Winter is coming and I can feel it, even though temperatures are still in the eighties and there is plenty of underlying humidity. The winds have been honking out of the east to fill a void created by a low over Texas and the winds have been cool and dry creating the illusion of a winter cold front. Winter is the time to go walking so that was what I did. All good walks start with a ride on a Triumph:
The old highway on the south side of Sugarloaf is now a wildlife area and they don't want Bonnevilles rumbling around there. Imagine that.
However this being the Keys it would be entirely possible to roll a motorized bicycle onto these miles of deserted roadway. There is a by pass to make it easy to get a bicycle onto the trail but motorbikes are out.
It turns out you need wheels to explore this area as it is enormous. The road itself may have been abandoned but it's in excellent condition, even the gravel bit:
The first half mile or so leads up to a bridge which spans a canal which leads to a group of houses to the north, clustered near Highway One. The bridge itself is a solid structure covered in graffiti of course:
And anywhere there is a body of water in Florida there is someone dangling a hook in the hopes of snagging a fish. And there in the distance are the open waters of Hawk Channel more easily seen from upstairs:
At this early stage of the expedition it was sunny and breezy, with a little humidity in the air and it was a perfect afternoon to be out exploring. Looking north from the bridge the mysterious canal carved out of the living rock stretched away through the wilderness:
I was not alone either as there was a family enjoying a splendid afternoon romp with their dog:
But before I reached them on the horizon I found a wide junction in the road with a paved street leading off to the left, that is to the north. I decided to follow the paved road and see where it lead. The mangroves and scrub palms and buttonwoods were growing tall and wild on either side:
It was really quiet out in the roadway and I got a rather apocalyptic shudder down my back, walking along a perfectly serviceable road with no traffic, no sounds and no other signs of human life. I did find an old speed limit sign which was not applicable to my walking pace:
It didn't seem very fast to me, 35 for such a wide sweeping road but then I remembered the modern new straight-as-an-arrow highway across Sugarloaf Key is as broad and deserted as a runway, with a speed limit of just 30 miles per hour:
I had been trudging for the best part of thirty minutes when I started to wonder if perhaps I should turn around and head back. Clouds were starting to close in a bit overhead and the road kept just winding its way through the scrub, endlessly:
About the time i was ready to start bugging out, as unsatisfactory as that would be I saw a break in the bushes, which was my cue to follow a diversion. Boredom was banished and I started down the rabbit hole.
This VW Microbus was sitting there melting into its component parts, fading into the surroundings, like an icicle. It reminded me of my old '64 Bus that I drove all over California and Mexico when I was taken with the desire to go RV'ing on the cheap. Mine was a six volt model which meant it never wanted to start in anything cooler than perfect summer weather but it never actually stopped running. This one did, and its block and cylinders were scattered all around in the bushes. I wonder what happened? An orgy of frustration perhaps, or exhaustion at having to travel everywhere at an uncertain 54 miles per hour...They tell us metal trash will be around for hundreds of years, but not if that VW's rate of decomposition is anything to go by.
I kept going past the Bus and the skies seemed to grow increasingly wintery and cloudy as I strode on through the shrubbery.
Then I came across the canal as I was pretty sure I would. That meant if I turned left and headed south I would reach the bridge and the road back to the Bonneville. I started walking again. And I walked. And I walked. And I walked. And then I walked some more. It wasn't unpleasant, on the contrary I was enjoying the solitude and the outdoors after a long summer away from the back country.
It was almost like walking down a desert watercourse along side the canal. The ground was dry and dusty crunching underfoot and the going was easy. It was getting cloudier though and gave the impression it was going to rain soon. Had it been 50 degrees cooler it might have looked like an imminent snowstorm out of the low cloud cover. I kept walking. After about a half hour of this I expected at some point to see the bridge but it never appeared. The canal seemed to be in the rising tide stage of it's day as the water boiled along like a fast moving river, and I was walking in the opposite direction. Other than that there was no movement. Then I came to the bit I had been dreading, finding my path blocked. I came across a small lake that stretched from the canal all the way to the impenetrable mangroves to my left. I scouted around and could find no way around it. Well, bugger. Either I turned around to go the long way back, a 45 minute walk at least. Or... nothing else for it but to keep going; so I did:
Luckily the water was warm, and I suppose I could have removed my shoes and socks but I had no idea where I was walking. The water rose up to cover my knees but I kept going and managed not to fall over. And wouldn't you know it, as soon as I got through the lake I saw this:
I got back to the bridge leaving a trail of muddy wet footprints and the fishermen were still out there killing fish, totally unaware of my perilous lone expedition facing all sorts of dangers:
And after a brief break in the cloud cover the clouds closed in again overhead, but I was off the bridge and heading for the barn like a Clydesdale smelling oats:
And then as I was closing in on the barricade at the entrance I caught another sign of winter lying by the side of the road:
This guy was sunning himself at the side of the road and didn't seem nearly as excited to see me as I was him. He was the second snake I'd seen out catching some rays in two days so I'm thinking it's getting cooler in the bushes for our cold blooded neighbors. For those of us with wet feet and and home to get to the time was good for the getting. So I got.
