I have resolved a mystery, and herewith the answer to a question that has plagued me for a while. I found the answer in two different places almost simultaneously and I was not actually seeking the answer-it just popped out at me. My favorite Keys guidebook is by Joy Williams, a dense mixture of history anecdote and information, all offered with a rather dry acerbic wit. In it she mentions that canals were dug in the Lower Keys as a form of mosquito control. Aha! I thought and when I went for a walk on Big Pine, at the Watson Trail I found confirmation:
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And a view of Duval Street to boot. Janna asked for me to say hello to Riccardo so I did and took his picture, all of which left him a bit nonplussed. Actually it left both us I suspect, wondering about the power of the Internet.
He put up with my camera good naturedly, and sorted out my change. And so, there you have that too. One of my preferred downtown lunches still thriving. A while ago I wrote an essay about places I miss and I mentioned in passing that I regretted the closure of Martha's and Benihana's on South Roosevelt. Well imagine my surprise when the Citizen reported that the owner has given up the idea of building (unwanted condos) and Benihana's is coming back as soon as he can get the staff sorted out. Maybe something to replace Martha's later as well. I shall have to treat my wife to Japanese theater-as-dinner because she remembers it fondly with her parents from years ago. Nothing in Key West is permanent. Ever.--------
I'd like to think the Blue Lagoon Motel on North Roosevelt is a permanent fixture in our town.
Who couldn't love that crazy 1950's neon sign, something that I think would be most appropriate on the Genuine Florida blog. The sign got knocked down by Wilma and it lay on the side of the road apparently abandoned. But lo and behold it got resurrected and its back in all its glory. So much so it deserves a second look:
The Blue Lagoon Motel is at the corner of Sigsbee Road on North Roosevelt, across from the much more staid Marriott Courtyard. Obviously I've never stayed in the motel and I have eaten at the restaurant lately, which goes through various cuisine transformations from time to time (the last time I ate there it was Mexican and not very good), but I love the lagoon, the palm trees and the funky lights:
If I were a visitor to Key West (and my wife let me choose where to stay) I'd try this place for at least a night, and when the Gilligan's Island theme had worn threadbare I'd move on to La Concha and pretend it was 1946 again. I don't think the Blue Lagoon benefits in the decor department from the gazillion rental jet skis, but there it is, commerce is king.
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I went to see The Other Boleyn Girl at the Tropic Cinema which was an okay film but a bit soap-opera-ish, what with the intrigue and partner swapping and what all. After Anne lost her head I came out into the sunshine of a bright Key West afternoon. And there before me lay a severed noggin.
No not really, it was just an elderly Vespa, doing double duty as a poster board for a local charter boat:
It was a bit sad really, because the Vespa and sidecar aren't in running order and aren't even registered. Some weird city ordinance requires vendors parking in these vendor reserved spaces next to Duval Street not to park anything other than a vending trailer. If the Vespa were running it wouldn't be allowed to sit at this location. Bummer. On the other hand I did spot another local bike parked downtown, a Chinese water cooled tres suave 50cc boy racer.
If I were a kid I'd have desired this more than anything, not least because 40 years ago mopeds were a lot cruder than this little rocket. I put my camera away and wasn't I surprised when a man looking to be in his 40's hopped on the little race bike and bopped off down Whitehead Street.
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Key West's history is something that I always enjoy learning about so from time to time I stop off at the Art and History Mueseum on Clinton Square and give myself a refresher course. I went with a camera so there will be a few pictures of it coming up. I came away with this one picture of 19th century Key West. The map depicts a city that only occupies part of the island, in fact the island itself is a lot smaller in the map than it is today:
No Fleming Key or Sigsbee which were fill island built later off the north shore of key West and connected by causeways (they are both part of the Navy Base today). No Garrison Bight which was created by Flagler's engineers when he brought the railroad to town, and even though it's location is a bit indistinct in the picture the cemetery is clearly on the edge of the city limits back in those olden days. Nowadays the cemetery appears to be in the middle of the city but New Town didn't get filled out until the advent of cheap air conditioning. There are people alive today who remember a dairy farm in what is residential tracts today.
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The sun was going down rapidly last week when I was on Big Pine Key after checking out the Blue Hole, so instead of going home to my empty house I kept riding through the subdivision. It was a perfect evening, warm not buggy and relatively still deep in the middle of the largest island in the Lower Keys. The only cruddy thing about the evening was the way the camera can't quite capture the richness of the colors as the sun sinks to horizon.
The wind has been blowing for weeks, as it tends to do around here in the Spring and the clouds were scudding by. A Key deer at ground level pretty much ignored them a sit stepped daintily across the road:
The road at this point is behind a barrier and the land belongs to the Wildlife Sanctuary, so I was walking and pretty much ignored by the deer. There was one solitary house at the end of the street, far out into the marshlands. It seemed very lonely to me and looked it too:
I have discovered in this place another open space with no particular purpose except just being. Yet in this case we have what appears to be construction interruptus or just a very large swimming pool with absolutely no facilities:
Another of these impenetrable Keys mysteries. But this time I adjusted the camera's attention and got it to focus on the sky and got a rather grand result as the sun sank lower:
It was getting too dark to photograph anything and I'd have to come back another day for a more in depth exploration of this area. The headlight made a warm orange glow on the road in front of me as I burbled back to civilization, Big Pine Key's shopping center where neon and fluorescent lighting invited me to shop, and perhaps rent a video....
...on my roundabout way home.
