It seems the lobsters managed to take down two divers this year during mini season which is fewer than some years. Highway One was clogged with trucks towing boats, gas stations were packed at all hours with people pouring precious gasoline into boat tanks, truck tanks, jugs and some of us foolish people even tried to fill motorcycle tanks in the midst of mini season. Then they got out on the water: 
Florida lobsters don't look he least bit like Maine lobsters with big claws and everything. They more closely resemble large craw fish such as one might see in Louisiana, but left unmolested they would live 120 years hanging around under rocks and minding their own business. Lobster has become a fashionable food, despite the fact that the "bugs" as they are known, are bottom feeders and their meat doesn't offer any of the health benefits associated with eating fish with scales. People do like to hunt them down as early as possible on the two days of mini season:
On my way home from work, around 6:20am I stopped the Bonneville on the bridge between Cudjoe and Summerland Keys to watch the boats processing up the channel toward the Gulf Of Mexico:
The thing about mini season is that it is basically open season on the lobster. There are limits to how many one can harvest ( and it's not open to commercial fishermen) and the Marine Patrol tries to get extra units into the islands for this peculiarly Keys event but it's tough to patrol every nook and cranny. Inexperienced people end up snorkeling (air tanks aren't allowed) and they can end up getting into trouble all too easily. Especially inexperienced unfit townies down from the mainland.
They go out on the water all day, or as long as it takes to get their quota (whatever it is, I can't remember). Then they come in to eat at restaurants everywhere and spend a ton of money which is the point of the exercise. I spoke with a local restaurant owner who told a story of a table of eight who complained about the quality of the food and he just turfed them out. "Better to lose a four hundred dollar tab than try to make a bunch of assholes see sense," he shrugged. We like his place and eat there often, so it's hard to imagine he dropped standards suddenly and profoundly. The excitement of the lobster chase can make even mild mannered accountants lose their marbles, I suppose. 
Me? I'm not that fond of lobster; not fond enough to get up before dawn and go out blundering about in the dark trying to beat a bunch of crazies to the punch to snuff the life out of an animal that would live longer than you and me combined. Call me sentimental.
Florida lobsters don't look he least bit like Maine lobsters with big claws and everything. They more closely resemble large craw fish such as one might see in Louisiana, but left unmolested they would live 120 years hanging around under rocks and minding their own business. Lobster has become a fashionable food, despite the fact that the "bugs" as they are known, are bottom feeders and their meat doesn't offer any of the health benefits associated with eating fish with scales. People do like to hunt them down as early as possible on the two days of mini season:On my way home from work, around 6:20am I stopped the Bonneville on the bridge between Cudjoe and Summerland Keys to watch the boats processing up the channel toward the Gulf Of Mexico:The thing about mini season is that it is basically open season on the lobster. There are limits to how many one can harvest ( and it's not open to commercial fishermen) and the Marine Patrol tries to get extra units into the islands for this peculiarly Keys event but it's tough to patrol every nook and cranny. Inexperienced people end up snorkeling (air tanks aren't allowed) and they can end up getting into trouble all too easily. Especially inexperienced unfit townies down from the mainland.They go out on the water all day, or as long as it takes to get their quota (whatever it is, I can't remember). Then they come in to eat at restaurants everywhere and spend a ton of money which is the point of the exercise. I spoke with a local restaurant owner who told a story of a table of eight who complained about the quality of the food and he just turfed them out. "Better to lose a four hundred dollar tab than try to make a bunch of assholes see sense," he shrugged. We like his place and eat there often, so it's hard to imagine he dropped standards suddenly and profoundly. The excitement of the lobster chase can make even mild mannered accountants lose their marbles, I suppose. Me? I'm not that fond of lobster; not fond enough to get up before dawn and go out blundering about in the dark trying to beat a bunch of crazies to the punch to snuff the life out of an animal that would live longer than you and me combined. Call me sentimental. 
It's lobster mini season this week, two days and nights of mayhem on the waters around the Keys when any yahoo with a boat in South Florida invades the islands and has permission to harvest lobster from local waters (outside canals please!) This money raising ecological madness happens every summer ahead of the start of commercial lobster season which opens in August and runs into winter, hurricanes permitting. 
I loathe the mini season as it gioves people license to rape the waters, they don't give a fig about ecology or habitat and they drive cars and boats like maniacs. But they do spend money so we are stuck with them. The metal lobster sculpture however was another story. By the time we came out of the blind store the space was empty:
Let's hope the real live lobsters do better than this old timer did.
Sometimes people confuse Naval Air Service Police cars for civilian police and traffic slows to a crawl around them. The NAS police cover military bases all over Key West and can frequently be seen traveling from Boca Chica to the city on Highway One. In this case I rather wished they had jurisdiction and could have politely told this nice guy on his Harley that following too closely is a) a violation and b) dangerous. I loved his loud pipes though (said through gritted teeth).
We have been having some rather slow traffic jams on Stock Ilsand thanks to much needed roadway repairs. After one spectacular foul up that had traffic backed up for two miles in Key West the state Department of Transportation graciously decided to figure out a better solution. That nevertheless presented a short back up for a while, so that people, caught for three hours in the original major traffic snarl up got pretty fearfuland at the slightest provocation would pull a u-turn to get out of anything that looked like a back up. I wanted this picture to show the "Keep Off the Median" sign in the background: 
I arrived in Key West after just ten slow minutes on Stock Island. Slow driving that gave me the chance to snap the pictures I showed up above..
I noticed recently that an empty lot on my street which had been for sale for years is now boldly showing a "sold" sign on it. One wants to think the recession is drawing to a close...Summer meanwhile is in fullbloom and the poinciana trees I wrote about earlier are still flaming in the hot streets of key west, here forming a rather fetching arch over Olivia Street:
It was in this area I passed a parked truck somewhat the worse for wear. I wonder why it is people let these eyesores molder way infront of their very eyes. But I suffer from a congenital inability to collect anything. I am the opposite of a pack rat.
My complusions would lead me to dispose of unwanted carpet of course, but I hope not in the public trash cans provided for the temporary relief of passers-by. Perhaps it wasn't a local occupant who abused the city's largesse with this object dumped in the trash. Perhaps there was a tourist out there on Petronia Street that suddenly found themsleves encumbered by some formerly necessary carpet, and finding it surplus to requirements they felt complelled to toss it in a public trash can?
But it's not just household trash in public trash cans that caught my eye. I was forced to wonder what this appliance was doing on Truman Avenue, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag awaiting curbside pick up? Waste Management operates a generous pick up service for appliances that need to be removed but when I put out my old fridge they told me to tape the doors closed to prevent accidental suffocation by any passers-by moved to play inside it. They never said it had to be weather proofed:
I usedto have a motorcycle once with a dashboard mounted radio. I rode that fully dressed Yamaha Maxim 650 from Fort Myers to Santa Cruz California in 1991 and thoroughly enjoyed the trip, but I never did get to understand the purpose of a dash mounted radio. Underway it was hard to hear, and when parked I was afraid of depleting the bike's battery as already motorcycles wer ebeing deprived of kick starts and the Maxim was a heavy brute with the bags and full fairing and shaft drive made it hard to bump start. At least, unlike this Harley, my Yamaha's windshield was unencumbered and offered a clear view of the way ahead:
I did manage to find a motorcycle more spartan than my own, one evening at work.
This orange Yamaha 600 appeared in the parking lot at work one night bearing an "Under 21" tag from the great state of Florida, thus letting us know the registered owner is not allowed to drink alcohol or ride without a helmet but is allowed to vote and to volunteer to fight the Taliban if s/he so chooses.
It was a study in contrasts, the kid's minimalist cortch rocket with twice the horsepower of my 860, and absolutely no capacity to carry anything escept the rider with a passenger possibly perched high on the back.
So much motorcycle evolution in thirty years,and most of it leaves me indifferent. Ah, old age. 
MadJack (Above Solaris Hill) wanted obscure lanes (all gathered in one place- ha! not bloody likely at this late stage...) and here I have my entry for among the most obscure. Eanes Lane (pronounce it how you will, something like "innes" is the best I can come up with and police officers on their rounds mangle it much worse than that) lies between Whitehead Street to the west...
This sign says no parking in driveway but I suppose a bicycle can get away with it:
On a February afternoon this past winter I decided to exercise my wife's Vespa 150 around Stock Island in order to take a few photos of the old Hickory House.
It's a sad little building at the bottom of a dead end street and nowadays it's surrounded by tall fencing making it look like the most forlorn spot on Stock Island.
It wasn't always like this; they used to play jazz on the deck with lighted candles and sun shade umbrellas and delicious fish, and it was a place we used to enjoy visiting when we lived on the north side of Stock Island at Sunset Marina. Nowadays the back deck is a wasteland:
Hickory House used to be a cut above the other joints in the area, a little nicer ambiance, decent table service and romantic atmosphere to boot. It's a bit hard to credit it with all that these days:
You could sit up on the back deck and look out at the waters of Safe Harbor and there were even boats tied up to the docks behind the restaurant. Nowadays the area in back is pretty much trashed, with old lobster pots:
...algae:
And there are reputedly manatees in the water too during the winter which would have been a bonus but there weren't any for me, or another couple of visitors who wandered out onto the dock:
The place was absolutely overwhelmed with birds too, not exotic birds by local standards but there were lots of them whatever they were:
The Monroe County Commission in one of it's many crazy wastes of money spent 3.1 million dollars in November 2006 buying up the restaurant as a political favor, but the county was stuck with a grossly overpriced piece of real estate just as the land boom was fading away. As a result the restaurant which was bought by the county with absolutely no plan in mind, has sat rotting away long after we the people finally figured out it was worth dumping the County Commissioner responsible for this idiocy, Dixie Spehar, who lost her seat in the last county commission elections.
Her replacement on the commission, Kim Wigington told the key West Citizen she wants nothing to do with any plan that will involve giving away the old Hickory House for a penny less than the county paid for it, which are worthy sentiments, but heaven knows who will want to buy the wreck for that kind of money in this kind of economy.
So there it sits, the Hickory House looking out at the old power plant across the way and waiting for someone to figure out what to do with it. Retired commercial fisherman Vinny Sangermano is hoping to rent it for commercial fishing boat doaks for one US dollar per year on a 30-year lease. His was trhe only response to a request for proposals according to the Key West Citizen!
And over there by the back up power station there are already two thriving fish restaurants, Fishbusterz and Hogfish. Not to mention Hurricane Joe's up by Highway One and the sturdy Rusty Anchor near Shrimp Road. Perhaps they will buy Sangermano's fish?
Old timers at the Friday night party remembered fondly "the good old days" (sigh) when Key West homes were built to take advantage of the multitudinous sea breezes with jalousied windows and broad shaded shutters. I enjoy sea breezes at my home on stilts out in the suburbs but I stilt enjoy cranking my air conditioning and keeping the inside of my home mold free. Perhaps nowadays we just have more stuff, more electronics,more books more clothes all packed tightly into our closets. People climbing the key West lighthouse in search of a view, and possibly a breeze didn't look that cool up there:
Someone used to living at street level in Old Town prefers pedal power to a car even at this time of year. The trick is to take it easy and suck down iced drinks:
I feel like a shark on the motorcycle- if I'm not moving I suffocate! So perhaps the best thing to do is just give up and yield oneself to the power of summer:
Or get someone beefy and strong to pull you to where you need to go: 
I wander for a while, overheating myself, while I snapped pictures that i thought might illustrate the heat of summer downtown...
...before I wandered off the Smathers beach for a few pictures of summer in a traditional vacation setting, there to sit in the shade to cool off in the sea breeze before my next appointment.
It is very wide thoroughfare, more like two one way streets in opposing directions, with what they would call Neutral Ground in New Orleans- a median strip in the middle: 
One might imagine the temptation to attain illegal speeds on this wide street might be irresistible: 
Despite its appearance as that of a broad avenue, 17th Street is actually a neighborhood and peopleit seems take the time to play here: 
And here I found a Harley, yes yet another Harley on the streets of Key West. Zero for originality, though the cover has a certain Bohemian chic: 
The first house shown here, a modest three bed, one bath bungalow with 1240 square feet of space and a swimming pool is on offer for a cool half million dollars. In 2009 no less:
This dog walker was quite the sight; she with a heavily bandaged arm, the dog limping heavily on it's front paw, both out enjoying the sunshine: 
It's not the open ocean but it is a water view. 
The tourist trade still looks busier than you might think in Key West, though there are caveats to the financial well being one might expect from all the traffic there is still in town. The lodging association reports beds are still getting slept[t in though the nightly rates have dropped considerably from the crazy flights of the boom years. Restaurants still put knees under tables but patrons are choosing cheaper and sharing more, and everyone is running specials of one sort or another... These are hard times and I've noticed at night that Duval Street is wrapping it up early because this is family time, kids are out of school and bar flies just aren't there to get in trouble and start drunken fights and all the nastiness associated with winter revelers. In addition to being the times that try men's souls, these are also the times that favor established businesses and well known, reliable providers. 
Hard core BMW riders take their lumps, with a foul weather jacket, a helmet (of course) and bare legs and shoes to limit their exposure to the weather. I suppose this is what he has been waiting for with his go-anywhere GS: 
The rain came down suddenly around lunchtime and by the time we pushed our empty coffee cups away the streets were still being pounded and the storm drains had given up trying to move the water out of the streets. I have sat on my motorcycle in enough downpours to know that sitting and waiting can be the worst part, which was what I imagined this guy was thinking as he waited for cars to move along on Eaton Street:
And when they did move they created more waves such was the depth of the water. This is rainy season, though I haven't seen a decent down pour at Mile Marker 27 in ages. The rain has battered neighboring Summerland Key, and Big Pine Key but my island has been spared these scenes all of which I shot in Key West:
It's actually rather annoying as my vegetable beds, holding on grimly through the heat of summer could use some rain, not to mention the fully grown palm trees and other shrubbery around my house...We drive home from key West in this appalling down pour and found ourselves barely able to see the traffic through the rain we had high hopes that ramrod key would be showered and fresh and wet. No such luck. It was like the gods were making rude faces at us and the rain petered out as we drive through Summerland key, still wet from recent rain. By the time we were on the bridge separating Summerland from Ramrod the rain was gone, the asphalt was dry and our hopes for rain at home were shriveled up.
They tell us this hurricane season should be lighter than usual, whatever that means, but all it takes is one direct hit and that makes for a rotten hurricane season for you. Nevertheless the wild guess/estimate of a light season is curiously heartening. "Phew! No storms this year, for the third year in a row!" I say to myself as though predictions were reality... And then suddenly a yellow shaded area appears in the Caribbean Basin and the reality of hurricane season is upon us, from now till November 30th. And the more immediate reality of summer thunderstorms, summer winds and summer rains. I want the rain, not the hurricanes.
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The idea is that turtles lay their eggs in the sand and leave them to get on with it. The hatchlings in the fullness of time appear in the sand and are apparently programmed to head for the moonlight reflected on the water. If the moonlight is overwhelmed by human made light inland the hatchlings will head for that instead: 
Because turtles are endangered lots of human changes have been made to help them along. Commercial fishermen have turtle excluder devices built into their nets which allow turtles to escape drowning (and fish too the fishermen complain). In Key West we dim our lights:
It's one of those gestures that help us believe there is good in the world and we can be part of it. But even though a dark beach is a thing of beauty, a darkened street can be rather nerve wracking, to my surprise.
I read about the black out in World War Two England and it seems in their attempts to deny targets to night time bombing they inadvertently created a perilous situation for drivers and pedestrians in their darkened cities. Apparently the accident rate shot up even though fewer vehicles were on the roads and streets owing to war time restrictions. Trundling around our darkened beaches I am not at all surprised.
If the movie I am reviewing here had been focused on her, with the best will in the world, no one in the West would have seen it. So instead a young Scottish movie star and his side kick get some donated BMW motorcycles (GS1200s of course) and they roll cameras for 15,000 miles across the Dark Continent:
They cross 32 borders into and out of sixteen countries and if nothing else I hope this film will convince you not to think of the African continent as one country. Of course this is a 9-episode television show with 8 people traveling in two cars and on three motorcycles with a budget of God-knows-how-much, so they have "fixers" in each country to guide them through. Boorman and McGregor ride every mile of the way on fully loaded 800-pound 1200cc motorcycles, carrying their clothes and camping gear with them. But this is not a shoe string operation, not with three cameras, a doctor and well stocked spare parts boxes, all in attendance...
What dream have you deferred, what fear have you not faced, they ask us, and the answer they themselves provide is that the risk taken will be endlessly rewarding. I can't wait for their next ride, South America it is rumored, and with all their thoughtless sentimentality ("Why?" they keep chirping when faced with evidence of Man's Inhumanity to Man in Rwanda and elsewhere; an easy expression of false empathy when you are enjoying the exceptionally good life of the upper class First World) and self effacing humor (endless mockery of Hollywood, harbinger of their wealth, which is rather fun I confess) they will, I know, put on an excellent entertainment. Now available from Nextflix, and if you have not yet seen Long Way Round, start there. Enjoy the show!.jpg)
Looking into the alley from Eaton Street it's obvious the lane isn't that big:.jpg)
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If you are planning a day out on the water there is a 24 hour self service ice dispenser between the island's two gas stations. Visitors tend to forget that despite all pretensions to the contrary these islands are part of the US and people would rapidly organize a revolution were they to be deprived of twenty four hour availability of ice. 
Summerland Key's sit down gastronomic center has changed hands recently a couple of times and the changes weren't for the better. I haven't eaten there in it's latest incarnation but initial reports are encouraging. There are a few places worth visiting in the Lower Keys, but I would like an unpretentious café serving breakfast and lunch. I have to pluck up my nerve and give this place another try. I wish my neighbors demanded more of their eateries, but then if they did, they'd be in Key West! 
In addition to enjoying a tax haven status as there is no personal state income tax, Florida enjoys wrecking it's natural beauty as best it can by repudiating all zoning efforts. There are zoning laws and restrictions on all sorts of things but the net result in the keys is that public landscaping is a mess. This is not my idea of curb appeal:
The Highway itself isn't particularly interesting, and riding it on a bicycle seems a bit harsh, even if you have a café con leche in one hand to ease the tedium of avoiding gravel, parked cars and all that sun baked traffic.
To be the major commercial center between Key West and Big Pine Key one would suppose you might need a video rental store to compete with Blockbuster in Key West and the Big Pine video store in the Winn Dixie shopping center. The Summerland store has some excellent candies as well as the owner took over the Key West Nut House after the Big Coppitt business got flooded in Hurricane Wilma.
While driving through Summerland on the Highway it's worth taking one's eyes off the road to glance at the hardware store that offers northbound drivers a thought for the day: 
The store itself is a modest unassuming building but they have pretty much anything a homeowner might need and a great deal of what keeps a boat afloat. It's pretty amazing to me and they are unfailingly helpful too. 
Before I went to Italy my fuel line was giving me problems on my boat. I came to the ACE store which had the clip on the shelf. 50 renminbi later and fifteen minutes of buggering about in the boat and all was fixed. All this helpfulness is just two miles (3 kms) from my home.
The food store on Summerland is easily identified by a large sign whose orange bands remind us this is hurricane season and neon signs are vulnerable to high winds. 
The canal that runs behind the supermarket separates the businesses along Highway One from the rest of the island, which includes the runway at the Summerland airfield (see my essay Conch Republic Air 25th February 2008), whose take off and landing area runs right over the market:
There is much more to Summerland Key of course, not forgetting the best pizza in the Lower Keys, bar none including No Name Pub, which is Slice of Paradise. Aside from the flavor, the next best thing about them is that they deliver right up until the moment a hurricane is actually knocking at your door. A pizza pie and a glass of wine after you've finished securing your property really is a slice of paradise. Who says we can't be civilized in the outer reaches of mainland USA? 
I've mentioned before in these pages that Bahama Village really is a village with residents who have roots far deeper than most of the trees, this in a town where restlessness and migration are the watchwords. The drug dealing as far as I am concerned is an impediment to that community imported by the "Miami Boys" who trade in a captive market at the very end of Highway One. You'll see tourists wandering Bahama Village unmolested despite the insistence of some that the village is a dangerous place to walk. It is actually as delightful a corner as any in this city and has a history, as I have alluded, as storied as any neighborhood in Key West. I wonder who lived here?
Baptist Lane is a funny little alley, a block long and only half of that wide enough to accept a vehicle. The half nearest Olivia Street is a foot path, wedged in between all American picket fences:
The other side of this narrow footpath was dominated by a wooden structure, apparently an eight by eight shed, within it's footprint no doubt but reaching for the stars as it were.
Every inch of land counts in Key West. And addresses can get more descriptive than just numbers and letters. In a city where housing has been expensive enough that large homes are worth splitting into condominium uses many street addresses come with the suffix "-Rear" or "-Front Left" and the like:
Up above the Upper there are shade trees:
Down below a little cottage surrounded by spindly trunks of all those overbearing palm trees:
The poet it is said, was being sarcastic but the saying "...strong fences make good neighbors..." is taken to heart:
The wildlife shot, observing all that is going on below:
"Below" consists mostly of me, in the stifling heat of summer, taking pictures, in this case of cat related art near the ground. The mourning dove is perched atop the pole on the right hand side of the picture:
Someone had been cleaning out her yard of spare vegetation, and I paused to check the long line of uprooted succulents, and in so doing fell into conversation with the home owner.
She was feeling pleased with herself as her yard was returning under her control. Indeed, however her vegetable patch has apparently been suffering from the heat. "We need a nice strong rain shower," she said, looking into the sky burnished by an unwavering sun.
I thought her patch looked better than mine at this fallow time of year but she thought it will only start to produce when some heavy rain freshens things up. From her lips to God's ear. As important as rain is i cannot deny the pleasure I get from the colors brought before our eyes by the blue of the sky and the white light of the sun.
It wasn't too hot for this young man to be standing astride his bicycle having a loud conversation in Creole, so he got a bit of a start when I wished him a "Bon soir" when I strolled by and he turned and asked if I was French because I guess I don't look Haitian and that gave me a bit of a laugh. "Pas du tout"and I left him wondering.
Not that I'm looking. I like living in the suburbs, far from all the urban over crowding of the mystic isle that is Key West. Give me off sets I say...
It takes a special breed to live peaceably that close to their neighbors.
The art deco theme works quite well for what used to be Key West's premier industrial plant. It was an electricity generating station built in the style of architecture that it seems to me was favored by Soviet state artists, all massive and geometric. At night it looks like the set off a Batman movie:
The front part of the building may look pretty much done, as far as construction goes, never mind the sales of the actual apartments...The back part though, the part overlooking the Coastguard Station and the waters of the Toxic Triangle doesn't look at all finished:
In a palazzo offering individual elevators to each apartment from each parking stall, so owners can ascend in stately solitude, this appears to be the trades men's entrance. A sort of communal entrance where ordinary people hustle on up, currently not ready for prime time judging by the wrapping tape on the hand rails:
The Steam Plant created the name Toxic Triangle for the waters that abut Trumbo Road, an awkwardly shaped body of water heavily polluted by the chemical effluents for the power plant. Nowadays the generator is become almost a garden:
Each line of approach, each door, has a sign reminding passersby that the good life is available for a modest, if necessary payment. The begging is carried out in grand style on the main billboard:
The side of the building that faces downtown Key West, and more immediately Caroline Street and the ferry terminal also looks out over the landscaped garden surrounded by its black spiky fence:
There is something thoroughly dorky about all these fences and security and the main gate, complete with gate code, is wide open and totally unlocked:
And there it sits all imposing and massive, rather like an iceberg, dominating Trumbo Road:
If you happen to have around three million dollars (21 million yuan) going spare, a piece of this could be yours. Who're ya gonna call? 
And haze notwithstanding the optimists were also stretched out looking to build their tans: 
Not that it was raining, not at all, nor had the White Street Pier sprouted a parachute:
The tourists still seem to be out in force this economically feeble summer. 
So far, so good. The county also authorized a deputy to patrol the area during the day and KWPD carries out checks at night especially after the beach closes at 11pm. All of which has reduced the local homeless problem to a dull roar. Bear in mind these aren't necessarily people who are going through hard times but people I prefer to call professionally residentially challenged. key West is a generous small town with a lot of services public an private to assist people in getting off the streets, including overnight shelter on Stock Island with phones lockers, showers and bus passes. The homeless at the beach prefer to hang out and they have a right to do so. The theory is not at everyone else's expense and how to police that is the thorny issue:
I asked him his name. "Wyatt," he deadpanned. I could have called him on it but I was thinking maybe he would plug me full of lead. Duval Street is like that; you take your life in your hands every time you head down there, pardner.
Surely not?
I've heard many positive things about this relatively new place on Caroline Street. However I include this picture just to point out there are lots of ways to waste energy.
My wife and I tried the first Braza Lena which appeared in the Upper Keys a couple of years ago. The bill was large enough ($75 each approximately) that we never went back.
This Yamaha looked pretty good, equipped with luggage attachments which gave it the air of a daily rider. However a closer look at the fuel tank offered up a blemish that reminded me why I spent 2100 reminbi to have my tank and front fender painted and why I think it was such a good deal after my wreck: 
The Bonneville looks just as it did before the June 1st slide, including a replacement set of fabric Triumph panniers (saddlebags to colonials). 
It was hot downtown but taking a break on the sidewalk on the 400 block of Caroline leaves one open to the charge of being a bum. However Key West's professional hobos like the bus stop as the place to wile away their endless empty days. This guy seemed to waiting for something:
"Yes, but does the Jack Russell terrier need you?" I wondered. I am not a kid person. I never much enjoyed my turn as a child and have never wanted to inflict the pain on a new generation. I like dogs though and I feel sorry for them when small children torture them or neglect them, as they inevitably seem to.
What prompted the quick shot was the Snap-On tool vendor cruising Key West's main shopping center. I wondered if he was just taking a little detour down the main drag for a break from the urgent business of selling, or did he have a client down here? The maintenance crew at the hotel La Concha? I will never know. But The Snap-On tool van was definitely on Duval and I have the picture to prove it. 
And yes, I was there on the Bonneville: 
Despite the summer heat there is no shortage of cyclists on Key West streets. Perhaps it helps that this is a shady street. 
I thought this brick house for sale, with no price attached, looked as though it should be under the pines of Alabama or Georgia, not the palms of Key West: 
The typical tropical growth looks good:
I don't have any lawns at my house, and though I'm no great fan of pea rock it doesn't require this sort of labor to keep it looking nice:
The wall in fact surrounded a lush lawn surmounted by the usual array of palms and in point of fact water restrictions make no distinction between aqueduct water and well water when rationing is in effect. I suppose because wasting water is wasting all the same. If I run my rainwater cistern dry I guess I would then be forced to use the aqueduct water which puts added strain ultimately on an over taxed aquifer. 
The wall stretched for the better part of a block:
I checked the other side of the magnificent wall and found the home, shaded by palms with a garage alongside opulent enough to qualify as a spacious Key West home in it's own right: 
For the Mormons living in the complex their church is located but a stone's throw away, in the rather undistinguished building half hidden from the road by the abundant vegetation. 
The easiest way to find this side street is by first locating the world headquarters of the local rag. The offices of The Citizen are visible through the trees, half hidden by this fine motorcycle that happened to be in the way. 
It was in The Citizen that I read a few years ago, of the new housing complex that was to be built, in the halcyon days of unbridled development, close to the last traces of the old Flagler railroad tracks across the island. On the north side...of...Northside Drive, there lies a well known physician's office, a certain Dr Boros who looks after people's hearts and makes an appearance from time to time in what pass for society pages in Key West: 
The subdivision in question has a dozen homes or so, though I confess I failed to actually count them as I spun by on my Bonneville. There is a certain cookie cutter conformity though they are large by city standards: These "Key West style" homes have all mod cons, (modern conveniences) including...
...balconies, columns and white picket fencing, as well as granite counter tops I have no doubt, not to mention in some lucky cases basketball hoops:
And there is room enough to park a pretty big boat out front, which is a nice luxury in a city as tightly packed as Key West: 
The path of the railroad tracks as they traveled west from the Cow Key Channel apparently ran through a mangrove thicket somewhere near here, though their location is lost to the passage of time, as far as I am concerned, though i did take the picture shown below. And anyone venturing into the "environmentally sensitive area" would likely get scratched, sensitively to death. Though there is a gate and it was open, almost as an invitation to self detruction on a 90 degree (34C) evening:
This home in the back of the little complex was actually for sale, in what i thought is one of the prime locations. God knows what unrealistic figure they are asking for it:
So I turned around and fled back to Northside Drive before anyone caught me traipsing on the hallowed ground of Flagler's former railroad...
The ride to Boca Grande took about forty minutes at the rental boat's relaxed pace, and soon enough we could see the thin sliver of sand, the full moon high tide was busy dropping even as we arrived and there was a tremendous current off the beach.
We had our choice of location and Robert beached the boat whereupon we unloaded a mound of gear that soon transformed itself into an awning, chairs, ice chests, a Weber grill and so on and so forth. The awning was superb as there was a light southwesterly wind and in the shade we found ourselves to be refrigerated to a perfect temperature, and the lack of fresh water meant there were no bugs either:
Though they seemed to having fun too, I have to say. It really doesn't take much to luxuriate in this deserted places, all sun sand and sea, just like the travel brochures tell us. Robert senior got into too, he marveled at the ease of the picnic and his pleasure was obvious. We youngsters took to the water, drifting past our campsite in the rushing tidal waters, stepping onto the beach further down and walking back upstream to do it again:
Happily motorcycles get to park where they need to in Italy and if there is a piece of sidewalk, well that will do just fine. I read a lot about cities without two wheeler parking in the US. In Italy where cities are crowded, motorcycles get away with murder and road rage from car drivers is never a problem, oddly enough. This was how we parked while Giovanni went to check up on his Realtor and I crossed the street to visit the liquor store to buy a bottle of grappa to take home with me:
I was quite impressed by this machine's enhanced luggage capacity:
Even in Italy there are some places where bicycles scooters and motorcycles can't go, like the courtyard of the building where Giovanni's brother practices law :
The words just back up the picture: "low flying motorcycles prohibited." Nevertheless on turning the corner what do we find? No, not a low flying motorcycle but some other prohibited vehicles...
Your average, getting around town scooter rider. Not very glamorous are they?
Thanks for all your hard work and that of Jason and Lucho who put everything back together for me. And with no hassles!
Its a weird food, a whole pig, cooked and cut to pieces, but I've seen this style of cooking growing up in Italy, where rosemary is the flavor preferred by the locals. In Key West holidays are celebrated by Cubans cooking a pig in a box. Call them weird but they line a box with metal, put a heap of coals in the bottom and put the pig on top and replace the lid. It makes perfect sense on an island where digging a hole requires a back hoe and patience. In Hawaii the water table is lower and soil is widely available on the ground so they dig easy holes, drop in the coals and the pig and call it a luau.
There is a place in Puerto Rico's mountains, shaded not by palms but by pine trees called Cayey, and in this nondescript village every Sunday Puerto Ricans descend en masse and devour lechon, milk fed pork. We happened on the village mid morning and sensing an event we stopped our headlong flight along the tourist route through the mountains and, as I was accompanied by not one but two women, we inevitably started to shop.
The Fourth of July has always felt much more like a personal holiday to me than the usual fireworks and barbecues and parades in the public arena. Today is a day I am lucky to have off this year as it falls by chance on the alternating weekend that I don't have to work. 
Thus because I am an Ironist by inclination I thought today would be the day to celebrate my commute home, especially as I was forced to drive this year on "Ride To Work Day." Talk about irony!
Also there is the indisputable fact that if your inclination is to snag pictures from a moving vehicle it is much easier and more effective- dare I say safer?- to do it from behind the seat belt of a moving car!
There's another irony, Baby's Coffee at Mile Marker 15 isn't yet open when I flash by in the 55 mph zone (I stopped to take the picture that particular morning) but the mangroves and flat waters alongside Highway One are clearly visible:
A few miles further on, deeply into the 45 mph zone from Sugarloaf Lodge all the way to Big Pine Key I cross paths with my only traffic light at Sugarloaf School. It was erected a few years ago to allow parents and buses to get out of the school and onto the highway. It rarely stops me and even when it does, the red light doesn't last too long:
Then it's past Mangrove Mama's restaurant and the Sheriff's substation on Cudjoe Key (pronounced "Kud- Joe"). There are occasions when you will see a deputy parked on the side of the road, so it doesn't do to blow by assuming that because there aren't windows in the building they can't see you...The car pictured above was a deputy heading home either to end the night shift or to start the day shift. I really enjoy the long straightaway that comes up past my wife's gym, Pirate Wellness next to the Kicking back convenience store. I don't usually stop by to say hello as i am no fan of organized public gymnasiums.
Some impatient loons pass slow pokes here crossing the quadruple yellow lines. I don't as a ticket for reckless driving would be hard to wiggle out of. In a more driver competent society we might have alternating passing lanes for traffic in each direction but around here such an arrangement would lead to a Darwinian cull. I'm not opposed to that you understand but politically speaking, allowing people to pass here would be electoral suicide. So we trundle along at speed limit plus five mph, per the rules. Then it's over a short bridge with splendid water views... 
...and onto where my post office is located alongside the best little Ace Hardware store in North America. This is where a good eye is needed as there are plenty of opportunities for deputies to park and write reports while waiting for the unwary commuter anxious to get home to bed:
The Niles Channel bridge seen in the distance is a forty foot high (12 meter) span that gives a view across the mangroves and the sun, by now risen above the horizon:
And then down the other side into a blaze of sunrise glory:
And into the waiting radar gun of a parked Florida Highway Patrol trooper. There used to be one parked frequently at the base of the bridge on the Ramrod Key side, but I haven't seen the cream and black car for a while so perhaps it was my neighbor who was a trooper and lived across the canal from me. I did catch a glimpse of an improperly attired rider heading towards Key West, and lacking other motorcycles to complete this little tale I present his blurred image here. It's hard to stick to 45mph over the bridge, it is quite inviting:
And then it's time to leave the highway and drive three quarters of a mile down my little one lane street to my house...
...where I arrive around 6:35am. I do enjoy my commute, especially I have to say, by Bonneville.
This very essay I photographed and wrote on June 16th for publication today, July 5th... I love Blogger's automatic publication function!
The salt ponds to the west of my house have filled up with rain water, transforming them from muddy stretches between mangroves into large reflective ponds. 
Here is Niles Channel Bridge in the distance:
Of course all this fresh water falling everywhere means it's mosquito season again. And even I who am not susceptible to their jaws find myself getting stung if I stand still for ten seconds under the house. Mosquito Vector Control comes by all the time spraying bacillus thuringensis up and down the streets but it's an eternal battle against nature.
I did get to spot a couple of motorcycles, a Road King for Alan Madding:
And some dude out enjoying himself while my Bonneville was still in the shop waiting for handlebars:
I was enjoying the air conditioning in my nice Nissan, thanks for asking.
All that tropical waterfront keeps attracting visitors who drive along and peer out of their windows pointing at stuff I see every day; a house on stilts:
Mangroves and water:
Me? I look out for brightly colored flowers even if I can't name them:
And i know this is summer if my neighbors have spare coconuts as do I. This homeowner has started the cull already in preparation for hurricane season:
And over us all we see the very un-tropical mourning doves flittering around enjoying the weather while cooing wildly:
The glories of summer in the suburban fastness of the Lower Keys.
So when the Uncle from America shows up at my sister's grandchild's third birthday, fresh off the plane he has to bring some sort of a gift. In Flavio's rugged rural environment I thought a large Tonka toy might do the trick:
The next day my brother-in-law went for a walk with me through the woods and up the hillside that overlooks their farmhouse. Vincenzo has been in love with my sister since they were fifteen and even now 47 years later they spend a large part of every day together. Theirs isn't an outwardly emotive relationship, in defiance of that other stereotype that puts Italian's hearts on their sleeves and when he and I are together we don't talk about our feelings. But it made me glad he wanted to share his mountain fastness with me. We used to come up here with my sisters on horseback forty years ago:
Umbria is the land of pork and grilling and mushrooms and truffles (which I love, but my sister the Phillistine, can't stand) and it's been a wet Spring so without even looking we stumbled across what turned out to be toadstools. If in doubt press the fleshy underside of the cap with your thumb:
If it turns black throw it away (or feed it to your enemy, if you have one). Mushrooms are risky eating but I'm pleased to say I did find the only edible fungus on our walk. I enjoyed ribbing Vincenzo endlessly that the townie in the family found the 'shroom. 
This is the only picture I have of Giovanni at the age I remember when our lives were the halcyon days of moped riding and Tom Sawyer adventures during the summer holidays. When I go to visit him nowadays I know I am an honored guest and they put on an effort for me. The fact that his wife is an excellent cook doesn't hurt:
My wife dreams of meals at Rossana's diner and were you to read my brief e-mails home during my time away they look like menu cards for the Italian traveler. Pork medallions, preceded by home made gnocchi (potato dumplings), preceded in turn by cheese and salami.
Their daughter may look glum in the picture but Eleonora is fifteen and that's an age when life tends to look critical from all aspects. Home made gnocchi from their housekeeper's expert hands make no difference to her. Especially when the honored guest is pointing a camera all the time...
On an afternoon ride we stopped off to visit his parents at their summer home and his elderly mother whipped up an enormous impromptu spread that Giovanni tucked in to without any apparent surprise. We had cured ham (prosciutto) a vegetable omelette (frittata)followed by chicken breasts sauteed with sausage rounds and sage, served with rice stuffed tomatoes. 
Not surprisingly Giovanni's 22 year old son prefers to stay with his indulgent grandparents while he "studies" for his law exam, though it is quite surprising he isn't gaining much weight during his retreat in the country. We gathered informally in the kitchen as they rate me a family member:
Giovanni's eighty three year old father got on with the important, manly work:
It was a cool damp June night in the mountains and faced with a forty minute moonlit ride back to the city we huddled round the fire, digesting our dinner, which wrapped up with slices of cake and Belgian liqueur-filled chocolates.
When Giovanni and I took off for a tour of the Alpi Apuane, a ring of mountains that separate northern Tuscany from the Po River Valley,an important part of the ride were the good eats. Breakfast in Italy is a heathen meal taken mid morning and usually consisting of sweet cakes and a coffee, all gulped down while standing up at the counter:
Working nights like I do, I don't eat breakfast much anymore, but frankly I like a nice plate of eggs and potatoes and meat for breakfast, washed down with several cups of weak American coffee ("brodo" Giovanni calls it contemptuously-"broth." He likes Starbucks' espresso as he thinks it's not bad and reliably drinkable). Eating pastry and sucking down an ounce of coffee isn't a meal in my opinion. This is though:
Truffle pasta...
...pork chops in a balsamic vinegar sauce (this was in the province of Modena, home of balsamic vinegar) with slivers of Parmesan cheese on top to offset the sweet sauce. Giovanni always orders fries for a vegetable ("My wife won't cook them for me!" he laments), and we washed this lot down with a slightly fizzy Lambrusco red wine (good for the heart). Finished off with a slice of meringue in a hot chocolate sauce:
I took the remainder of the Lambrusco to the sidewalk table and finished it off while Giovanni lit up his customary cancer stick as we watched the evening passeggiata, the stroll down the main drag of Pievepelago, the small mountain town we had washed up in. These were the local lads eating ice cream and waiting for the passing talent of which there wasn't much (else I'd have photographed it). A reminder of our youth, we said as we reminisced about our childhood. 
It didn't rain that day which was icing on the meringue, as it were. It rained the next day though, in a down pour that wouldn't have looked out of place in Key West in the summer:
We had a few miles to ride to the Passo del Muraglione when we spotted Da Sergio, a fine terraced restaurant overlooking the main road through the Tuscan village of Dicomano. Naturally Sergio, not being raised in the American tradition of the customer always being right, declined to seat us outdoors. "Then everyone will want to sit out and it will be a mess when it starts to rain!" he lamented. We laughed to ourselves at his pig headedness, laughter that turned to consternation when the heavens opened up as we sat snug indoors savoring another fifty dollar lunch:
We shared a plate of tortelloni, what an American might call ravioli, pasta that was so undercooked, by North American standards, it was almost crunchy, filled with creamy mashed potatoes, a first for me. We then sucked down some red wine while waiting for the grilled pork kebabs (spiedini) to appear. I ordered mine with Navy beans while Giovanni had the inevitable, and very good, roast potatoes. The rain did not let up:
The indoor grill warmed the entire room that was rapidly filling with Saturday lunchtime locals:
"Merda!"we shrugged and ordered a dessert each, a ricotta cheesecake for me, and a sweet pine nut cake for Giovanni. He has a very sweet tooth and a backhoe-like capacity to woof his food that outstrips even my capacity for fast eating, which I developed in English boarding schools:
I was reading last month's Vanity Fair on the plane and there was an interview with Johnny Depp who bought Hall's Pond Cay in the Exumas, in the Bahamas, a place I visited by sail boat before he put it out of reach of ordinary mortals. In the article the author described the food served by Depp's chef, a feast he said of tacos, guacamole, cheese steak sandwiches and other foods that one can only describe as veering towards the fast food end of the scale. I am no gourmand, but it did occur to me that were I ever to have a personal chef, these are the foods, pictured on this page, that I would order, and grow old and lazy on, day after day. That, and espresso and conversation:
As it was we faced a 200 mile ride home in the pouring rain, cold and damp with me screaming out for large cups of warming American "broth-coffee" while Giovanni lamented his freezing wet feet in what was almost July, in formerly-sunny-Italy. I had on every scrap of clothing I possessed:
These are the adventures we grow old on, not all that frou-frou eating and drinking and sitting around reminiscing. We are men after all, not gourmet foodies.
The weather was less than perfect, and I found myself riding in 
173 horsepower, a top speed far above the measly 125mph (200km/h) I managed to wring out of it on the freeway and barely any weather protection at all from it's magnificent bodywork. Cycle magazine in the United States rated this a top contender for sports/tourer above all other such bikes but I think they are crazy, because this is a sports motorcycle that is competing with all the junior league crotch rockets the Japanese produce to satisfy the speed demons who are much younger (and impecunious) than we old men.
This is a shaft driven four cylinder speed machine that costs close to $20,000 in the US and thus goes for about half as much again as a comparable Japanese speed machine. It's also comfortable enough if you are able to bend in the middle and hoick your feet up onto the pegs. Seen here on Monte 
The saddle bags are of the expanding hard shell BMW type, very convenient but at a 
On the freeway it is the most 
We only hit the freeway when we had to, as we were intent on spending a few days riding the mountain passes of northern Tuscany, the 
We stopped frequently so we could recharge with Giovanni's favorite fuel, what you would call espresso and what he would call 
Stir in a spoonful of sugar and swallow the lot in one quick go. Then take a seat, because drinking coffee at the bar standing up is cheaper (80 Euro cents, about a buck twenty in real money) than sitting down. While sitting and enjoying the view he would smoke, because he is a 
"I'm terribly sorry," he'd say to the dozens of callers," I'm on vacation for just a few days..." And then we'd get back on and take off for a few more hairpins and forests and bold panoramas:
The K1200S is an amazing machine, fully 
This photo was a beech forest on the upper slopes of Monte 
It always takes me a few days to get back in the swing of riding in Italy. On the plane back I listened to two Americans in the row behind me compare notes on this most fascinating and alien of cultures. They talked about the traffic and how scared they'd be of driving in it, but even though it looks chaotic the rules are simple enough.
Look forwards, not backwards, and let following traffic take care of itself. Drive with confidence and let people know your intentions. Of course this is tough if you are caught in a free flowing flood of cars and haven't a clue where you are going....
So would you take a left or go straight here? Quick- decide!
I confess that when I took off by myself I got lost a few times diving into the wrong overpass or choosing the wrong tunnel to get out of the 
But 
Giovanni's R1200GT offers an upright riding position and lots of weather protection. We swapped bikes briefly on the freeway but he couldn't take the hunched riding position. This is how he likes to ride: 
I would never buy a K1200S, as it is too specialised for me,but renting one for ten days is pure joy, in my opinion, in those mountain roads:
Eisenhower Drive is a short street much shorter than the thoroughfare named for that other President from the same era. However Harry Truman was a frequent visitor to key west and Ike wasn't, so perhaps that's how it should be. Eisenhower runs between Truman Avenue to the south and Palm Avenue to the north and is sandwiched between the waters of Garrison Bight and the area known as The Meadows. The corner of Truman and Eisenhower is marked by the Sub Tropic Dive Shop and it's delightful mural:
Even the office got into the act with sea creatures appearing to float around inside, adding to the mural's effect:
I snagged another couple of pictures of the apartment building which i think is Pelican landing or some such name: 
Eisenhower has few street lights so the darkness gives it a slightly dissolute, mysterious air:
I set this picture up with thoughts of Orson Welles' Third Man coming to mind, though the scrubby bushes lining Eisenhower at this point do a poor job of replicating post World War Two Vienna...and I don't think I look either mysterious or threatening in as much as I am visible at all under the street light. I guess it was actually pretty dark out there!
I caught sight of a few plants used in landscaping that apparently warrants burning electricity all night:
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