It is true that we have harvested a few modest tomatoes and our cilantro has grown strong and stout but that was because they were potted in full sunshine. Actually the tomatoes could have done better but they have at least produced something. The vegetable beds less so, before I moved them into full sunshine also:
I decided late last year that we should be growing vegetables as part of the not completely serious Dig For Victory revival spurred by the economic slump. There has of course been a determined move by some forward looking people to support local agriculture and diversity in plantings which gained momentum when petroleum prices skyrocketed to $147 a barrel last summer, in 2008. My idea was, in less visionary style, to get some practice growing stuff before it becomes absolutely necessary. With everyone skirting the notion that this recession might very well turn into a depression I figured it would be smart to spend a couple of hundred dollars on lumber and make some plywood and plank vegetable beds. So I did, and this is what they look like in their new full sun location:
The thing was I had no idea how much sun they should get and it turns out that in winter the sun moves way to the south, even here, and they weren't getting enough sun at all closer in to my house on stilts. The situation is exacerbated by my splendid trees that surround my home and the next result was small plants and seeds that sprouted okay but then withered as they tried fruitlessly to get sunshine....This, the fourth of my beds, I left in its shady place while I brace to select some of the plants to save and others to discard after much sunless effort on their part:
The business of moving these beds from their sunless location under the house was fairly hard labor. I shovelled the dirt into the wheelbarrow. Lack of sun also caused the dirt in the beds to stay rather more damp than I had planned and thus I think I was also over-watering them which didn't help. Anyway I shoveled the dirt into the wheel barrow and some trash cans and hauled the empty frames to their new locations. One started here in full shade:
And clearly it was too shady because the spinach and lettuce just went all spindly on me as they sought sunlight. I guess South Florida winter sun looks feeble to me, comparatively, but it is as strong as summer sun in northern latitudes...
My potted fruit trees, key lime, lemon, mango, avocado and pomegranate all seem to be benefiting from their move into full sunlight as well and the strawberries have finally produced a flower or two. And I hold high hopes for the pineapples as well enjoying some late evening rays alongside the pomegranate tree:
Now I'm going to have to regulate the watering a bit and make sure they get enough. Then I will have to see whether or not I might have to move the beds again (oof!) back under some partial shade under the full grown coconut trees for the summer. Perhaps, I hope faintly, full summer sun won't be excessive...? I need this time to experiment clearly because knowledge as the saying goes comes with experience...I did have a couple of small successes with jackfruit seeds which I got from a fruit that I bought at Fairchild gardens in Miami. I put the seeds in water and of five, two sprouted, and this one is the strongest of the two:
I have seen a couple of homes in the area with vegetable beds appearing, though not all are bursting with life as it were:
Though one up the street near my house is looking excellent, grown by a surer hand than mine:
Wills suggests the lane may have been named for George Carey an English sailor known for his preference for silk top hats, perhaps a pleasure derived from operating a haberdasher's downtown. There was also apparently a female Carey called Alicia who was known for her ice cream in the late 19th century. In any event Carey Lane is a well tended dead end close to the main entrance to the cemetery. The city has been busy tending to the curbs and sidewalks in this area, as evidenced at the entrance to the lane:
The homes on the half block are pretty and well maintained and made a quite delightful, albeit brief stroll on a windy winter afternoon:
Carey Lane enjoys fewer grumpy signs than other parts of the city, but I did find one:
It was a beautiful winter's afternoon in Key West. The sun had finally made an appearance after a gray start to the day with heavy clouds. The east wind had picked up and the trees were rustling and shaking. Temperatures were perfect with no humidity at all and as I strolled I looked in the window and saw the awful god of television sending messages to his entranced acolytes gathered in a dark room. Further up the street there was a dude sitting on his steps reading the paper and I couldn't resist making a comment about the foolishness of being indoors on such an evening. I think he considered me intrusive so I went back to minding my own business:
The irony for me lay in the fact that the TV home had a splendid porch with comfortable wicker chairs, while the paper reader was scrunched up on his steps, lacking as he did all outdoor amenity. And on the subject of "none of my business" I had to ponder the weirdness of importing Spanish Moss to Key West. This stuff is to be found in abundance north of Lake Okeechobee in the pine forests Up North but in the sub tropics, 60 miles north of the Tropic of Cancer it seems you need to tie it to the tree to make it look as though it has taken root, as it were:
It may just have been the day, the perfect weather, the fact that I continue to be gainfully employed in these difficult times, I don't know; but I really liked Carey Lane.
And that main thoroughfare called Margaret Street wasn't looking at all bad in the brilliant sunshine. There I was in shorts and short sleeves and people in Oklahoma are buried under an ice storm. Oklahoma is definitely not OK at the moment, no matter what their license plates say.
I like riding my Bonneville, but when the opportunity arose to give Bruce's BMW a go, it was quite the eye opener, and quite a change from my more sedate 865cc twin.
My Bonneville is styled to look like a motorcycle from thirty years ago, though inside it has an engine that is modern in all respects, double overhead cams, four valves per cylinder, unit construction with a five speed gearbox and a modern low maintenance o-ring final drive chain. The engine puts out 60 true horsepower with minimal vibrations, no oil leaks and a solid history of reliable performance. New Bonnevilles have been around since 2000, the original appeared in 1959, more or less.
Bruce's GS 800 is the epitome of all things modern in motorcycling, a water cooled parallel twin, slightly smaller in capacity than my Bonneville but it's an engine that produces 75 horsepower, far more than the 60 attributed to the Triumph. The GS800 has been a much anticipated ride in the US, as it is a new model for this country, and the motorcycle press has been gushing about it.
The larger GS1200 produced by BMW has been an enormous success, more than 100,000 built so far in various air cooled capacities, combining road going qualities with the ability to take to dirt tracks when desired. However the 800 is a hundred or more pounds lighter, similar to the Bonneville at around 500 (225kg) and with a slightly lower seat height, low enough I could tip toe when astride the 800. Bruce finds it tall enough that when he has attached all the bags he finds it easier to step on the foot rests to get on and off the beast:
The BMW is not styled to appeal to the nostalgic motorcyclist, as the engine is purposeful, painted black and a snake's nest of hoses pipes and wires, quite unlike the clean look of the air cooled Bonneville:
It is what is expected of the modern motorcycle. Furthermore it operates with a mass of electronic doo-hickery that appeals to me not one bit. Of course fuel injection is the order of the day (as it is on the latest generation of Bonnevilles for clean air purposes) but Bruce the engineer tells me owners have reported numerous failures of electronic parts including the complex ignition systems that killed off my 250cc Vespa GTS. There is something perverse about the perceived need to create a complex ignition system to defy thievery that ends up denying access to the legitimate owners. The Bonneville lacks all sophistication.The BMW has three disc brakes where the Bonneville has two, and the BMW's two front discs managed to let Bruce down:
One of Bruce's front disc calipers fell apart while underway, jammed the front wheel and brought him abruptly to the ground. That was a problem apparently known to BMW for they changed the length of the bolts while Bruce convalesced with a temporarily mangled foot. None deterred he loves the bike with it's accessory travel gear, sophisticated hard luggage:
And electric plugs for heated clothing and electronic navigation capable of finding it's way to the southernmost point in the US for example:
Bruce's GPS was also capable of leading him to Starbucks on Duval but it took my own internal compass to get us to Sandy's for a fish sandwich and a cafe con leche for lunch, and prices that would make Starbucks blush: 
Bruce loves his gadgetry, and laughs at my preference for the old fangled ways. I enjoy using my paper maps and I like the serendipity that comes with not always knowing where you are going. He even pulled out his in-car GPS when we drove one evening to a restaurant near my home (he trailered the BMW from Santa Fe across the snowy high plains). He is so dependant on electrons I think sometimes he forgets he can look out of the window, not just for the beauty but to figure out where he is going.
I enjoyed riding the BMW, with all its acceleration and perfectly balanced ride. I didn't like standing on tippy toe when stationary and the shaped saddle is hard to get used to after the freedom the Bonneville allows to slide back and forth as one wishes. The gearbox is smooth though the plethora of six speeds is more than I need. For people like us who travel mostly at 80 mph (130kph) or less there is more pleasure in acceleration than absolute speeds and the BMW can pass much quicker than the Bonneville.
In terms of performance the motorcycles are a reasonable match, even on the gravel where the Bonneville kept up just fine at slow speeds with the more off road GS. A Bonneville Scrambler would be more indicated for serious frequent fire road rides but I have always preferred true road bikes, especially as we don't have fire roads in the Keys. Bruce's GPS didn't locate the pleasures of the dirt roads on Sugarloaf Key but with my head to guide us once again, we took a ride a couple of miles through the mangroves enjoying the winter evening together out of sight of all landmarks visible to GPS:
Both motorcycles come with a long list of accessories from historically reputable factories so you can make what you want of the basic machine. I bought the Bonneville in 2007 for $8,000 and I believe the price has risen even in these deflationary times to something over $10,000. Bruce bought the GS with a lot of accessories, bags and the like, last year for $15,000 but he did get a lot more machine with its superior suspension and slightly higher fuel mileage and its off road pedigree. To my surprise I am entirely content with my symbol of 1970s motorcycling in modern guise. But I am a Luddite and entirely content also to live my simple electron free lifestyle.
Besides, 60hp, in these islands in the twilight of my years is plenty thank you. And with 22,000 miles on the clock (35,000 km) the Bonneville has lots of life left, as I hope do I.
Packer Street is your basic utilitarian residential street, but because this is Key West it's more than that, it is in some mysterious way photogenic. I wanted to photograph a street because it feels like for too long I've been traveling one way and another and this blog has degenerated into an anywhere-but-Key-West diary. So I figured, a quick stop on Watson Street before I go to work and bob's your uncle. Instead I overshot Watson and ended upon Packer and was forced to admit even the most unpromising streets have too much stuff to photograph. There's a pretty decent restaurant:
The entrance to Packer off Truman is bracketed by another sturdy landmark in this middle area of Old Town, and across from Kyushu lies this:
I am not overly fond of these streets south of Truman Avenue and I'm not sure why. Partly I think it's because they lack sidewalks and my sense of order is offended, not least because of all the cars jammed up against the edges make the place look untidy and crowded:
Talk about utilitarian this next machine is the epitome of utility, a Honda Elite scooter, parked in front of a home.
The scooter is actually a mobile ad for the pepper store though it was painted by the inimitable, the late Captain Outrageous:
Another landmark, immobile on Packer Street, is the old fire station now in the process of being converted to a fire museum:
The cement structure in the foreground is a very rare watering trough used by the horses that pulled the fire engines back in the day. Nowadays the fire department has three modern stations strategically located around town, but when we get a 911 call from the "fire station on Grinnell" (usually long time Key West residents identify this location that way) we have to remember they mean the old fire station which is the museum here. And near there was my Bonneville, a study in green and white:
They are a civic lot on Packer Street because it seems Tuesday is pick up day for recycling and every home appeared to have a bin at the curb next to the trash.
The city commission last week back pedaled on mandatory recycling and now the city is limiting itself to encouraging people (and more to the point businesses) to recycle. It seems there may still be a plan to hire a recycling coordinator to increase the city's miserable recycling rate but the city is also showing a widening budget deficit so one has to wonder where the money will come from to gently encourage the citizens to recycle. Currently the city is projecting a 1.2 million dollar shortfall in a $38 million budget. And then by June, the end of the fiscal year things will surely be worse. Oh well, at least we have free sunshine.
Packer Street mysteriously attractive in it's way.
Which sign posting doesn't stop people who live in their vehicles parking there:
It has always struck me as a miserable way to live, huddled in a vehicle parked on what is a public right of way with strangers and the curious passing by with every opportunity to peer in the windows. Some people drive to Key West in vehicles better adapted to the liveaboard lifestyle:
There used to be an absolute plague of French Canadians in VW vans who flocked to Higgs Beach and sat around doing the parlez vous and giving Key West a European air with a Gallic flavor, tres chic. This year either I missed them last week, or they are late or economically strapped and stayed home to ice skate the St Lawrence for a change. In any case there are vans still parking at Higgs Beach:
The rule is that if your vehicle is over 20 feet (6 and a bit meters) you cannot park anywhere in the city of Key West. Parking control comes out with tape measures and checks and tows vehicles that are rated as over sized and parked on city streets. This one looks a likely candidate:
There are other arrivals in town who leave nothing at home, if they have a home, not even the kitchen sink, as they trundle around town in grossly overloaded vehicles:
Others lurk at the picnic tables with their bicycles:
These rainbow kids, young hippy types, which I snapped at the Lime Tree Food Store on Flagler, hang around town with almost no visible possessions. They are on foot and thus at the bottom of the automotive food chain:
On the subject of things automotive, this local scooter rider is letting the side down in my opinion. I have no idea what she's thinking riding around with all four indicators dangling by their electrical wires:
Tut tut. Not homeless but that poor Zuma scooter might as well be!
The US Coastguard cutter Mohawk was built in 1934 as a light ice breaker (!) for use in the Hudson River and it was designated as a Coastguard Power Gunboat (WPG). The Mohawk saw years of active service helping convoys across the freezing waters of the North Atlantic:
After the war the Mohawk served in the Coastguard for years until its engines literally gave out and it was towed to a scrap yard. By some miracle this ship, the last of its kind, was saved by a bunch of devoted former shipmates and it is still undergoing the process of restoration in it's berth:
The ship served with distinction during the Atlantic convoys, facing off against German submarines, a fact proudly recorded in paint:
The ship's crew saved 500 sailors from drowning and lost one's ship's dog overboard. The captain refused to turn back to save the frantically paddling dog and suffered the hatred of the crew for the rest of his time on board; such is the force of sentiment even in the middle of a war... and the story is still told by the devoted restorers working on the ship today.
The Mohawk attracts loyalty not only from former crew members but from the people who currently operate and maintain the ship at the dock. They have amassed a huge quantity of artifacts from the period and they talk avidly to former crew who come back to visit the old ship. The visit starts with a meet and greet with the man taking the money. He showed us pictures of the ship in action and pictures of the ice that covered the superstructure during winter convoys: 
The visit is self guided with the entire ship pretty much open to inspection and quite fascinating it is too, as the shop is filled with artifacts from the time it served in the war. First the galley (kitchen) where they made all meals for the 100 sailors and 14 officers on board. The stove operated on engine oil and apparently that same fuel seasoned the food according to some of those artifacts I mentioned earlier:
Then there was the radio room with it's type writers and it's radio equipment. And a photograph. I was told the operator photographed still comes back to the ship every year to keep an eye on it's restoration progress:
From the radio room there are steep steps to descend to lower levels:
To the wardroom, the communal area of the ship where people hung out together. The silver barrel in the foreground is a coffee urn, and the literature advises the tables in the background were well illuminated so they could double as operating tables...
The men shared modest quarters, all 100 of them, the petty officers shared smaller cabins but used the same primitive bunks to sleep on:
The officers in the rear of the ship (abaft) got greater comfort with more privacy and more luxurious bunks. However the whole proposition of putting to sea in a narrow beamed 165-foot ship was likely to be pretty rough. The ship rolled like crazy, something that was illustrated in a video made from an 8 millimeter film shot in Greenland in 1942. The video showed the successor to the drowned dog, called "Ricky Bow Wow" playing on the ship (his id card is on display next to the television):
Then we saw crew members trying to stay upright as the ship plowed through relatively small waves in the North Atlantic. I got seasick just watching the video:
The modern crew member and restorer we met in this area, Chip the ship's engineer, had tons of stories to tell about life on board the ship and encounters with crew including a former enemy. One notable U-Boat Captain came to visit the Mohawk told of seeing the Mohawk through his periscope while cruising for convoys to blow up. Chip kept Bruce and Celia entertained and I listened with one ear while I meandered with my camera: 
It was a great place to wander, check out the old pin ups (Mae West) and newspaper clippings of one sort or another, including the ship's newsletter:
And an original poster:
And there was the depth charge itself ready for launch on deck:
It was a cold windy day when Bruce, Celia and I visited the Mohawk, so they huddled and listened to the stories below decks out of the cold north wind while I wandered the corridors:
Then I poked my head into the steering compartment which housed the spare wheel:
Before heading on deck to brave the breeze and check out the topsides, working my way forward, starting at the fantail:
The Truman Waterfront seawall is a good place for the old ship to be tied up. It puts Mohawk right in the middle of the action, across from the cruise ships and in the same basin as the National Marine Sanctuary patrol boats, not to mention the current crop of race boats in town for the annual Southern Ocean Racing Conference sailing regatta. And the seawall is also part of the old navy base which is still visible in parts:
Indeed when this was an active Navy port this very seawall was where submarines, similar to Mohawk's old nemesis, were tied up. Happily those were friendly submarines, but not nearly as friendly and as welcoming as Mohawk is today.
The Miccosukee Tribe of Indians lives alongside Highway 41 across South Florida, and these days they live well in peaceful rural isolation, alongside the River of Grass which looks a bit like this:
The Everglades is a huge area of marsh bisected further north by the Interstate I-75, known as Alligator Alley. Down south the old two lane Highway 41 known as Tamiami (Tampa-Miami) Trail still runs east and west to and from Dade and Collier Counties and looks like this in the Miccosukee reservation:
In the old days the Indians sat by the side of the road in sheds and sold plastic alligators to passers-by. Nowadays they operate a huge casino at Krome Avenue and Tamiami Trail and "gaming" has changed the standard of living for the tribe. They live in rather nice suburban homes, in the modern ranch style shown below, and they have extensive administrative buildings barely visible from the highway:
On Tamiami Trail their villages are set back from the Highway hidden by privacy fences with roofs covered by fronds:
The Miccosukee like their privacy and their homes aren't open for public tours so contact with the tribe is through the casino (which I've never visited), or on the Highway itself which is less desirable obviously:
Or at their restaurant on Tamiami Trail, in the western reaches of Dade County, which in my opinion is the best of all options: 
The restaurant is apparently operated by Spanish speaking workers, as it's quite likely the Indians find working at the casino or at the magnificent Tribal Administration building more to their liking. For Bruce and myself a quick bite at the restaurant provided the pause that refreshes in the middle of a motorcycling exploration of the Everglades:
Just in case you have any doubt about the area of which I write the Miccosukee provide a handy place mat map:
The place mat also offers views of Indian life, where I captured images of an air boat and an alligator wrestler 
It was a brisk winter day so European tourists felt at home enjoying the great outdoors with their luncheon: 
Bruce and I were happy to snuggle indoors:
I ordered a heavy mug of sweet Miccosukee coffee:
The tribal colors are proudly carried on the mugs just like that on the flags flying out front: 
Those colors are also flown on the door of a tribal truck:
We ordered steak sandwiches which came wedged between slices of flat bread. The meat had some fat attached but they filled the spot in an undistinguished kind of way, not particularly Indian. On the other hand I wasn't about to experiment with gator chunks or frog legs so I decided to take a bite out of Indian eats by ordering fry bread with blueberry filling. Bruce lives in Santa Fe and his idea of fry bread is all New Mexican, a puffy piece of pastry frequently sprinkled with powdered sugar. I photographed some at Taos Pueblo for an essay I wrote last year.
This Miccosukee version of fry bread was rather greasy and looked in his estimation more like an apple fritter. It was substantial enough to have qualified for lunch all on it's own:
We saddled up and rode out, warmed by our Indian encounter, after a fashion. I quite enjoyed riding with Bruce, I hope we do it again one day.
I last visited Loop Road about three years ago on my Suzuki and I enjoyed exploring the gravel road deep in the Everglades. So when Bruce came visiting from New Mexico with his brand new GS800 BMW in a trailer we decided it might be a good idea to go check out some gravel:
Loop Road is a section of roadway about 25 miles long that parallels the middle section of 
Our journey from the Lower Keys and back covered almost 340 miles and took us about 12 hours from a rather cool 
In due course when we arrived at the Loop Road about an hour later this decision was followed inevitably by another and when Bruce spotted the 
Which left me holding my camera. I found an 
I spotted another one of these later on the trip though I had no idea they were so popular in the Everglades. The first part of Loop Road is in the Indian reservation and the 
The houses look large and comfortable as does the roadway along this section. Don't be fooled, nothing lasts along Loop Road and this level of paving becomes a fondly remembered dream later:
The Monroe inhabitants live quiet lives some 40 miles from the outer suburbs of Miami, in homes that exist on the periphery of the services most of us take for granted.This is hunting and fishing and air boat country, 
And you know this is an outpost of Monroe County; the scooter is evidence of that!
...including the residence of the Park Ranger coincidentally and quite nice it looked too. The road stays paved to that point meandering past pine trees and scrub palmettos:
A lot of people who bother to think about it at all, get confused by the fact that the county famed for being the Florida Keys, enjoys a larger mainland surface area than all the islands combined.This came about somewhat by accident. In Florida's early days the bulk of the peninsula was uninhabited not least because it was unbearable owing to the excess mosquitoes and filthy humidity. It took a hardy human to live in the south, which was why the capital was stuck safely in the north at Tallahassee. That part of the state which was uninhabitable was unceremoniously dumped in Key West's lap making Monroe by far the largest county in the state. With a tiny population. As humans spread south they started to carve off chunks of vast Monroe County and turned them into their own counties, until in the end only the rump was left. Nowadays mainland Monroe County comprises the "village" of Flamingo in Everglades National Park and half a dozen families on Loop Road. Interesting no?
Alongside the cypress trees, we also spotted a six foot gator basking in the weak winter sun:
Photographing this brute was an act of sheer madness.I don't know what gripped us but we got off the motorcycles, tiptoed back, remarking on how big and how still he was. "Look at that eye," Bruce whispered over his shoulder to me, as I carefully put him between me and the dinosaur. "He's watching our every move." We were standing (quaking) perhaps 15 feet away in the middle of the roadway with nothing between us but a little fresh air. We turned and scooted back to the motorbikes.
I was counting on Bruce's fussiness reassembling his gear to give me enough time to get away first. Gators move very fast on land but not as fast as an 800cc motorcycle. 
The signposting even along this stretch of road doesn't end and we passed the occasional speed limit sign which looked out of place.
Funnily enough 25mph (40kph) was a comfortable speed along much of the road, which did suffer from a few hard to spot spectacularly deep pot holes. And then we came to the more or less mid point of the trip, the Florida Trail marked by a post:
And in this case by a cracker mobile, a hunter probably out with an air boat or maybe an all terrain vehicle with huge balloon tires to ride on water:
Considering we are in the middle of the dry season the Florida trail was looking pretty damp:
The road was getting crowded with holiday cars but we sailed passed them on our way to the next stop at 
Before we leave Loop Road for the joys of Highway 41 I want to remind myself how delightfully at home my Bonneville looked on the gravel:
Eventually the Monroe County section of Loop Road comes to an end, as unceremoniously unmarked at this end as it was at the other. You just have to know:
And the countryside starts to change slowly from green shrubbery to leafless cypress trees:
A couple of miles before the end of the road there is some open space with parking and a shed housing a couple of composting toilets and very welcome it was too. We got off, stretched and went for a little walk:
Finally, running before the threat of rain we reached the Highway which is marked by a tumbling building called Monroe Station:
On the way east on the Tampa-Miami Trail we took one last stop at Clyde Butcher's art gallery. A commercial photographer from Southern California Butcher met Ansel Adams and was inspired by his style so he started photographing the American wilderness and apparently made a nice living doing it. His small prints are offered at around $1200 and his wall sized photos go for more than $10,000. Commercial considerations aside Bucther has a lovely eye for Florida's wilderness with extremely evocative pictures of clouds, mangroves and of course The Everglades.
Well worth a stop to look at art, or possibly even to buy art, or maybe just to catch dinner:
And from there back on the road, the endless road back to the Keys, Tamiami Trail rolls out to the horizon and I enjoy every mile of backwoods Florida, be it ever so straight:
Eventually we found hot showers, carry out Cuban dinners ordered by my thoughtful wife and a soft bed. Each. 
The prospect of pitting my wits against those of a fish has never filled me with unalloyed delight. I cannot help but feel that I let people down when they discover that I dislike fishing and yet I live in the Fabulous Florida Keys. Fishing is on the same order of need as breathing for lots of people, and to think of me living here and unwilling to fish is a crime of a high order of magnitude. All I can say in my defense is that I have tried fishing and found the business disagreeable.
Cycling back home from a trip to the house insurance agent's office on Big Pine Key I was struck by the very physical beauty of the afternoon. Granted it's colder than the proverbial witches' appendage nevertheless the frigid winter afternoon was bathed in perfect sunlight yesterday, and I was glad of an excuse to stop pedaling and warm up, on the bridge between Big Pine and Little Torch Keys. The place was looking delightful and rustic:
There are craft anchored between the islands in waters just a few feet deep, and several of them are permanent homes, rather unseaworthy they appear too. Its an odd fact of life afloat that would be boaters who like to live on their boats are frequently not travelers and the practice of living aboard descends into a state of immobility that could be the cause of envy in the average well anchored suburban home. They may be boats but they move less than a house on stilts nearby might move from year's end to year's end. Not so the fishing fleet, those are the boats that are constantly carving wakes across the placid waters of the channels. and they aren't alone in their pursuits:
It was probably more than a week ago that I noticed a strong smell of fish emanating from a bridge over which I was cycling and when I looked over the parapet I saw a wizened old Conch sorting sponges in his boat. His presence was marked by a white van frequently parked along side the highway at that spot where apparently he keeps his skiff. Indeed one day I saw the Marine Patrol, known these days as Fish and Wildlife checking up on the van. He must have passed muster. In any event I spotted someone who may have been him hunting in the waters off Big Pine:
It used to be that sponge fishing was a big industry in the Keys until the sponges started to die off. Indeed Greek spongers were encouraged to emigrate to Florida to set up the industry and their descendants operate a few boats and a great many Hellenic restaurants in the white washed town of Tarpon Springs, north of Tampa. In the 21st century it comes as a bit of a surprise to me that there are still sponge fishers operating in the Keys. I've seen them from time to time poking around in the near shore waters but they retain an otherwordly, almost Biblical appearance, patiently stabbing the waters with their hooked poles:
He stood on the bow of his skiff for a while, poised like a bird of prey waiting for a victim to drift under his boat:
I stood next to my bicycle for a while snapping pictures and then he gathered himself up, sorted some sponges in the boat and apparently decided he needed more to complete the day:
There was something completely enviable about his situation, sitting on the water with nothing very urgent to do, while cars rushed past me in their headlong busyness on the Highway.
As he puttered away I wondered if I had seen the last of him for the afternoon, but he reappeared under the highway bridge heading north:
And then he settled down to drift silently some more up the Big Pine Channel, hunting for more sponges and stabbing the waters from time to time as he went:
I was getting chilled as I stood and I starting earnestly peddling the four miles home, but pretty soon I had to stop and pull the camera out again. It is not an unusual sight to see in the islands but it is a sight worth recording a few times:
Later I fired up the Bonneville and rode into Key West to meet my wife for dinner and a delightful performance of Willy Wonka at the key West High School. Temperatures were back below sixty degrees (15C) but the clarity of the skies gave the sunset a peculiar intensity:
I overheard a couple of Conch parents stepping out of the auditorium after the Chocolate Factory performance and one was telling the other that never has it been so consistently cold in the Keys which I declare to be an exaggeration. On the other hand, I do wish, rather ardently, our modest air conditioning unit had reverse cycle heating. And that desire doesn't manifest itself very often at all.
Bahia Honda (deep bay in Spanish) is home to Blue Butterflies, which we are assured are hard to spot. Not least apparently because they are in fact brown in color:
You'd think they could assign the naming of butterflies to a biologist not afflicted with color blindness. 
Personally I found the interior of Bruce's truck to be an excellent place to observe the outside world, with heating and everything. This was an opportunity for me to view my world not from the driver's seat, or the controls of my motorcycle but instead as a passenger in a visitor's vehicle. It was, for a Bonneville rider, quite a change.
Bruce and 
It's a leisurely way to travel. They took seven languid days to drive to Key West from Santa Fe and the pace didn't pick up while on Highway One:
The stories were good and I didn't spend too much time contemplating our lack of forward progress in 
I might have to try this again. Not being in a hurry. Weird. 
Life is simpler for Bruce who has been retired for 14 years from a life of building secret whatsits for Lockheed Martin, a defense contractor that used to be reviled daily during the Cold War, but which paid Bruce a handsome war dividend in the form of secure employment and a proper, old fashioned pension. What's a retied engineer to do? Why tinker of course so he decided to get a motorcycle, load it up with computers, and then park it in his garage out of the blizzards 
I suggested he and his wife rent a home in the Lower keys for a few months and do the snowbird thing but he demurred, worrying about driving so far with their dogs. The fact is that after a life spent fiddling with slide rules and micrometers Bruce has lost the drive to plan, so a nice slow road trip followed by a stay short enough to require but one visit to our washer/dryer is sufficient apparently to take the edge off a New Mexico winter. 
It was a pleasant winter afternoon in the Keys, the recent cold front had blown through with some force, leaving us basking in afternoon temperatures above 70 degrees (20C approx) and we took advantage to head out on the back roads of Big Pine Key. We checked for alligators at Blue Hole but finding none we spotted this one, in pink, on a seawall at Port Pine Heights, on the northernmost tip of Big Pine Key, where we took a stroll to admire the architecture and the balmy afternoon air. We weren't alone:
These women peddled past and on turning around asked if the nice dog was ours, we shook our heads though when we strolled by this "nice dog" used a great deal too much energy yakking at us from behind his upstairs bars wherein he felt safe:
Bruce and Celia's lives are dominated by an obscure breed of massive dog called Bernese, which look a bit like the animal in the Canadian comic strip For Better or For Worse (which the Citizen doesn't carry, unfortunately) and like most breeds of big dogs, Bernese are relatively quiet companions. This was not a quiet bucolic neighborhood. Someone was out being industrious with a weed whacker buzzing loudly and someone else parked their 
This is a man who has spent 
As though the fence somehow failed to carry the stern warning all on it's own. We strolled past a 
I thought he was joking at first but his precise mind 
Carl's design seems to have fallen on hard times, but this isn't the only 
Bruce insists he 
Love them or loathe them, and they like to 
Hitting them while riding might not be so great even if they are half the size of a white tailed deer:
I took a short spin on Bruce's 800GS BMW and he took my Bonneville for a tour of No Name Key:
Of which comparison more later. It was a most satisfying, simple afternoon, for me a day off work for him another in an endless series of days off:
Just messing about on motorcycles.
I found a reason at last to watch television and I was glad Kathy invited us over to her place for coffee and speeches. Outside yet another cold front threatened and the sky was gray and promising only cold and damp: 
Inside we brewed coffee and waited for the moment that is constitutionally promised to us every fourth January. By the time we were settled in front of the goggle box with chicken salad and hummus the advertising was banned from the programming and CNN stuck with assorted images from around the District of Columbia and the nation. We sat and waited and listened to snatches of song and poetry and all the rest of the pomp that is the Inauguration of a President and though we found the day dreary and cold outside, quite a lot of people seemed to have chosen to brave the below freezing temperatures in Washington to witness personally the arrival of America's first black president:
Looking down I saw Finnegans Wake, the Irish pub enjoying the last of the evening sun along with a couple of cyclists:
And on the other side these evocative, old Key West tin roofs proudly displaying rusty marks of the passage of time:
And then I photographed the sewage plant for the Whalton Lane essay and walked back down to my motorcycle. 
I hardly dare speculate what it might have said.
Working scooters, someone's main transportation, parked ready and waiting to go:
And that other symbol of key West transportation, the working cyclist:
And then there are the visiting land cruisers, huge machines lumbering around town hauling the kitchen sink in their multiplicity of bags and stuff, like this BMW outside the Courthouse Deli on Whitehead Street:
It's a style I've always liked but it seems like overkill in a community a hundred miles from the nearest freeway. Not to mention the purchase cost equivalent to two Triumph Bonnevilles... 
So the dreaded auction is coming to Key West gradually. I have heard of numerous properties headed towards foreclosure but so far house prices are nowhere near collapsing. Home sales have dried up compared to the boom years but I heard a rumor a six million dollar Old Town home was recently snapped up by singer Kenny Chesney who probably isn't short a buck. For others though the prospect of forking over three quarters of a million for a home might seem a bit much these days. I saw these listings for middle Keys homes:
I expect 2009 might bring a few more bargains to the market.
They were a dozen motorcyclists riding in a gaggle of discombobulated idiots, blocking both northbound lanes on Boca Chica and holding traffic down to less than 50 miles per hour in a 55 zone. The white van was fit to be tied trying to persuade them to let him pass but they droned along in a mess of 46 mile per hour weaving bikes holding back a dozen impatient drivers. I hung even further back anticipating a disaster.
They fumbled their way through Big Coppitt and the sewer installation roadworks and popped out in the Saddlebunch Keys where the limit goes all rural and gets back up to a heady 55 miles per hour. Not us. We were stuck behind the morons still weaving and and out amongst themselves, still facing sudden death from the white van caught in their midst. A couple of them dropped out of the pack suddenly slowing and stopping on the shoulder for reasons known only to themselves and their women perched high on inadequate pillions. We passed them by at a funereal pace only to find the extra lame slow pokes suddenly bobbing in our mirrors:
We were moving so slowly I was tempted to ask my wife to get out and stroll alongside and take a few pictures as we rolled through the sunny afternoon... but eventually we got closer to home with me wondering if all this talk of wanting to see more people out on two wheels is really a worthy goal for advocates of motorbikes and motorcycling.
As I turned off the Highway to go down my street the last I saw of them was a slow moving procession dawdling along towards Big Pine Key, and happy to see the last of them. There will be more I'm sure.
It would have been a better conveyance for some people who think they should be out riding motorcycles.
Night night.
Salute (pronounced: Sal-ooh-tay) in its previous incarnation suffered from inconsistency as a friend of mine put it, someone with experience in the table waiting trade. Sometimes food and service were good, and sometimes less so, but prices were always fairly stiff so the expectation was that things should be good. My wife wanted to celebrate her 55th birthday on the beach and so we gave the new management a shot and it worked out quite well. We got three orders of the day's special, yellow tail snapper on salad greens with mango-eggplant salsa:
Which was really quite excellent even though the unpublished price, as it wasn't on the menu was $17:50 which seemed like a lot of money for lunch. Bruce got the roast chicken-pesto salad sandwich off the regular menu for an advertised $10, quite the deal by comparison:
And, being the unsophisticated New Mexican he is, he got his first taste of orzo pasta which got his seal of approval. We all four shared a gazpacho soup and a white bean soup which was better for me on this freezing cold day (65 degrees- 17C) than the cold gazpacho:
The regular menu is quite reasonable and includes some rather bland sounding pasta dishes, primavera, marinara, and something else I can't remember:
Salute currently finds itself in the middle of a modest, by Key West standards, political tug of war. On the one hand Monroe County owns Higgs beach but the Sheriff's department, as a cost cutting measure pulled out the two deputies that were assigned to beach patrol on ATVs. With the departure of the all terrain vehicles, and the deputies with them, the homeless population, especially in winter, has burgeoned at the picnic facilities:
The county had previously suggested handing the park over to the city but the city commission recoiled in horror complaining of the cost of maintenance- cleaning the beach of seaweed, cleaning the park of bums etc...Now the relatively new county administrator, the exotically named Roman Gastesi is suggesting turning the shambles into a first class recreational facility for Monroe County. 
And, as odd as it may seem I think the new management at Salute may have inspired this fresh attitude.
From the outside the restaurant things haven't changed that much, the colors remain the same more or less as does the decor inside the building. And the horribly noisy muzak still blares from the wall doing it's best to hatter the beach ambiance:
The food was excellent and the service cheerful and owing to the chill we were spared the clusters of local subjects lurking on the sand. Understand these aren't working poor or distressed locals, who enjoy the benefits of numerous caring social service agencies. These are people who chose to live at Higgs Beach during the winter and live out their drug induced dramas in a public park and very tedious they are too. The fact the restaurant is thriving, particular in the lunch hour I'm told, may indeed make it a decent "anchor store" for Gastesi's ambitious renovations planned for the beach. The outdoor area filled up as our lunch progressed and on a day of cold north winds it was perfectly comfortable to sit outside:
The inside seating area and bar looked snug too:
There is even a little, colorful, lounging area outside where this dude was reading the Paradise insert from Thursday's paper and sipping a beer:
I hope Salute (pronounced: Sal-ooh-tay) makes it as a vibrant part of Higgs Beach not least because people, including families, have been clamoring to get their picnic and beach front area back. Dog owners get dog park across the street for off leash romps, and parents get their toddlers off leash at Astro City and now we effete wine sippers get to eat pesto off leash at Salute, no longer moribund.
Quite the views of people playing on the Higgs pier and the fishing boats snug at anchor, protected from the biting north wind:
A nice place for lunch.
Island Time: what a concept. There is a select group of people that think that island time is really cool: new arrivals, snowbirds, vacationers. For regular folks it's business as usual in the Keys. Indeed "island time" is a pain in the backside for someone trying to hold down a decent job in the Keys. The problem with "island time" is that it only applies in places where people really don't give a damn whether or not things happen at all, never mind to a schedule. In the Keys "island time"doesn't exist because like it or not this place isn't some Caribbean Island, it's the United States, a place where We Get Things Done.
Snowbirds love to describe life in the Keys as laid back, and that's hardly surprising. The golden years they call them, a time of reflection and ease after a life of working to provide for everyone else in the family...They flock to the Keys to enjoy winters at last snow free and warm. They get up nice and early, a lifelong habit, and take their morning constitutionals exchanging pleasantries as they meet outside my window, waking me from a sound sleep. They clog the aisles in the supermarket remarking on how nice it is to meet again "down here," the vaguely defined area south of Up North. They write passionate letters to the Editor about the homeless clogging the beaches, the lack of parking and bad mannered neighbors and their dogs. Issues they will forget about and leave unresolved for next year, because come April they pack their SUVs and RVs for the trek North.
Tourists love island time. They fly in for a week of sun and fun and immediately adopt the notion that nothing matters, mon. They are in excellent spirits as they cast off their parkas and expose their lily white limbs to the locals' pained gaze. They get into the Caribbean spirit instantly, making lifelong friends of the bartenders, drinking enough to fool themselves into imagining they too could cast off their formal lives and become "beach bums," like all the much admired raggedly dressed locals...Key West- where dreams come true.
Take the ferry out to your week long dream home, cruise Duval on a rented bicycle, no worries. Well, not for a week anyway. The problem is of course that time does matter, especially when something goes a little awry and the dream vacation becomes just one more issue to be dealt with. People who call the police department are rather less on island time when they need to report lost or stolen property, or one more drunken brawl. I can only imagine an island time 9-1-1 conversation: "Key West 9-1-1..."
Frankly I am no fan of island time, I enjoy punctuality, I think it is polite, and my pleasure in living here is measured by yardsticks other than my ability to avoid getting anything done. My least favorite place to encounter island time is on the highway. People with nowhere particular to go love to dawdle and you'd think their mothers would have taught them enough good manners to pull over and let pass the wild eyed locals late for their second or third jobs. On those days when I am dawdling I do just that so I like to think I set a good example...I know the views are fabulous, not least because I never tire of them but there are tons of places to pull over and admire them from Flagler's old bridges which make excellent viewing or fishing platforms. There just aren't that many opportunities to pass (legally) especially if there is lots of oncoming traffic, as happens in winter.
Island time is a fiction, as much as the widely touted notions that Key West is tropical, or located in the Caribbean, but even a curmudgeon like me has to admit that it is a cheerful fiction, perhaps even a desirable one. I don't get too stressed normally if I get stuck behind a chatty cashier in the check out line, or two cars parked in the street with their occupants chatting up a storm. I'm luckier than most in that even though I actually live and work here I enjoy plenty of time off, as evidenced by this blog, and I like to take my island time on my porch enjoying the view across the salt marshes under the ever present sun. I also do appreciate the fact that people come to Key West's sub-tropical climate to throw off their cares for a short while only, though I get to live here year round includingall through hurricane season. I practice "island time" in the privacy of my own 6,000 square feet of Paradise (courtesy of Wells Fargo Bank):
It's an alluring image for many people, coconuts, Conchs and coladas. Too bad the values that make island time impossible to enact, hard work, dedication and persistence, are the very values that earn them enough money to spend time down here at all. A tropical paradox. 
Basically I stood at the intersections between Eaton and Southard Streets and clicked my pocket Canon SX100 camera.
And there they were, bicycles in motion and not. Riders riding and everyone enjoying relaxed locomotion in a city suddenly filled with cars:
As I strolled I caught shots of people not only riding, but locking...
...unlocking...
...window shopping...
...and quite possibly hauling their loot home:
Baskets, unglamorous and functional are popular in a city where bicycles are more than a hobby:
Not everyone rides for utility though. I've seen a few of these low riders around, and I'm still trying to figure wherein lies the pleasure of riding with your backside scraping the ground.
A fancy paint job anyone understands:
Any way you look at them, as useful or decorative bicycles just look right in downtown Key West:
I'm not sure why but Richard A Heyman is only tentatively memorialized as America's first openly gay mayor. I suppose it's possible there was some other person someplace else across the fruited plain who was out of the closet and elected mayor prior to 1983, but no one has stepped forward to make the claim so it seems safe enough to award the title to Heyman, then a resident at Whalton Lane, off the 900 block of Duval, a place that nowadays is an unremarkable alley:
Heyman served in the days before the Internet became popular so there isn't much information about him. From what I can gather Heyman was an affable guy, well liked enough to knock a Conch off the pedestal for the top job, which must have been a shock to the not-yet-ready-for-gay-prime time crowd in the city. It seems quite a crowd gathered at Heyman's home for the announcement of his candidacy, but his home has been relabeled in line with uniform street numbering in the city. I cannot be sure but I think Number 1 Whalton Lane should have been around here: 
Though in the proper tradition of American political notables and their legends it might have been more suitable for Heyman to have lived in this picturesque garden shed, Key West's answer to the log cabin of political myth making: 
And that which looks at first glance like an antidote to fencing neighbors in, is actually a genuflection to another Key West claimed literary icon:
Well, yes much better to name oneself after a man of literary action, a bull runner, a drinker and a serial spouse. Poor old Richard Heyman can hardly compete can he? All we've got to remember him by is the sewage treatment plant on Fleming Key, photographed here from high atop the Parking Garage, as Fleming is now a super secret Navy base and inaccessible to simple history buffs like you and me:
I was forgetting because Heyman died in the 1990's of AIDS related pneumonia there is one other place he is remembered, other than his extremely valuable if unglamorous devotion to clean sewage. That is at the Aids Memorial at White Street Pier, from whose website I found this photo of his inscription:
I wonder if the kid I spotted moving his belongings into the lane has any notion that America's first gay mayor lived here, campaigned from here and celebrated his win here. I didn't interrupt him to ask and perhaps he would have surprised me had I had the nerve.
Whalton Lane is marked as far as I could see, not by a plaque to Heyman but by crass commercialism, a sandal shop gets a nice big oval, temporarily enhanced by the presence of a green Triumph Bonneville: 
There is currently a movie making the rounds with lots of Oscar buzz, "Milk" celebrating the life and marking the assassination of Harvey Milk elected to the City and County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors at the same time as Heyman was elected to the Key West City Commission. I've heard rumors that there may one day be a documentary made about Richard Heyman but for now Sean Penn takes the title role in the Milk biography, coming soon to the Tropic Cinema:
And as the lives of these two pioneers come briefly into view it is an odd notion to me that gays can't come out of the closet after all this time, except in small pockets of the country, like Key West and San Francisco's Castro district among others. I tried to convince my young gay colleague at work that he might want to see the movie to learn how it used to be, but he shrugged: "Its about old people," he said, reminding me that history is a much undervalued subject in America.
Then there is Dan Bateman a much respected (with reason) motorcycle riding instructor. His skills were called into question by this tree thing so he had to take on the Great Christmas Tree Challenge, and being the competitive soul he is, he had to one up Steve of Scooter in the Sticks. So he did:
A night time walk around the old West Martello Tower; this I should have done for my birthday last Halloween...Though looking through the front gate, and pointing the camera that way shows something that resembles those gardens of old Savannah made famous in the movies: 
Key West has two of the eight Martello Towers built in the United States in imitation of a fortress designed by the British in the 19th century. Though they were originally designed as coastal defences Key West's western brick tower is now used for more pacific purposes:
The East Martello Tower is next to the airport and is in much better shape. It houses a museum (that merits it's own essay of course) and offers rooftop views across the Straits of Florida- though you still can't see godless communists in Havana from there! The West Martello Tower is fairly decrepit owing to the presence nearby of Fort Zachary Taylor. 
It seems bored artillerymen in the fort used the West Martello for target practice, hence it's state of chic disrepair. The garden club makes the most of it:
Those arches are on the street side of the tower, and they are sometimes used as shelter by "local subjects," however there were no little bundles of joy snoring underneath the arches the morning I was out walking around. The West Martello is actually part of Higgs Beach, the Monroe County Park located on the south side of Key West:
The waters against the seawall are pretty shallow but there is plenty of sand so this is a real beach. The tower also overlooks the water, and the White Street Pier:
And next to the tower they built a monument to the African Slaves, rescued from a slave ship by the US Navy and more or less abandoned on the beach in Key West until they sent to Liberia to start a new life.
In researching the towers I did find out a bit about the history of Martello Towers in general, of which I saw a few along the coast of England when I was a child . It seems that during the British invasion of Corsica at the end of the 18th century a British Naval officer liked the look of the round Genoese Tower defending Point Mortella in Corsica. So when he brought the idea back to Britain for use as a coastal defence he unhappily managed to misspell the name, hence Martello, which it so happens in Italian (the native language of Corsica) means hammer. And when the US military saw Martello Towers constructed in Canada they got the idea to do the same on the US East and Gulf Coasts. I see some of the Martello's architectural roots incorporated into the Key West police station too:
Very symbolic I'm sure.
For the better known areas I have written essays on the tourist attractions at Blue Hole and the Watson Trail and their pine trees, and just recently I took the Bonneville to an open space I discovered. This time I chose to ride my bicycle around some backstreets that had come to my attention on one of my other visits...
For some people this idyll is only available for part of the year. I was moved to guess this signpost indicated a snowbird from Michigan might be in residence.The street address of 29173 indicates the Post office puts this home in the lower portion of Mile Marker 29 on Highway One:
I lived many years in California where the concept of "snow bird" was not really known though some people made a habit of hitting up Mexico for longer winter vacations as they close din on retirement years. However this East Coast and Midwestern habit of shuffling back and forth with the seasons seems weird to me. Especially as many Mid Western states boast summers more humid and less bearable than summers in the Keys, a time of year when water sports become comfortable in 82 degree waters....
My boat is on it's trailer this time of year with 70 degree waters, which are too cold for swimming in my estimation. Yet, this is still where people want to be in winter and one can hardly blame them. This is January in the back streets of Big Pine Key:
It was quite delightful cruising the streets in the dry crisp winter air on my bicycle and no surprise I wasn't alone. This guy whizzed by on his splendid recumbent, took a turn whizzed back and seemed to be having as much fun as I was, doing nothing much in particular, just enjoying a day off:
Everyone has a boat on these canals though I'm not sure how much use they all get. At this particular seawall I saw a fine example of summer fun, a slide:
Or how about a nice al fresco workshop where you could do your pottering around in the shade, safe from the weak winter sun?
With all the bad news about home prices around the country you'd think that even here, in this slivers of land still attached to the US prices would be slumping. And so they are in a few spots, but mostly what seems to be happening is that houses for sale, and there are lots of them, aren't selling. Some foreclosures have reached the market and a very few homes are on offer for quite a bit less than we are used to seeing. However mostly people seem to be convinced they can sell their home sin paradise for the ridiculously high prices of years past. Some brave souls are still spending money to do up their homes, an encouraging thing to see:
But bucolic Big Pine is a place where people like their space, they like the absence of busy city facilities and out here they are more than an hour by car from Key West, and probably forty minutes from Marathon in the other direction. This is off the beaten path:
And to be happy out here one doesn't really need a McMansion, people have had their fish camps on Big Pine canals for decades,and some of them have survived the endless round of construction and change going on around them: 
It's a long, long way to Duval Street from here.
So, there flew the gauntlet, right off the page of Skootin Old Skool, in remarking on a recent post in A Scooter in Turkey, which looked at working scooters,and very picturesque they are too. The Seattle based Old Skool Orin said something to the effect that there is nowhere in the US that would see such examples of working scooters. I felt this was a challenge that needed to be answered.
Key West is full of working scooters, like the examples above,one ridden by a man who anywhere else in the US wouldn't be seen dead scooting to the office, and below that a little Yamaha Jazz, worse for wear but fully functional and obviously used as a daily rider. This gent casually skipped off the scooter, not even bothering to park it properly and sauntered off into Albertson's grocery store:
And Key Plaza, in New Town, has set aside lots of scooter only parking for customers. This sun worn sign shows the parking has been around for a while:
As has this daily rider with his 250cc Honda Nighthawk complete with saddlebags, drum brakes and flowing beard:
Because this is America a lot of what one sees here doesn't look as exotic as one might find in Turkey, in the mysterious and seductive Levant, but the same principles apply. A Tomos two stroke moped might be hard to find on US city streets if one isn't in Key West, where this Slovenian work horse finds favor with the large Slavic migrant population:
Baskets are a feature of mopeds, scooters and bicycles that are used around town to haul anything and everything.
Imagine my chagrin when I spotted a man riding away from Home Depot with four bags of potting soil wedged on his scooter between his legs...and my camera was not to hand! He elicited no attention as that sort of scooter transport is normal around here. Saddlebags show up all over the place too, on motorcycles...
...and Yamaha's ugliest scooter ever, the 250cc Morphous which a lot of people thought looked really cool, before they stopped importing it:
On the more traditional front we can see Honda Elites in various cubic capacities, this one, possibly a 125cc on the Boulevard with two riders, most likely snowbirds (the matching helmets are the giveaway, a not very local touch) out shopping:
In Florida helmets are optional for riders over 21 years of age with medical insurance, and the state also issues motorcycle tags with the notation "under 21" for youngsters. I didn't see the tag on these two joyriders on North Roosevelt Boulevard ("The Boulevard") but I expect they are over 21:
And when one is driving down the street in a car one shouldn't be surprised if one is accosted by a wizened man old enough to be one's grandfather puttering along on a scooter:
It may not be Turkey but I don't think there are too many men like him riding scooters around their home towns. As for actual working scooters deliveries are frequently made on two wheels around town. These vehicles typically use ice chests:
Or my favorite 50cc ride, the Honda Metropolitan (known, confusingly enough in Canada as a Jazz):
And then there is the factory designed delivery vehicle from TGB, which comes in two models, a 50cc (pictured here at Jenna's deli) or the 150cc 4 stroke, both with built in delivery boxes on the back. I fancy the 150 as a touring vehicle if I get the urge to see America slowly, as I did in 1981 on my Vespa 200:
Aside from getting 100 miles per gallon (40 kilometers to the liter), scooters also offer the bonus of easy parking which in Key West's congested Old Town gets critical in winter when tourist season is at it's height. The city offers lots of parking spots for two wheelers, though scooter riders do get creative as well, while some riders just dump their vehicles in automobile spots treating them as though they were cars: 
Chinese scooters have made huge inroads into the Key West with their low prices but Kymcos, Yamahas and Hondas still compete. There are a few Italians, some Aprilias a very few Vespas and Victor the Honda dealer on Southard Street is now also a Genuine dealer so a few of those have showed up. Of classics there aren't too many. This sad Vespa sidecar doesn't run and the Sebago employee who staffs it on Duval street told me that if it were running it would be complex and expensive to park it as an advertising tool. I have no idea why but it is something very bureaucratic so he is reduced to pushing it home, ignominiously at day's end:
I also came across this delightful Honda CB125 on the Boulevard at Napa Auto parts. It had just shy of 7,000 miles (12,000 kms) on the clock and it looked great:
On the subject of classics this home in New Town has been slowly working on restoring a couple of Honda Fours from the 1970's here flanked by an older model Yamaha Zuma one of the most popular scooters in town, now also available as a 125cc:
The Chinese scooters like to look cool by using Italian names like this Taiwan Golden Bee, fast motorcycles in Italian:
Or this TGB model called the Key West, named for the town that lives and breathes scooters:
Then again the fashionable home will want to have a scooter that matches the front door. Cool huh?
And if you live in the city you will start to recognize vehicles and their parking spots. I like this Harley Road King on White Street:
Or there's this one, a BMW 650 Dakar that I've seen around town ridden by a guy who may even be older then me.I saw the bike at Jiri's motorcycle shop on Stock Island and he said the owner rides all the time, a bit like me I suppose:
My own Bonneville I photographed at an uncharacteristic distance, at the Big Pine Shopping Center. The Triumph usually looms so large in my life I thought it looked funny dwarfed by the vast expanses of cement in the rear of the shopping center:
For those not equipped with their own working scooters rentals are widely available. These of course are usually enjoyed by tourists so they are true working scooters:
John in Turkey challenged me to find a working scooter with three people riding, which I failed to do, not least because that would be illegal, no doubt. However I did manage to find this particular pair riding happily (and illegally) down Duck Avenue:
Certainly Key West doesn't look much like anywhere I've seen in Scooter in Turkey, and the two wheelers won't look as exotic or unusual as those photographed by John, but Key West, by any standards, has a healthy and vibrant population of working scooters.
Suddenly the tire was sinking and it was all I could do to force the pedals round to keep my balance. I found another patch of rock, paused, gave it up for a bad job and rolled back through the mud, watching great clods of clay stick to the pedals, the frame, the wheels, and fall onto the hubs. I stayed upright:
I cleaned up as best I could riding hard and using bits of dried grass to wipe the bike down. The next day I was parking the car at the police station prior to unloading the bike for a ride around town when one of the senior detectives came by. She paused and stared at my bicycle perched on the car rack. "Hmm," she murmured, "I recognize this stuff," she picked a piece of dried clay off the side of the tire and tested it between her fingers. I watched her wondering what on earth she was thinking. "Reminds me of when I was a kid," Brenda said smiling at the happy memories. "I used to play in this stuff all the time." And she walked off. Really I need to get used to working around people with guns. I have no skeletons in my closet. 
I admit it: this is the time of year I tend to get cranky and it's got nothing to do with hallmark holidays. Its the visitors on the roadways. They are everywhere, crowding out the city of Key West jamming Highway One, dithering at intersections and slowing down on the bridges to admire the views. Getting around is getting impossible, and this happens every year and every year I struggle to maintain my equanimity in the face of driving stupidity. For a start, why do snowbirds and tourists who have no schedule to keep, get on the roads during commute hours and clog everything. This is North Roosevelt Boulevard at 5pm at Salt Run Creek:
Looking at this picture one has to wonder why lane splitting isn't allowed in Florida...And while I'm on the subject of lane control check this next sequence out. I took these pictures in the car just after crossing Cow Key Bridge into the City of Key West. The first sign reads, Right Lane Go At All Times, which is a simple enough instruction you'd think. But at the triangle where Highway One joins North and South Roosevelt Boulevards, traffic making a right into the city stalls. This makes me crazy because the right lane merging with North Roosevelt gets its own lane. Barring pedestrians at the crosswalk, there is no need to stop! Just take the corner carefully and stay rigidly in your own lane.
Instead just about here visitors lose their nerve and come to a dead stop backing up traffic all over the place... when the mantra should be right lane, Go at all times...
Because once through the pedestrian crosswalk the road into the city is wide open, and the lane to the left of the white line is for traffic coming up from South Roosevelt from behind, and that's what unnerves visitors. Your lane is for you alone no matter who is coming up behind:
I can fulminate all I want and I know it won't get better so I am desperately trying to bear myself in patience until they all go home again...leaving lots of money behind we hope. However the crowding isn't all bad, and there are lots of new motorcycles on the streets for me to ogle. I saw a maroon Vespa 250 in the meadows and it made my heart go pitter patter as it looked just like mine:
That is one way to go in the Keys, this is another, trim compact and ready to ride fast:
But if you want to wander the streets of Key West checking out the contents of the garbage cans a good old fashioned pedal tricycle may be just the thing:
I prefer my Bonneville all the same:
Which would be the large one to the right, in the picture, not the silver Yamaha scooter.
I don't molest anything much, certainly not traps. If you do, and you get caught the fine can be $10,000 which in our debased currency is still real money. Plus you lose all your friends and neighbors who previously trusted you will no longer be inclined to do so. This next sign is a simple explanation...
...of why your animal should have a tag attached to the collar. Much less stress all round. Which brings me to the next one which encourages...what? Ho hum, the little dears must be off their meds.
________________________
I am clearly not a businessman, nor am I an artist, but it seems to me the world would be just fine for a little while if artists stuck to art and businessmen to commerce. "Body wash" (whatever that is) has nothing to do with marine art, that I do know. No matter how prettily it is wrapped.
And that's all she wrote today.
We got a call from Mrs Sailorman saying they had dropped anchor in Key West on their way north to a consulting job and did we want to do lunch? This is a couple we had a passing aquaintance with when we lived briefly in Ft Myers on our boat. They call when they are in Key West and we have had a couple of lunches with them in the past and this year it seems the tradition was to be maintained. My wife and I don't have much of a world view in common with them but one listens and tries to learn. So there we were at the Shrimp Shack of a sunny winter afternoon ordering grouper sandwiches for us and shrimp and fries for them.
I find these kinds of encounters instructive because I get to hear how the world works form a different point of view, even though the point of view itself frequently leaves my head spinning. Sailorman is one of those people I like to describe as having a bluff exterior masking a bluff interior. He pontificates on subjects with a no holds barred attitude that is refreshing and somewhat confusing as he expects me to share those opinions. The "ladies" were inside placing the orders and we were outside holding down a table in a crowded seating area, and lacking sports for common ground economic bailouts were the opening conversational gambit. There at least we could share some scepticism, as clearly our first modest $700 million "bailout" has done bugger all good for anybody, except the jerks pocketing the bonuses. Though I would cautiously welcome a recovery plan that might hope to do some good, Sailorman thinks government stinks in every way at every level. He is one of those people who believes that government can do nothing right. And the autoworkers...well, of course they want too much money to raise their families. A whole $27 an hour i was quick to point out the famously incorrect $80 figure includes costs that are paid out to former employees in pensions and health care benefits ( damn those benefits!).
And the fact that I work for the government, in my albeit modest capacity gets overlooked in the smirking runt of the conversation that relegates government to a level of incompetence worthy only of disgust. This from a man living off a buy out from AT&T, his steady employer for decades, that gave him a large sum of money to quit which which he bought a home and took to a life of pottering about and sailing. Not exactly government but god knows government-like when one remembers American Telephone and Telegraph's monopoly that enabled him to work and retire on such generous terms. The irony of his fulminations against car workers seeking similar compensation packages was completely lost on him.
Atlantic Avenue in Key West runs east and west along the south side of the island, but, unlike South Roosevelt, Atlantic isn't in sight of the water along most of it's length. Part of the way is covered by tall apartment buildings at 1500 and 1800 Atlantic and the area in between is filled with a lot of mangroves. It is actually, though not obviously a nature preserve:
The entrance to the preserve is easy to miss as it is an inconspicuous little gazebo next to the 1800 Atlantic Boulevard parking lot.
You'd think that people choosing to walk the little quarter mile trail to the beach were taking on an undertaking worthy of an expedition to the Himalayas, judging by the severity of the signage, all manner of warnings about the rough trail littered with obstacles:
"Walk at your own risk," "Many obstacles," and God forbid you ride a bicycle else you might run down and injure more modestly equipped trekkers in this natural wonderland. If the trail were that rugged you'd think pansy Florida cyclists simply wouldn't bother. But where's the fun of a city park without warning signs? And then there is the sign proclaiming no access to wheelchairs- if you're in one you have to go to Rest Beach up the street to check out the ocean front:
Which I found a little odd but there it is. The other odd thing, and decidedly unnatural is the proximity of 1800 Atlantic's utility apparatus.
However in Key West there isn't a lot of room so these things happen quite frequently. You can, for instance find yourself in the bucolic serenity of the Tropical Botanical Garden on Stock Island and see the Aqueduct Pumping Station looming above the trees. The trail itself doesn't seem that tough to negotiate, though there is a pile of sand up next to the water which would be tough to get a wheelchair through.
A pity really because the view is the usual delight, south across the Straits of Florida:
Off to the east the 
And in the other direction, towards the White Street Pier, there is another expanse of sand:
There were a few people on the beach when I was standing around there, but it wasn't nearly as crowded as perhaps it should have been. By Florida standards even this beach is fairly modest, but compared to much of the waterfront up and down the rocky Keys this is expansive indeed:
And up above there was all manner of traffic:
The biplane is to be seen (and heard LOUDLY!) buzzing the beaches towing a banner offering rides, a good long ride for a couple of hundred bucks for two I believe. I still want to do that, and check out the islands from above. Like a pelican, as it were.Meanwhile back on Earth we see humans doing what humans do, calling their friends on their cell phones and (LOUDLY!) wish them a happy new year, in between puffs on their big fat cigars. Quite the life...at 1800 Atlantic.
In the last rays of the sun this enormous block of apartments has some pretensions to beauty. Or something:
Passing by the condos on the way out, the way I came in, I took a quick stop at the mangrove lookout platform, built out over the water alongside the trail. In the right circumstances it might look a tad bit more spectacular I suppose:
And so I found myself heading out to get to work on time, but for others this time of day, close to sunset is the time when recreation replaces obligation and this woman found a spot to perch and draw.
When the Natural Retail Group bought Waterfront Market in Key West from local icon Buco Pantelis, everyone who cares about "things local" announced the sky was falling. There was a great deal of affection for the local grocery store which operated with an emphasis on fresh and organic, but that wasn't a national chain box store. NRG has thirteen stores between Massachussetts and Key West, ten of them are in Florida, two in Maryland and the other on Cape Cod. Key West joined the chain in March 2008.
Since then I have heard from Waterfront adherents that things don't look as good as before and that things are slipping, but I would expect no less. The place has lots of employees all wearing olive colored NRG t-shirts, a touch of uniformity that does strike a discordant note at the "alternative" grocery store:
From the outside the store looks much the same, the same Wyland marine wildlife scene remains on the walls. The name hasn't changed either on the front doors:
But inside the doors, on the parking lot side of the store I found a notice urging people to use reusable shopping bags, such that one gets 20 cents off for every such bag used, in the manner of Whole Foods the national organic chain that does operate big box stores:
And the produce section still offers organics in a community that struggles with the concept of paying more (for anything) that is of higher quality:
My wife's sister, the general practitioner, has come up with some bizarre "cleansing diet" for my wife's inflamed joints which consists of ten days of squash and rice only, so we laid into the squash section trying to find the most interesting range of squashes we could find. Spaghetti (which is a crime to an Italian let me tell you) and acorn and zucchini and some round knobbly thing that is probably native to New England and poisonous to anyone else. We got some help from the olive shirted Natural Retail Group employee who struck me as being cheerful and local, despite early complaints that management imported non locals to run the store after the change over:
Waterfront still offers the array of yuppie sauces, oils, potions and other exotica that the Food Channel on television has introduced across the land:
And the deli section still offers ready to eat meals to the delicate skinned visitors who wear their sun protective hats even indoors such is the strength of the southern sun:
Some foods are so interesting they even tempt, gradually, employees to try them:
Plonk (English slang for wine, often cheap) comes from around the world in proper looking bottles, enough variety to require some serious meditation:
All these exotica may seem run of the mill but Key West has spent much of it's existence since wrecking went out of fashion, just getting by. Wreckers imported anything they found on ships they salvaged and any tour guide in Key West's historic homes will tell you all about where there fittings came from. Nowadays island exotica comes by food truck:
And for those visitors who seek local inspiration Waterfront Market carries a few books, not just cookbooks, for inspiration:
It used to be that there was a fabulous juice bar and Internet cafe upstairs in the mezzanine, but that has gone and that's a loss. 
One acquaintance who was a fervent Waterfront Shopper told me she was disappointed with the change as she has lost a source of products she used to like to buy there. Nowadays she looks for her sodas and soy milk at other stores, including Publix the chain store by excellence. Then there is the fact that things aren't where they used to be and that pissed some regulars off. One point the disaffected brought up to me, who is not a waterfront regular, is that the new management failed to clean up the store when they had an opportunity. They tell me the place was a mess at the end of local ownership and the building could have used a good clean.There is still art hanging around though:
I'm guessing that growing pains will yield to a new generation of shoppers who will gradually forget the "old" waterfront. I remember the annual newspaper listings for jobs paying something pathetic around $7 an hour and the annual turn over of low paid staff. I am not cut out for retail work and those that struggle to deal face to face with the grumpy public have my respect, which I try to retain even when I am grumpy. They do a tough job:
Besides, you can still get a decent sandwich and an organic soda and sit outside facing the water and know you are supporting, if not a local store, local workers and a very small chain in a world still dominated by mega chains. That has to count for something, and the sandwiches are still good. 
Curry Lane reaches west from White Street down that magnificent canyon photographed above. The building on the left is irresistible, a corrugated sheet iron in urban industrial guise masking several residential apartments inside judging by the mailboxes. That view is down the lane this one is out the other way towards White Street near Fleming:
Curry Lane is named for one of the city's most famous pioneer residents, a man called William Curry according to the inestimable J Burke Wills, author of The Streets of Key West, who unravels so many Key West oddities.
The short version is that Curry was born in the Bahamas, came to Key West and set himself up in business with a couple of partners at the tender age of sixteen. At age 23 he went solo and spent the rest of his life amassing a vast fortune. So much so he was rated I believe as Florida's richest man at some point in his life. He traded, he operated a wrecking operation and his death in 1896 caused a massive traffic back up en route to the cemetery. And for all this he gets, besides the Curry Mansion, a tiny alley named for him. It hardly seems fair, though it is, as always pretty enough, this Key West lane:
This place looks old enough to have housed Curry's janitor, though the all wood construction looks more Pacific Northwest in it's rugged exterior style, lacking a sit does porches and tropical ventilation:
And there's more corrugated iron on view as well:
This low slung structure put me in mind of a house I used to live near in Santa Cruz, California. It happened I used to walk my dogs down to the beach at Pleasure Point and I passed this very small house frequently and it looked a bit like the little house pictured above. One rainy winter day a woman bent low to fit through the doorway appeared in front of the house. She looked at me, I said hello and added: "Finally I get to meet the resident of the doll's house." She looked startled, "What?" she said recoiling. I repeated my comment saying I'd always wondered who lived there as I lived round the corner. "Oh," she said. "I thought you said the devil's house." I never saw her again and perhaps my ill considered comment stuck in her mind (as it did in mine, apparently) causing her to duck inside every time she saw me coming with Emma and Debs...Back to Curry Lane where full sized houses are to found and for sale too:
There was lots of art work on offer on the lane including one tantalizing studio:
Some seasonal stuff, with a Key West twist ( I took these pictures last month):
And this orchid was quite charming I thought in its special holder:
And there was this strange yin and yang thing going on, a fierce dog perhaps representing the destruction of yang with the whirligig the preservation of yin or vice versa. Or not.
And there was a sophisticated little note en francais which might not have the desired effect should one be hoping to inform the unwashed masses that this residence is private:
I'm not generally too accomplished when it comes to identifying cars but this looks like an old fashioned short wheelbase Land Rover, now apparently become an Indian corporation, which puts me in mind of Enfield motorcycles.
Fine vehicles of course but as I recall an absolute bear to drive, and not at all suited to the cut and thrust of urban Key West traffic. But there again were we all conformists I'd be riding a Harley Davidson. There's a thought.
The biggest change for me is that the Solares Hill has become an insert in the Sunday paper instead of being published on Thursdays. This applies to subscribers of the Citizen newspaper which bought the formerly independent weekly newspaper a few years ago, gobbling up the competition as it were. At the time people were quick to forecast that the weekly would lose it's teeth and perhaps it did though I didn't see it. Personally I think the editor has more to do with the quality of the articles and i miss Nancy Klingener who went and got a real job outside journalism last year. She was excellent. Mark Howell is a superb writer but I feel the editorial quality of Solares Hill isn't as biting as it was under Klingener. Perhaps I just liked her because she could make gardening sound interesting. It seems Solares Hill is now reduced to the status of a "supplement" to the Citizen and apparently will no longer be available from paper boxes around town, according to Editor Tom Tuell's editorial on the subject. Bye bye gray boxes, I guess:
I wrote an essay some time ago discussing the various papers in Key West (November 22nd, 2007) and nothing much has changed except some have gone, but Solares Hill and Key West The Newspaper (Journalism as a Contact Sport) soldier on. KWTN known as the "Blue Paper" prides itself on it's hard hitting stance, quite justified too, and by comparison Solares Hill is quite the weakling, but even the Blue Paper has a habit of pulling punches when it suits the editor not to lash out. The fact is, Key West is a small town and reporting is always going to have to be circumspect as one never knows whose corns one will be treading on inadvertently, mixing metaphors as one does occasionally.
The world of print journalism is undergoing financial struggles in a very public sort of way. Change is inevitable, but change doesn't have to be a bad thing as long as the worldof print survives the changes. My hope is that daily newspapers will continue to be available, even as my young colleagues show a fine disdain for the hometown paper. I am amazed how little they know of what's going on in the city, and frankly such ignorance doesn't make them better dispatchers, but what do I know?
I ride by the low cream building behind Publix from time to time and I am always grateful that there is a crew of people beavering away to publish our daily "mullet wrapper,"a designation that I think severely underestimated the value of the daily read. I enjoy the Citizen and I love getting the paper tossed into my driveay each morning. I need to thank the loyal and unseen Dale who throws my paper into my drive every morning with unerring accuracy, and unlike his predecessor doesn't choose to toss it deep into the sea grape bushes to force me to grovel around in a most undignified way to retrieve my daily news. 
$102 per year (plus a Christmas tip for Dale) generally including the day before and the day after the latest hurricane. What a bargain even if Solares Hill now comes on a Sunday at the end of the weekend, instead of on Thursday in delicious anticipation of the weekend. 
Tonight is Twelfth Night and this is the deadline for removing one's decorations, or a year of bad luck will follow. The city has I hope, taken note of this deadline as 2009 is shaping up to be not a good place to be relying on pure luck to escape economic catastrophe unscathed.Truman Avenue had city displays too: 
Citizens were also keeping their private displays on view:
I hope I have made it clear that I feel no need whatsoever to celebrate the season of shopping by enjoying a nice fat snowfall. Thus a plastic snowman illuminated form within and surrounded by palm trees is entirely up my street:
Twelfth Night is supposed to represent the arrival of the Three Wise Men, the Arabs bearing gifts from"afar." Whereas frankincense, myrrh and gold have been supplanted by shopping sprees and gifts are exchanged on or around the 25th of December it wasn't always so. In Italy they talk of la befana, a little old lady who brought modest gifts on this day, and this modest image I found on an Italian website:
North American images are more pagan in some sense, trees, snowmen and a penguin. I have no idea what a penguin in a Santa hat represents:
Perhaps it isn't a penguin but who knows what it's supposed to be. I enjoy the attempts at making Key West part of the Germanic Christmas history, with trees and snow in the image:
Not forgetting reindeer, like they have anything to do with Keys lore and tradition, but they are so small perhaps they are just white Key deer:
And behind them I found Good King Wenceslas, St Nick to some, Santa Claus to others playing on a see-saw, again with the plump penguin motif on the other end:
This next on Flagler at Linda could be Christmas lights in red and green the traditional colors, but they are here year round. Disabling traffic lights could be very unlucky for some people:
And as I cruised around on my 2am lunch break I did spot some Jews keeping up their own decorations well past the eight day deadline:
I like the tradition of each night putting the lighted Menorah in the window to illuminate the world but...not year round! I came across one parsimonious householder with their decorations turned off, symbolic perhaps of my desire to see us all move on with the rest of the year:
In the spirit of closing the door on another holiday season here's one of the Bonneville nowhere near any Christmas lights:
On Jose Marti Drive, looking northeast up North Roosevelt Boulevard. Not a fairy light in sight.
No gears, no fenders, one coaster brake and in this case no lights, no luggage rack, no frills. Key West is one of the few cities in North America where bicycles replace the car, as the basic way to get around.
It was during the endless, repetitive multiple hurricane evacuations of 2004 and 2005 that city officials figured about one third of the city's 25,000 permanent residents had no cars and a plan was developed to evacuate them with an endless round robin of buses hauling people up to evacuation centers in Miami. Bicycles are one of the reasons residents are quoted as loving to live in Key West. It's a four mile by two mile island, no more than 14 feet above sea level at it's highest point, where a bicycle is all you need. Along with a few accessories of course, because bicycles in this city are serious transport, not hobbies or toys:
Baskets and water bottles, even of the cheaper home made variety are useful but lets not forget that many people in Key West also like living here because beer is almost as good as currency and for others, more temperate, a Cuban cafe con leche should be part of the riding experience. Hence the cup holder:
It would be a mistake to think that because bicycles are widespread, expensive bicycles are also important to their riders. Status is conferred in other ways in Key West and showing up on a four thousand dollar bicycle would most likely mark the rider as a visitor, a snow bird or as someone with more money than sense. A "conch cruiser" is all one needs to meet and make friends in town:
Tourists are also obvious and clearly labelled by the rental company signs littering their machines:
Tourists ride with grins on their faces and gawp as they float by Key West's architecture, giving themselves away as creatures of low status. Status in Key West is conferred by longevity, not wealth. Bicycle helmets are not part of the cycling scene in Key West either, helmets are expensive and dorky and the rest of the country, in a desperate search for security in an uncertain world, embraces passive safety above all else, so naturally the Southernmost City spits, en masse, on bourgeois fear: 
Indeed, far from wearing safety gear many riders take to the unsafe roads with not even a top on:
But thanks to the flat streets and protection from headwinds, (wind does make riding in the Keys tough) not even the unfit need fear using a bicycle:
The white plaque on the front denotes a rental so I assume (what else can I do?) the rider, when at home, wouldn't be seen dead on a low status bicycle. In Key West, anything goes...even helmetless. For some people in Key West, bicycles are literally a way of life:
With so many bicycles around town there would have to be bike racks everywhere you might think. True, but apparently there aren't enough of those even:
I should point out it is not legal to lock a bicycle to a city structure like a street sign or lamp post and Public Works have been known to sweep downtown and impound bicycles that block sidewalks and create nuisances....Also if you ride at night without lights, or ride anytime the wrong way on a one way street, you can and will be stopped by a police officer. I enter millions of B N L (bike no light) traffic stops every night into the dispatch computer. A cycling ticket is a moving violation and is a fine excuse for your insurance to raise your rates because where you live you drive a car... It is legal to ride on sidewalks but cyclists must yield to pedestrians and have an audible means of approach ("Excuse me!").
Imagine that, an American city where you too could earn a modest winter living pedaling a rickshaw...and not a snow flake in sight. 
And married her. And at work they got to insisting he take a promotion. Which was all very well as he was offered the very best job a park service employee could have, if he were also a climber. His bosses wanted him to take the Climbing Ranger position at Yosemite National Park, a unique job that pays the ranger to be a climber on some of the most sought after rock faces in the world. There was a hitch. There always is.
The thoughtful young man, seen here taking a reflective moment in his older brother's Asheville home, is a Quaker, raised as a pacifist from childhood and not someone who rejoiced in guns, or shooting or violent pursuits of any kind. The fly in the ointment of his promotion was that if he wanted to be the Park's Service sole climbing ranger he had to go to the law enforcement academy. And carry a gun at work. This proposal required some thought and family discussion and in the end pragmatism won out. He went to the Academy for three months, spitted and polished and marched and took time to qualify on the range. In the fullness of time he became the armed climbing ranger at Yosemite.
This elevation has given rise to endless questioning from family members not used to having a law enforcement officer in their midst. And furthermore, has created a new bond between myself, the dispatcher, and himself, gun toting lawman. He talks about traffic stops and citations, about the more bizarre aspects of ending up in Law Enforcement. His wife finds it onerous sometimes, "We had a mizzy thing in the closet for the longest time," she said with disdain oozing from her lips, "but finally he got a gun safe at the office." He lit up "It was an M-16, a veteran of the Vietnam War," he said reverently and it was in his closet paired with a Park Service issued shotgun. "The M-16 had a strong spring in the magazine, and all you had to do was touch it and it would release with a loud bang." He laughed at the memory of his wife leaping like a startled gazelle. Nephew #1, his older brother is by contrast a house husband, married to a nurse and raising two small children with all the humor of a man at peace with himself. Where his brother fools with guns, he messes with diapers (Clean, unused ones I might add):
It has been no secret Nephew #1 wanted all his life to have a family and home and a future in Asheville. It's where he grew up and where he mountain bikes and worked for years as a valued employee of a major bicycle manufacturer, Trek. He achieved his goals in linear fashion, never wanting to trot the globe or wander far from his home, though he did live in California with my wife and I for a few short months before giving it up as a bad job . His younger brother wants a home in Santa Cruz, our old home town, to live in when he retires from his Park Service subsidized home in Yosemite. Two worlds far apart, two Quaker brothers different in so many respects yet closer than one might think. How odd it is to see the same kids become men and on such different paths, which is I suppose the story of growing old. Both gun less, and child free, in my case, thankfully on both counts. 
It's winter and that means it's time to go and look for mud holes in the back country. I found a good one on Big Pine. I came out this way earlier last year one evening and found this wide open space far in back of the Blue Hole (subject of an earlier essay). At the time I had to get home but I promised myself a return visit to this area.
So I took the long straight back streets through the rural subdivision and found myself on Tampa Street, not overly populated as can be seen in the foregoing picture, and which dead ends into a fixed barrier:
It was cool sunny blusterous winter day, perfect for a walk so that was what I did:
This open space is one of those oddities which I seem to stumble across all too often in the Lower Keys. It sort of appears to be a possible development that didn't get very far. There's a road:
Which sinks into a depression and becomes a mud hole:
And there are those funny little ditches cut into the limestone and were to be used to house mosquito larvae eating fish and have sunk into disuse:
Unlike the Upper and Middle Keys where the islands tend to be smaller and more built up (Key Largo, closest to the mainland is the exception as it is the largest island in the entire chain), the Lower Keys, those islands south of the seven mile bridge, seem to revel in their undeveloped open spaces. There are roads built and abandoned, developments planned and forgotten like this area where there's a huge pit nicely squared off with no visible purpose whatsoever: 
One can only imagine it might make a superb swimming pool in the summer assuming there are no carnivores in residence...though certainly on its muddier shore I saw evidence of human predators. And you'd need an all terrain vehicle in this place:
I am not fond of tramping through mud so I back tracked and found my way to the drier side of the hole, a scrubby, rocky vague sort of apology for a path:
I would make a dreadful botanist as I can't remember the name of almost anything and I'm pretty sure I've seen a name tag on this bush at Fort Zachary State Park (I take a walk there from time to time to refresh my memory), but all I could think was that this tree reminded me of the walnut saplings I used to see in the Italy of my youth:
I also saw a couple of birds goofing off in the pale winter sunshine:
I zoomed the second picture to forty times magnification (!) but i couldn't figure out what he was doing perched uncomfortably in the mangroves. It was probably very sensible behavior but it looked odd from a distance. My behavior was actually pretty daft too, the 
So I gave it up for a bad job and buggered off home to a book and a cup of tea. At least I tried.
And other people who need to get across New Town take the winding path between shopping centers:
And the ubiquitous abandoned shopping carts all lined up by successive shoppers:
It used to be, back in the 1960s that the Triumph Bonneville, a 650cc parallel twin motorcycle was one of the most desirable machines any red blooded young man (man!) could own. It held the unofficial world speed record at the Utah salt flats and was made famous in film as the motorcycle that rebels loved to own and ride. It was totally cool, like this 1969 T-120 whose gorgeous image I found on the British vintage bike website. 
However the Bonnevilles from that era vibrated like hell, they tended to leak oil and their electrical systems failed with dismal regularity. The Lucas electrics were known as "Lucas, Prince of darkness" owing to their propensity for failure leaving riders in the lurch....They were a beautiful design originating in the 1930s from the board of Edward Turner, assembled with too little care, poor engineering detail and not enough capital investment. Later models that got more precisely milled cranks suffered from far less vibration and owners who took the time to smooth the edges of the vertical crankcases suffered minimal oil leaks, they say. I never owned an original Bonnie because even in those days I wanted, yes a cool bike, but I wanted one that was at least minimally reliable for my sole means of transport. I rode Italian twins, Morini, MV Agusta, Benelli and eventually when I overcame my disdain for Japanese niceness I rode a Yamaha 500 single, cool possibly because even in 1980 the SR 500 still eschewed an electric start and I learned firsthand how to start a big single. I was an old school rider, a nerd, but even I found Bonnevilles too much trouble to own. Until now:
Even for a commuter bike I wanted something small, simple and reliable in the Florida Keys for my 25 mile commute and occasional forays further afield. I wanted something old school and I thought a Vespa 250 might work, so I rode the red one pictured in the banner at the top of the blog for 10,000 miles over the course of ten months. After it's horrid, unreliable modern electrics, too old school for me, crapped out for the last time I decided it had to go in favor of a more reliable machine. I expect to put 18,000 miles a year on a motorcycle as two wheels are my main means of transport. I drive the car if I need to haul a lot of stuff or its cold or I'm not feeling well. Otherwise it's the Bonneville every single day. 
This particular model of Bonneville is no longer made, modern needs require fuel injection and modern tastes have scrapped the wire wheels and "peashooter" exhausts, though the engine now used in the 2009 series remains the same 865cc mill. If you want the classic look you can only get it with the heavily chromed "upgraded" (ie: more costly!) T100 version. The basic Bonneville these days comes with alloy wheels (nice because they are tubeless) and modern cone exhausts, shown in this picture from hell for leather magazine. It's not so different but....different enough! 
I've found the Bonneville to be about perfect for my daily use, it's been vice free and easy to enjoy. The maintenance intervals are set at 12,000 miles which boils down to once a year more or less and in between the motorcycle only needs oil changes, every six thousand miles at which point it takes four quarts (liters) of synthetic and a clean filter. The tires last 8,000 and 12,000 miles respectively rear and front and the final drive chain has been remarkably easy to take care of. I hadn't wanted to go back to a final drive chain motorcycle but I bought a $35 gadget from England that drips oil on the chain as I ride. My friend Bruce calls it an oil flinging tool but my chain is doing great with it.
It's called a Loobman and its just a collection of rubber tubes that send droplets of oil to the sprocket and that lubricates the chain. I wash the chain every thousand miles with kerosene and a stiff brush and squeeze the Loobman bottle every time I feel like it and the chain lasts about 3,000 miles between minor adjustments. I pretty much know when the chain needs a quick tightening as the motorbike snatches in low gear around town. The five speed gearbox is light and easy to use, and I'm adding an aftermarket tachometer next month that the Hanukkah fairy just brought me. 
It takes 89 grade (US) gasoline which yields between between 43 and 48 miles to the gallon, and I hit reserve around 135 miles on the odometer:
The bike cost me exactly $8,000 out the door in October 2007, from Pure Triumph in Fort Lauderdale which included the optional center stand ($250) and the rubber tank pads ($65). I also paid for optional gaiters on the front forks as I prefer to keep the suspension out of the crud and salt air:
Old timers of all ages often sidle up and ask what year the Triumph is and embark on their own happy memories of struggling with leaky electrically unreliable Bonnevilles of decades past, and they seem unimpressed when I tell them my modern 900 is vibration free, reliable and doesn't leak a drop of oil (except for that which I spray on the final drive chain). I like the modern Triumph because it looks the part of a real motorcycle, like the machines of my youth, but it goes like a new machine which it is. I love that light clutch, and the motorcycle's ability to pull from 40 miles per hour in top gear.
Call me prejudiced but if I see a motorcycle without luggage it doesn't spell "daily rider" to me, so naturally I threw on an ugly but very functional top case that gives me locking weatherproof storage:
At $80 that was a bargain, and because it is a perfect square there's no wasted space inside with compound curves, like those fancier Italian top boxes. Another bargain was the $15 cargo net I use to keep things secured to the seat, things that don't fit in the box or the saddlebags (though I also have added a proper helmet lock visible to the right of the picture below):
The Triumph fabric panniers come with mounting hardware at $250. In some ways I'd like detachable hard bags which would be more weatherproof and secure like the top case, but the fabric bags are actually more practical in some respects:
I keep them sprayed with silicon waterproofing and when I stop to put on the waterproof clothing I carry in them I cover them with their built in plastic rain covers as well. Being fabric they yield a little and make for a little extra room, they are lightweight and easy to remove when I don't need to ride with them. To do that I have to remove the seat, and though the saddle looks just like the original Bonnevilles' it's a pain in the butt as the twin screws that hold it in place have a habit of falling out. Plus they are awkward to realign when installing the seat. As you can see in the picture below I've lost one screw and will have to get another set to watch them come undone and fall into the road...
I've found some persistent rust patches on the mirror stems and the front fender bracket:
Though my regimen of frequent fresh water washes seems to be keeping the rest of the chrome and alloy corrosion quite free. On the subject, critics of the modern Bonneville despise the exhaust system's "kink" which was added in front of the muffler to increase ground clearance:
It doesn't bother me, but then again I'm not bothered by the flange that runs around the edge of the tank (visible in the picture further up the page) which is supposed to be a "period detail" from a 1960s or 1970s bike but which drives some fusspots crazy. These would be the people who think my Parabellum windshield ($250) is just another overly practical addition to a motorcycle that many owners like to keep as a Sunday rider. They're welcome to as Triumph offers a whole book of fancy add-ons to make the Bonneville anything you want, cafe racer, custom bobber you name it they have it. For me, my Bonneville is my workhorse which makes my commute a pleasure and gives me the chance to enjoy the open road every day of the year:
I like the Triumph's simplicity, its good looks and it's all round capability. I've ridden at 80 mph sustained on the freeway very comfortably, I've taken it on the dirt and the gravel, and it's easy to ride around town though at almost 500 pounds it's heavier than it looks. With just 60 horsepower from the eight valve engine it's decidedly under stressed so I have high hopes that it will be happily turning over 100,000 miles (160,000 kms) in 2013. Here's hoping....
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