its very civilized though it can be nerve wracking splitting heavy traffic down the middle of those coming and those going. On Monte 
The scenery was pleasant enough I had to keep stopping to pull out the camera and enjoy the simple fact of finding myself here with nothing to do but ride and admire my surroundings:
The other side of the hill is less populated and I had lots of open road to enjoy on my way down. 
I stopped short of the city and took a side road back towards my destination. It was another pastoral scene, green fields trees and narrow bridges over a winding brook.
I had trouble passing a couple of cars because the rearmost vehicle kept pulling over on the straights to block me passing. I think my horsepower went to my head and finally I brushed past after hanging back for a while and catching the asshole by surprise after he lost sight of me in his mirrors. He caught up with me again when I stopped for a picture underneath the 
We 
For my sister 
After lunch I rode on another couple of miles to Elizabeth's twin Patricia who lives with her husband on a neighboring hill top. Before dinner we went for a ride as she still clings to the 
For some reason I was reminded of my many 
And as Sam Goldwyn was reputed to have said, "we have passed a lot of water since then." I like to think things are getting better in ways small enough to be almost unnoticed among the waves of ruinous economic and environmental predictions that swamp us daily. That small up beat note may be a benefit of visiting the past from time to time. 
Giovanni doesn't much like Southern Italy saying that if he wants to go on vacation he wants cleanliness and order. However we were having a rainy June so instead of heading north we went south for our short motorcycling break. Naples is currently in the middle of a garbage foul-up, with trash mouldering in the streets, but there were no heaping, reeking piles of trash where we went. Things were a bit Keys-ish, laid back might be a polite way to put it. Service was not particularly friendly, streets weren't particularly clean and public parks were run down. Yet we had a good time, our hotelier was funny and accommodating, the servers at the pizza restaurant were cheerful and Giovanni, despite his disdain enjoyed driving like a maniac (with me in tow on my rented BMW) and chatting up the locals as we went. He's that kind of hail-fellow-well-met guy that makes me crazy. I like strangers to stay strange. Giovanni even got chatting with the toll takers on the autostrada:
The plan was to have no plan. We rode the freeway south, ducking the electronic speed traps and enjoying the increasing temperatures as we rode. The speed limit on Italian autostrade is 130kph (80mph) which you'd think would be fast enough but Giovanni's idea of getting a move on is closer to the mythical 100mph and luckily we were riding machines that could hold that sort of speed easily. We arrived in the early afternoon to find ourselves on a slow winding road, clinging to the rockface over the water. It was like riding a very slow roller coaster:
Which on my K1200R was like trying to rein in a bucking bronco. The road was narrow enough to keep people sane but the locals were nuts especially on scooters. They'd see me crouched over the handlebars of this senior citizen's crotch rocket and they'd feel compelled to take me on, passing wildly and pushing through the traffic like it wasn't there. But it was, lots of it and sometimes too wide for conditions:
There were acouple of occassions we had to dismount and wheel the motorcycles backwards as tour buses shouldered their way through:
At other times we found stretches or roadway blessedly free of impediments and we'd wind our beasts up and spurt forward, only to find another apparent dead end, a wall with blue sky behind it, a hairpin bend turning in on itself and a descent with grinding first gear to avoid getting killed by oncoming traffic. It was exciting stuff. "I got third gear for a short burst,"I'd tell Giovanni as we stopped for a smoke break (him not me), and my four cylinder 170 horsepower beast would take a snorting breather:
A ridiculous machine for a stretch of roadway that allowed a 30mph (50km/h) average as we piled the gas on and took it off alternating with the curves. The view was tremendous, everywhere we went, much like California's Highway One through Big Sur, at least superficially:
Lemons are the big deal here, with terraces sprouting up and down the hillsides in the most unlikely places. In between the grapes there are not olive trees like the rest of Italy, but lemons, with languid salespeople parked beside the roadway:
We took a modest hotel room in the village of Minori for a modest 80 euros a night ($125), a bed each and a shower that struggled to supply an American style spray of water. We went around the corner at night to eat real Neopolitan pizza, as Giovanni put it. We sat on the waterfront and reminisced, our motorcycles illegally parked in the gutter, protected from traffic by a jutting pine tree sticking out into the street.
After a dinner of a Bismark pizza (ham fried egg and cheese...no really) and the local delicious delizia al limone, lemon delights made of sponge cake and cream in their particular shape:
We walked the waterfront as we always do and talk of the past and the present and the future. Giovanni asks about life in the Americas and tells me about life in the mess that he calls home. Italy is moving to two party elections and he is learning to find himself in the same pickle the rest of us have become used to- the lack of choice. " I won't vote for the Communists," he says even though he likes their leader Walter Veltroni. He won't vote for them because he doesn't trust the party apparatchiks. "I can't stand to vote for the clown Berlusconi" he groans with his next breath. "I'd vote for him if he were anyone other than himself." Better to ride a motorcycle.
We take off for the mountains and climb up to the tiny village of Ravello, the place where Greta Garbo stayed, in the English gardens created around 1904 by Lord Grimthorpe who fled England after his young wife died, and consoled himself building a splendid garden overlooking the Mediterranean:
Ravello, like the rest of coast was waiting for the tourist crunch of July and August so we had the mountain roads largely to ourselves, though locals were scooting all over the place:
I snapped this one local sitting on the church steps reading the paper. This is Italy's dolce vita in action. Don't tell Giovanni; he snorts in derision when anyone mentions the stereotype of Italians lounging around languidly seducing tourists. "I wish!" is his comment. "I don't have time to read the paper, unlike this guy" he protests.
Ravello is beautiful enough, with trees and arches and happy people meandering:
But we have places to go, things to see, so we cruise back down the mountain towards something approaching sea level, Giovanni in front me blipping the throttle to keep close behind. Naturally there is a stretch of road that is measured to be especially narrow and is controlled by traffic lights. We cruise this section with our usual insouciance and our nerves are shattered once again when two scooters zoom round a corner in total defiance of the traffic lights. Not only that but they are going at full speed. We judder to a halt and let them by. At our next smoke break Giovanni tells a story about the time he was in Naples for a medical conference (he may be a chain smoker but he is also by trade a cardiologist). He took a cab to see the sights and to his consternation the cab driver regularly ran stop signs and crossed red lights. "They're just advisory in Naples" the cabbie told Giovanni who was gripping his seat, white knuckled. Then they plunged into an urban one way tunnel against the red light."Hey,"Giovanni shouted. "What about the traffic coming towards us on the green light?" he asked the languid cab driver. "No problem," he reassured Giovanni. "They know I've got the red light. They'll be expecting me." And so it is, chaotic Mediterranean style Keys disease. Nothing works quite as it should.
Giovanni had half a mind to take a swim but the pressure to make miles kept us moving, lunch in Sorrento, the subject of a well know Neopolitan song was next and Sorrento (Surriento in the local dialect) was just a big city with thousands of crazed scooters and cars. We ate, we sipped coffee and Giovanni took a nap propped on his elbow at the cafe table much to the amusement of passersby. We rode home in the sunset to our hotel and our pizzeria where we had pasta and wine and the waitresses asked me about Obama and the next elections in the US and Giovanni about the condition of their heart muscles. Italians tend to be hypochondriacs, even the young ones.
I must have gone to Amalfi as a kid because my mother took us kids to the island of Capri when it was a hot spot in the '60's. I remember coming down with a fever in a Naples hotel and my mother hustling my sisters off to see Dr Zhivago at the movies, while the real doctor paid me a house call. In the early 21st century the bloom is off this short chunk of coast, the locals are tired of high priced real estate (sounds familiar!) and a lack of services(!) and opportunities(!!). And yet it retains the magic of those special places that mark themselves in our minds. I loved the fact that I saw more Vespas here, old and new, than anywhere else in Italy:
Like the Keys, the only road sucks, the beaches are non existent, the tourists overwhelming and life is a series of compromises. It had its magic all the same:
I saw it best when I got up and dawn and tip toed out of the room, leaving Giovanni snoring in his pillow (the next day he had the temerity to complain about my rumblings!) and I took to the empty highway all by myself. The air was cool and crisp, the road smooth and dry and the BMW as always was in perfect form. All vacations should be this good. 
I happened to pick a particularly wet and cold June to visit central Italy, with downpours every afternoon and temperatures in the evening dropping to around fifty degrees which made for some rather teeth chattering riding for this tropical motorcyclist. Giovanni suggested we ride south to seek the sun, a proposal I enthusiastically seconded. We rode like hell on the appropriately named 
...and a coffee of the espresso variety of course. On those stretches where we weren't stopping for lunch we took to ducking onto the emergency shoulder to pass the cameras as Giovanni had heard they couldn't photograph your passage and measure your speed along the shoulders...It is the Italian way, just as I had to relearn to lane split wildly and get used to cars that actually pulled over to allow us to pass on narrow winding roads. I love riding in Italy.
Giovanni the cardiologist is an inveterate smoker so we frequently get to stop and talk when we take our rides. He carried the luggage on his fully equipped R1200RT BMW while I tailed along on my minimalist, rented K1200R, wild machine of a reputed 170 horsepower and the ability to hit 60 miles per hour (100km/h) in less than three seconds from a standing start. It was quite a startling ride, let me tell you, smooth as anything but ready to leap forward with just the slightest twist of the wrist. We flew down the freeway at speeds I'd rather not mention, slowing dramatically to ride the shoulder past the overhead cameras. What a weird way to travel, a knight in armor afraid of ray guns...
You'd think I'm old enough to know better, gray beard and all. Like hell, I'm on vacation. Then we had to lane split an accident and watching Giovanni maneuver his massive saddlebags past lines of inching trucks gave me palpitations. Almost as much as my own efforts to crawl past the rows of tightly packed vehicles. jostling to get to the head of the five mile line. All this work got us to the sunshine of the Bay of Naples and we enjoyed every second of it. More of that later.
We saw household artifacts, including a mirror, still on the wall which in turn still shows its original decorations:
And crisp clean frescoes decorating the walls, as fresh as the day they were buried:
The state of chaos at 
Giovanni shrugged saying Italy has too many monuments to be able to take care of them all. Nevertheless he was as stunned by the living past as I was, and he had been here once before in his dim and distant past:
Romans kept dogs in their homes as well, as evidenced by a famous mosaic in an entrance way to a house in the city. This mosaic seems at risk to me, considering the rain puddle obliterating the words printed across it's base: cave 
There was so much in 
I find it rather odd, to imagine the customer locked in the embrace of a prostitute, forced by failure of memory to hop off the (short) bed to duck out into the corridor to check one of the little scenes to help remind him what he's there to do. The Romans were humans too I guess, though forgetting how to ride a bicycle, as it were, seems excessive . They liked to eat out apparently as evidenced by the cafeterias lining the main shopping street:
I left 
Let's not fool ourselves. rain clouds threatening the Publix parking lot can be a nuisance too, and I like sunshine all day every day as often as I can get it. Indeed the Keys have a much more benign summer climate than one might expect. Unlike mainland Florida ( and mainland Ohio from what I'm told) the oppressive humidity factor in the Keys is much more bearable. Of course this factor is very subjective but as far as I'm concerned I'd rather be here in the summer than say Fort Myers or even Miami. Cement and asphalt reflect lots of heat, buildings block breezes and the closer one lies to the sea the better chance one has of enjoying even a modest sea breeze.
It's still boiling hot in the keys in July and August and air conditioning remains critically necessary, not least to keep dampness and humidity from eating books clothes and bedding...but summer is entirely bearable in my biased opinion. And here's the secret: summers are great.
The summers are not so great for those that live and work in the tourist trade, though there are more and more weekend festivals and celebrations to keep the money flowing. Also the summer months are a good deal less dead than they used to be thanks to families visiting with their broods during school vacations. Its more of an ebb and flow nowadays as opposed to the good old days of "season" and "off season" which led to far more widespread financial desperation in a tourist economy.
I was riding in to work my last night before I took off for my vacation and I spotted a youth on a Pennsylvania registered sportbike. He had it nicely equipped for travel with soft bags over the passenger pad and the fuel tank and he crouched like a tiger as he rode.
I sat up straight on my old man's ride and followed at a sedate pace, enjoying all the view I am lucky enough to see each day, bridges and sky and mangroves as usual. I caught up to him when the school bus stopped all traffic for a rug rat crossing and asked him if he was having fun. He looked startled. Poor boy.
I took a picture of the Big Coppitt boat ramp with the Bonneville last winter when a cold front had me wrapped up like a babe in swaddling clothes to deal with the 65 degree temperature (18C). At the beginning of June the scene was a good deal warmer, the waters bluer and the clouds big and puffy and white. And there was one of Key West's Elvis impersonators waiting for a fish to bite. No sign of a peanut butter sandwich.
Hurricanes feed the imaginations of people everywhere, in the same way that people hold alligators in horrified fascination. The way I see it, lots of people live in tornado alley and dozens die every year and they also enjoy the pleasure of shovelling snowdrifts for six months of the year. If my house collapses like a pack of cards in a direct hit I'll change my tune, but for now this is as good as it gets.
Key West Diary started out June 13th 2007 as Key West Vespa, (hence the banner picture, taken the day before motorcycles and scooters were...banned from the Key West cemetery) a blog inspired by other riders full of the joys of their rides and as an antidote to the screaming, mutual rage and contempt that are exhibited on web forums (fora?) across the Internet. I had already learned as most of us do, that curiosity, self deprecation and irony are transmuted into anger and sarcasm on these open forums and I for one didn't want anything to do with them. So last year at about this time I started thinking about keeping a diary. One day, with no word to my wife or anyone else I took up the name Conchscooter, given to me by some unremembered Internet Forum, and started writing my own thoughts down, on the Internet rather than on paper because one does things electronically these days. I started it because it was dawning on me that for the first time in my life I was feeling settled, and such a feeling was a novelty for me so I wanted to record it. I sold the Vespa and bought the Triumph but the blog soldiered on needing a new name. This is not a Vespa:
Boca Chica Bridge
Boca Chica Road 
I try to imagine what this blog might look like were I driving around the Keys in a car. It sounds a bit daft to be honest, though perhaps if the car were correct for the context there might be merit. A cute little SmartforTwo perhaps? My wife is toying with the purchase of a $17,000 Cabrio and has her order in for a blue on silver "Comfort" model (naturally. We are Americans!). I'm not sure she will go through with it though I am encouraging her to sell the Nissan and have two convertibles at her disposal, one good for 31 mpg and the other 40. I'm hoping the Bonneville will be good for another 90,000 miles or 6 years before it needs a rebuild:
So I here I am a year on, trying to be introspective and pull some thread of usefulness from my diary, a collection of photographs of pretty and not-so-pretty places around my life accompanied by some idle observations. From time to time I get a pang, wondering if I should use the platform to be a zealot for some cause be it political or environmental and the urge leaves me as quickly as it came. Irondad blogs to spread the message that training is a way for motorcyclists to save their own lives, a more worthy message its hard to imagine, invoking skills I don't possess. The Honolulu Blog seems designed to inveigle against mass transit ("I apply mascara as I drive to work.." Argh! The true source of motorcyclists' fear), a purpose that fascinates and confounds me. The Alaskan Blog in my list of links is a chronicle of self flagellation in the face of horrendous weather in the despair of Arctic despond. I read it in horrified fascination. Me? I am still foppishly tootling around, happy in my job, my home, my wife, my life. I apologize if this seems too amateurish, or decadent perhaps, in the face of imminent societal collapse, but my missionary zeal to urge strangers to improve their lives and by extension the world has seeped away. I must be becoming a laid back Islander, Mon. Here, have another pretty picture, the Highway of Life.
My companion pronounced the restaurant "ghetto" which is a term I believe of disapproval. When young Diggy eats out he likes table service, not do it yourself which is the low cost theme at Keys Fisheries. But he did like the notion of using a pseudonym to order the food, sometimes a movie star's name , or a figure from history; the day we were there it was song titles:
The fries were declared "not as good as Burdines" by my junior food critic. Next time we'll try elsewhere, always searching for good eats in the Keys.
If I like it I skip to the end (non fiction is best for power reading) and when I am bored I put the book down and try another title, selected at random. I get to peruse tons of books like this and have learned to feel less desperate as time goes by about the number of books still left for me to read as I slide ever closer to oblivion. Even our modest library on woodsy Fleming Street, South Florida's first public library seems overly filled with unread tomes:
So there's this writer dude sitting in a hot tub with some friends and a bunch of strangers and he says he thinking about putting together a list of the best places to live but the only problem is he can't think of what the criteria should be. Much discussion apparently ensues among the occupants of the star lit tub (I remember this bit quite well, I think) and finally one of the nude bathers comes up with a truth that the writer grabs and runs with. The Third Space. That's the criteria for the best place to live.
The book with the crappy title introduced me to this grotesque notion of the Third Space alluded to above. The idea is that your First Space is your home, and your Second Space is your place of work, and these spaces can also be social centers to some extent. But the Third Space is where the social life of the community is on display and available. In other words if you think about places you might like to live you will find they offer vibrant and attractive Third Spaces. The dull, worn out communities don't.
...a place from which to watch the sunrise or even the sunset, far from the crowds at Mallory Square (which is too commercial and touristy to be a proper Third Space).
As is obvious in these pictures shot today this is definitely low tourist season in Key West. 
What used to be the only independent bookstore in town has competition now and thank god for that. The workers at Voltaire smiled when I remarked how nice it was to have a store with friendly people operating it. "We hear that a lot," they said. And yes I have heard from visitors who buy quite a few books here that Island Books is a perfectly pleasant place to shop. 
We don't frequent all our possible Third Spaces, some I enjoy more than my wife does of course, but there are quite a number of public gathering spaces, that we visit from time to time. Some get too much attention from our 
Instead the bulk of the Everglades are as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas put it so memorably and vividly, A River of Grass.There's a lookout platform just ten feet above the grass and it gives a tremendous view across the sawgrass to the clumps of hardwood trees known as hammocks. This is the Shark River Slough, 8 miles wide I'm told:
And in the foreground one can see a puddle of water, proving the truth of the title of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's book, which I have adapted as the title of this diary entry.
Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I love the Everglades, whether I'm rolling down Tamiami Trail, or bouncing down the gravel of the Loop Road or taking the back roads through Seminole Country. It's a complete change from the rocks and water and narrow strips of land that comprise the Florida Keys. Also its totally quiet out in the grass, a place where just the wind whistles an accompaniment to the birds.
I left home at 5am today and got home exactly 12 hours and 319 miles later. It started inauspiciously enough as the Highway was wet from earlier rain. Indeed it started to sprinkle around Mile Marker 90, an hour into the ride. I took cover for ten minutes under an overhang and forced myself to stay upright and awake as I had slept badly the night before and I was exhausted. Breakfast at Denny's in Key Largo at Mile Marker 99 woke me up with chorizo, eggs, tortillas and cafe con leche.
After breakfast I had half a mind to turn back and tuck myself into bed by ten o'clock but streaks of blue to the north convinced me the low lying clouds would blow away and a glorious day would burst forth. Fortune favors the bold, and I was right; I spent the rest of the day in sunshine and temperatures hovering between 80 and 90 degrees. The road to Flamingo, 50 miles from Homestead passes through fields of agriculture that remind me of nothing so much as California's Salinas Valley.
The headquarters building, equally ugly if a good deal more bizarre in design still operates with peeling paint and lots of hurricane induced rust.
The views south towards Florida Bay are tremendous
and there is an excellent exhibit about the life cycles of the bay inside the building. Looking inland from the observation deck one is forced to wonder who figured this sort of parade ground set the proper tone for "downtown" Flamingo! Pity the man with the mower.
I though it went quite well, but after a mile or so the potholes were still holey and the vegetation was dense as ever and the road kept rolling merrily along. So I turned back, deciding whatever there was to see at the end would have to wait for another day. I expect it was a campground unsuitable for RVs, but the road was potholed enough it wasn't terribly suitable for Triumph Bonnevilles though the machine acquitted itself just fine.
I got tired of bouncing is all, and I wondered what I'd do if I got a flat. It was hot and very quiet down there, all by myself. 
I was tempted to coast downhill from here but I had taken my time in the morning and now it was time to pick up the pace back to civilization which was still there,not improved, I'm sorry to say, since I passed through Florida City in the morning.
But not in summer, never in summer unless suicide by mosquito is on the agenda.
Gorazde, seen above, was a Bosnian-Muslim outpost surrounded by Serbs in the civil war, but nowadays bolstered by European Union money it is a prosperous little town on a sunny July afternoon. 
The deliverymen were impressed by my nut collection. 
I saw greed in their eyes and offered them as many as they could take. They literally leaped at the offer and in addition to money they took bunches of coconuts home as a tip. I'm not sure which pleased them most.
Remember coconuts are not native to the Keys, they were imported for food originally and now people grow them because they are what people expect to see in the (sub)tropics. They want coconuts, not scrubby thatch palms and the like, its what they expect to see on an exotic vacation. Palm trees are so called because the first European visitors to see them though they looked like human palms waving in the breeze. Very ethnocentric I'm sure. In the 19th century coconuts were farmed on plantations because they were the sheep of the plant world. From a coconut you could get oil, copra (the mat-like stuff that comes off from around the hard nut):
And naturally the flesh of the nut itself:
Here's where you start:
Peel the outer skin off and then crack the hard inner nut. 
Hack a small hole in the hard shell and gently poke a hole with the tip of your machete:
Put the opening to your mouth and drink. Repeat until the liquid gives you the runs.
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