Vignettes VI

New owners of Triumph's Classic Twins range of motorcycles are frequently warned that they will be waylaid in the street by true believers and fans of Bonnevilles from times past. It happens often enough to me that I have developed my own line of approach when I see someone peering at my machine parked in public. "You can't have that one, " I say, "it's mine!" Oh, they usually reply do they still make them? What year is this? Or variations on the theme. The dude pictured above, with my Bonneville, comes to Key West a few times a year and this latest visit my Bonneville caught his wandering eye. Not because he wants one, but because he has one, a T100 "Popsicle" (tangerine and white) colored. Dave from Rochester, New York, actually shared my enthusiasm for the brand which was fun, he admitted in fact to letting his Triumph supersede his former attraction to...Harleys, of which he owns one. Brave man.

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Dave may have rated as my Citizen of the Day but each and every issue of the Key West Citizen features a photo and a caption for a person rated as the newspaper's Citizen of the Day. Usually the person featured has not much to say, other than they like the weather and the people and its so much better than living in Minnesota/Kansas/Illinois or wherever they came from last year.

A recent entry in the paper caught my eye, not least because this hardy dude has been around since before 1935 (when the railroad got trashed by a storm). And the caption's last sentence cracked me up:
Citizen of the Day, sheer frivolity compared to the important business of moving the fruit.

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A few shots from Key West and environs, just because I like looking at pictures of where I am lucky enough to live. First the mangroves on Cudjoe Key:
Then the hill leading up to the Hilltop Laundry on Elizabeth at Eaton Streets. Elizabeth Street has one of the few blocks you can freewheel a bicycle down, and that makes it worthwhile to visit, if for no other reason, on one's way to Schooner Wharf.
And then around the corner heading out of town on Eaton, a "main street" into Old Town. Not many visitors realise its got a heady 30mph speed limit to encourage traffic on its way. Which gives me time to fiddle with the camera as I go, trailing some slowpoke cruisers at 19 miles per hour.

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I use my skiff which I keep parked at the dock behind my house as a swim platform in the warmer summer months. I find little more relaxing than floating around Newfound Harbor watching the thunderheads build up in the bronze sunlight. Other people like to pit their wits against the fish, which makes for a picturesque activity I always think, as long as it's not me fishing:Others prefer the more busy speed of a waterborne motorcycle, a sport I have never actually tried, but have a not-so-secret longing to just have a go. Here are a few madcap tourists grouped for a jet ski tour at the bottom of Simonton Street:Personal watercraft aren't allowed in a lot of areas of the National Marine Sanctuary so they usually end up buzzing madly around Key West like wasps around a jam jar. I guess I haven't ever bothered to take a trip on a jet ski for that reason. I prefer exploration to mindless buzzing, I convince myself. Still, it looks like fun, burning gas at speed on the water.

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Highway One new and old.Flagler's original 1912 bridges paved over with the narrow old 1938 roadway on top, and then the high speed modern highway connecting the islands today:
This is the descent, heading north, from the Channel Five bridge at Long Key.

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Lunch in dispatch, Diggy enjoying a Miami Subs salad:

And Noel making a face, not indigestion, over his plate at some ungodly hour of the night.

Spring break is a tough time for police officers on the streets, civilians who live in the city, and the forgotten dispatchers snatching a meal between calls. Both these kids' ages combined are less than mine, and I am glad to be working with them. These are not your average 23-year-old spring breakers.

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The weather has been a bit variable lately veering between sunshine, rain, wind and gray cloudy skies. Whatever the weather it looks good around these islands and after I had reason earlier this month to pay a visit to the dump at Mile Marker 23, I was moved to reflect on how much a couple of palm trees tart up the unlikeliest locations:

Further up the street someone dumped these vehicles here in the mangroves. It must have been a while ago, and here they sit rotting away. its just another of those mysteries, who and when and why. Probably getting rid of them properly would just have cost money, reason enough to abandon them I suppose. No palm trees here to alleviate the gradual deterioration. Behind my house the sun was shining yesterday and it looked as pretty as a picture, so I took one:And the moon is filling out these nights, waxing as they say when it grows, and even though it isn't full it still looks good reflecting off the salt ponds.Its as good as a movie and Spring hasn't even officially sprung just yet.