We have been inundated with rain the past few days. The National Weather Service says winds peaked at 55miles per hour and my car mechanic tells me bunches of his bananas that he was anxiously watching ripen got knocked off their stalks last night. Well, I told Donnie, he should been expecting a catastrophe, these were my two days off and most of my days off lately have been meterologically impaired.
Anyway the house has remained dry which is always a good thing, nighttime lows dropped briefly to a brisk 65 degrees requiring a liner in my mesh jacket, but daytime highs have been hovering around 75 degrees. As my buddy Jan put it last week before he caught the 'flu, winter is over; no more 50 degree cold fronts this year. We're still lucky by comparison to a lot of North Americans, for instance when they get strong winds and rain in the Pacific Northwest people lose their homes and their lives; down here they lose their bananas.
I went to the dentist Wednesday, which is a chore that I perversely quite enjoy. Dr Harris is a man with an enormous sense of humor and his hygenist is very patient with my stupid jokes and my tendency to nod off as she cleans my teeth. I find lying in the chair very relaxing and she has to keep prodding me to wake me up so I can open my mouth for her. I think I have good tooth genes, and as a kid I grew up with the dreaded Socialized Medecine which meant I got lots of (free) preventive care.
I came out of the dentist's office feeling very virtuous and as a reward the gods sent a brief break in the weather. The wind had switched to the southwest, a sure sign of an impending cold front and the sun was taking a chance and peeking through the clouds so it was time to whip out the camera for some pictures. I was driving the wife's convertible with a slow leak in a tire, which Donnie the mechanic took care of before the trip to the dentist, and I stopped at Higgs Beach to admire the ocean and to try to capture the turquoise colors of the sun on the water:
I parked next to Salute, the Italian restaurant on the beach and took a short walk. The ocean looks deceptively calm in these pictures, which is not to say the surf was up or anything but wavelets were pounding the sand, pounding hard enough to make it interesting for passersby:
The cyclists were probably out of towners, either that or their youth made them impervious to the cutting wind. Thin blooded Conchs stayed put in their cars to watch the roiling waters:
I spent way too long in Santa Cruz California, home of the Surf Museum, to be impressed by the waves rolling in off the Straits of Florida, but at least there was neither fog nor freezing temperatures here. There weren't many people out at Higgs Beach thanks to the rain, but not everyone at the park was entirely aware of their surroundings, as usual, and the surroundings were quite worth keeping an eye on:
Higgs Beach is owned by Monroe County and they have been, in their insolvency, trying to palm it off on the City, which politely declines to take the beach over. The Key West Police Department patrols the beach by agreement with the Sheriff's Department as they, in turn, take care of City property on North Stock Island. Higgs has been a bit of a pain since the Sheriff, in a cost cutting measure, abolished beach patrols by two deputies who used to ride around on All Terrain Vehicles. The signs requiring decent behavior are everywhere, of course:
And from time to time the Conch Train trundles past the beach, where the driver repeats the joke about how the White Street Pier is actually the rump of the old road bridge to Havana 90 miles south...
The residentially challenged tend to dominate the picnic tables under the pavilions at Higgs Beach and they prove to be an endless source of irritation to local families who not surprisingly don't like to share their pork sandwiches and boliche with the homeless subjects in thier reeking cerements sprawled all over the pavilions.
Parents like to use Astro City across the street and they sometimes feel threatened by the antics of the drunks nearby so they let the police department know, and we send officers out in a round robin moving people along all the time. 
It is hardly what you might call an ideal situation but it is emblematic of the close living that is required of islanders, including unfortunately the youngsters, seen here going for a drive while mama takes a nap on the bench.
There are lots of different places to visit around Higgs Beach itself, including the Garden Club in the brick Martello Tower, and the White Street Pier offers a splendid view of the waterfor those in a contemplative mood. For sporting enthusiasts there's the bocce court at Indigenous Park across the from the pier, and tennis players do their thing on the courts acrossd the street from the restaurant:
A bicycle path runs along the waterfront, even though some cyclists lose their way in the shrubbery and end up creating their own obstacle course across the parking lot:
Alongside the restaurant with the beachfront view there's a rest room playfully covered in muriels of a particularly fishy sort. Some locals maintain their dapper appearance by using the beach shower intended to refresh swimmers, and the sinks in the restrooms intended to wash hands. Actually using the restroom can be an adventure for those of us who like to take our ablutions in the privacy of our own bourgeois homes:
People do tend to stay away from the beach because there are just too many bums they say. Too bad I say, because Higgs is the people's park, with its dog run, picnic tables and water views. We should all, even we the bourgeoisie have a slice of the recreational pie, especially on this small cramped island.
