Sunup

Generally I ride hell for leather home and to bed when I get off work but my wife had a sleepover in town with some friends so we had breakfast together before she went off to the classroom to work and me? I thought a chance to check out the sunrise should not be passed up as I was already past my bedtime and at this stage I felt I could safely delay passing out for an hour or two more. It was worth it to see that golden glow on the water.I set off back into town from El Mocho where we had breakfast not quite sure where to go, so I gravitated south and took the scenic route along Smathers Beach. It was the obvious place to go if I was in search of a sunrise, and I noted some keen and well equipped photographers lining Dead Man's Curve on South Roosevelt. I left the tripods and massive telephotos behind and pulled over a bit further along unsure what I was chasing. And then I saw planes, pedestrians, cars cyclists and ships all coming together in one shot:The big white blob steaming in the harbor channel means lots of people wandering Lower Duval later in the morning bringing, one hopes, lots of money into town. I was still seeking a higher purpose than mere commerce. All manner of things presented themselves, an expanse of deep blue sky, but the brown smear was actually a butterfly, I think:Birds huddled along the seashore apparently waiting for the sun to get a move on and warm them up:And a busy human being bustled by with a hand glued firmly to his head shouting apparently at himself:The seasonably un-Key West clothing was prompted by a nasty cold front that swept through town and is supposedly going to keep on sweeping all week long.I can only imagine how cold it is in upstate New York or Wisconsin or wherever this holy terror entered the country from the frozen wastes of Canada:Sixty degrees (15C) makes for a cold start in a town where local zero is measured at 70 degrees (21C). The beauty of winter in south Florida (45 degrees in Miami! 7C) is even though it can get cold,by local standards, this is not the rainy season. Cold fronts bring some rain with them, but on the whole it tends to be sunny and dry when these cold blasts hit. The rising sun bathed the pink block of Key West By The Sea condos:Smathers Beach is where many of Key West's active population goes to exercise; they run, they bike, they roller skate and usually they do it in shorts and t-shirts, but this is a little too frigid for most people:For some people the cold snap makes getting to work a trial:And when the winds are honking out of the north, as they do in a cold front the fishing fleet ducks into the shallow waters south of Key West, waiting for things to get back to normal:The boats lower their trawling booms to reduce the rolling effect of the sea and from a distance they look, to my naked eye unaided by the telephoto lense, like bison grazing the ocean as they sit and wait for milder weather. For me, riding the Bonneville is more of a trial than i might like but I console myself with the thought that at least its dry cold, and the sting of cold air under my helmet is a change from the many months of summer heat and humidity:It was indeed a brisk ride home, though I didn't risk hypothermia and it didn't even really wake me up because when I finally rolled into bed at 8:30 I went out like a light, and it felt good.