This is the time of year my ride home crosses paths with the rising of the sun over the Florida Keys and what a daily spectacle it is.
I usually leave the office a few minutes before six, and the fresh warm air outside the frigid Police Station is a pleasant contrast, however by the time I've stowed my stuff on the motorcycle and I'm rolling up North Roosevelt Boulevard I have adapted to the outside temperature, hovering around 80 degrees, and it starts to feel on the cool side of pleasant, even in July. By the time I'm on Big Coppitt Key at Mile Marker Ten the night sky is starting to show signs of sunlight and the houses on the eastern shore of the island are starting to appear out of the gloom:
Across Shark Channel the sunrise is doing its thing, clearly visible from the boat ramp where I parked:
Being so close to the water puts me in mind of the times when we lived on a sailboat and woke up in the morning on board with that cool damp breeze blowing through the cabin.
Standing at the boat ramp the waves, thrown up by the breeze splashed against the cement wall sounding just like waves hitting the hull of the boat. Sometimes I get a hankering to be back on the water.
Back on land commuters are starting to increase in the direction of Key West after six in the morning. Most are smart enough to have their lights on, some think they are visible in the half light as they rush headlong to work without lights:
I took photographs on two recent mornings, one while riding the Bonneville:
Then I found a nail in the rear tire, so while I waited to see if the tire would go flat (not so far!) I borrowed the wife's Vespa, which is always an alternative blast on two wheels. I may have sold the GTS 250 but I still enjoy a romp with her 150cc:
I parked the ET4 on the bicycle path that winds along the Saddlebunch Keys to take the time to play with a few cloud formations in the dawn's early light:
While I am not as susceptible to mosquitoes as many people, eventually they manage to annoy me enough to force me to move along. This is the time of year when they are out in abundance and though I don't get welts or rashes from their bites they do manage to annoy me by hovering all over my face. Which is another way of saying it was time to go home to bed:
The sky washes out into a white blur from behind the Bonneville windshield. Its always worth stopping for a moment on our headlong flights into a new day, to enjoy the view.
4 comments:
Though I don't have views that you do, you've inspird me this am to take things a bit slower and enjoy my coffee at a more moderate pace..parambulate around the yard a bit perhaps and take in my newly fertilized palms....work can wait a few more minutes....
Me too. I have to remind myself to slow down from time to time.
I have a suggestion for your most excellent blog. I have noticed a sailboat "parked" down by schooner wharf for the last 7 years and each year I visit it looks even more "permanent". I would love some pictures and whatever text you could throw in. The sailboat is maybe 25 feet, and it is called Prodigal Son. It is marked as being from Cayo Hueso.
The mast is now down, and there is some wooden structure built on it to better accomodate a live-a-board. It has a prime spot on the dock, wedged in by the Western Union slip and another of the sailing ships.
The owner, I think, is a youngish character who is always smiling and looks like a pirate. He used to work running film from the tourist boats back to shore so it could be developed into prints and sold to the tourists when they got back to shore. "Buy this or I will put it on the internet!" was one of his pitches.
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