Tomato Country

So there I was on a hot spring afternoon, cruising through Florida's lower mainland, and at my last stop I was near Alva and the Caloosahatchee River: It was as good a ride as I remembered fro years back, following the river through woodlands and fields, in an area less tropical by far than the Keys.

The city of LaBelle lies on the south side of the river and as soon as your Bonneville crests the bridge there is LaBelle's most famous product:This isn't a heavily populated county town, Hendry County isn't overly residential, and there's lots of room to store stuff. perhaps you have a few hundred bee hives waiting to be placed? Why, just toss 'em out back:The town is as pretty as the surrounding woods and the buildings are picturesque and dilapidated to some degree, rather similar to Arcadia in that way.But highways, like time and tide wait for no motorcycle so it was onwards, ever onwards, south on 29, more straight lines carved across the belly of the state:My target on this leg of the trip was Immokalee, a farming town in the middle, approximately, of nowhere. The funny thing about this part of Florida is that all the glamor and wealth is on the edges, and the hole in the middle of the doughnut is very impoverished. Hilarious isn't it? Palm Beach, home of every winter resident with millions to burn is part of the same county where cane workers burn and cut cane by hand. Immokalee is part of Collier County, that would be the city of Naples, another enclave of wealth nestled on the gulf coast. Immokalee is a very different kettle of fish:Immokalee is at the center of a dispute these days over tomatoes. pickers get paid a piece rate for their work and they want a raise for the first time in decades. The owners of KFC/Taco bell and MacDonalds have agreed to pay a penny a pound more but Burger King refuses. It seems weird to me, forgetting the Henry Ford principle of paying workers well enough to afford the products. There again its the way the world works these days and we don't seem to be able to escape the Walmartization of wages and benefits. Immokalee could do with a leg up:But this is a town of immigrants:And our migrant neighbors aren't that well liked this election year, so I guess our Mexican vegetable pickers have to cheer themselves up any way they can:I'm not a pinata type of guy, anyway it's time I got my lily white bottom out of town:Not so lily white in this heat, and that's my face by the way. The camera got away from me while I was concentrating on riding that long straight road and I shot myself. I wanted to photograph this instead: I have seen converted school buses all over the world giving their all transporting people and their possessions. But this is the first time I saw a school bus in service as a melon carrier. Ride far enough I suppose, and eventually you'll see it all.

I spotted a little green sign on the side of Highway 29 and it sounded like a prayer from my childhood, Ave Maria a supplication to relieve the creeping exhaustion. Instead when I turned off the highway I found wide open spaces and nothing to be seen except a few distant rooftops. They say there is a 6,000 student campus and 250 homes sold around a centrally located over sized Catholic church somewhere out there on the prairie. I didn't want to take more time to wander another several miles off course so I turned around and checked their website when I got home.When this place was first bruited people took to wondering what the world is coming to (not much I dare say). Ave Maria is as daft a notion as its name, founded in this instance by the orphan boy who made a fortune creating Domino's Pizza. He could think of nothing better to do with his spare cash than to buy up a few hundred acres of nothing much and proposed the creation of a community based on strict Catholic principles. That flew like a lead balloon, as the American Way apparently doesn't allow anyone to ban condoms, porn on television, or binge drinking off campus. It strikes me as funny that this place stirred up so much hot air and manufactured controversy. Who cares who wants to ban condoms? Whose business is it anyway? I grew up in a Catholic school attached to an Abbey and as far as I'm concerned I don't need to repeat the experience as an adult, thanks. For those that missed out on a Catholic English boarding school experience, there's Ave Maria.

Back in the brutal world of man-eats-panther I found myself in an spic contest of Triumph versus cat:

Actually the warning was meant not to protect people but to preserve the last three dozen surviving cougars in South Florida, and the signs were asking our forbearance to avoid running the panthers over. They never appeared for me. Indeed i took the time to stop and sit in the shade hoping to drink some water and nap in peace. The wind had died down and with the departure of the cooling breeze I was hot and tired after ten hours on the road.That didn't work so well, as this little back road was like Grand Central Station in rush hour with a constant clamoring of passing vehicles. In a grumpy mood I saddled up and moved on. And came to the big slash in the earth that just a few shorty weeks ago i had been traveling with the wife's Vespa:Alligator Alley in all it's glory, as seen from the Highway 29 overpass.

From here I met up with Highway 41, Tamiami Trail, the same road that passes through Sarasota on its way down the Gulf Coast. There is an elderly building all boarded up called Monroe Station.

Monroe station marks the western end of the Loop Road, a 26 mile curving road through the Everglades back country. I wanted to go the whole way but I only went in a few miles. I've been having bad luck with flat tires lately and I didn't want to push my luck (or my motorbike), besides which i had been away from home for too long already.I rode down to the strand where I found the alligators whose portraits I posted a few days ago and bugged back out. I got some pretty impressive white dust on my machine, and myself, in those few miles. From there it was back on the Tamiami blacktop and a quick wave in passing to the Miccosukee villages and their privacy fences:By the time I was back in the Keys I had been on the road for 12 hours and that was as much as I needed, so the last two hours home were torture in a manner of speaking. Still it was good to see blue water again in this small corner of Florida so unlike anywhere else in the state:I hope the Florida Keys reputation for tolerance survives the difficult times ahead. I like living in a place where being left alone to get on with it is the countywide credo. Oh, and the swimming is pretty nice too.