Front Street

This is the tourist zone, and to my amazement Key West continues to be busy downtown during the over heated month of August. Europeans are here spending their powerful Euros, American families are pulling in their vacation horns and instead of going somewhere exotic (ahem!) they are coming to Key West to spend their convertible yuan. We thank them for not going to Europe or South America and staying close to home in these uncertain economic times. Here they are on Front Street enjoying the uncertain flavors of fried food at Red Fish Blue Fish. Big Sales are a permanent feature of these fine stores, places where "Going Out For Business" signs are always in evidence to lure visitors in on the promise of special cut price offers. Despite the alluring sale I figured I might not do such a fine sun dress justice so I passed. At least this guy isn't texting while driving: Key West has a tree commission, a group of volunteers who get ravaged frequently in the Citizen's Voice for being over or under protective of Key West flora. I don't have a dog in that hunt, happily, but as attentive readers of my pictures will have noticed I am quite partial to a nice tree now and then.
Yes, even I heard that the child molester died, and now I know it's true, there is a t-shirt on sale to prove it. He and I were the same age more or less and I can't help but feel that he made a horrible hash of his opportunities. Still, why dwell on the negative eh? Buy a t-shirt, feel better, and conveniently forget he paid $25 million to silence the little kid who shared his bed. What a strange world hero worship is. Personally I though Paul Newman was a true hero, married to one woman raised money for real charities and mocked his own stardom. And he was an ace driver.
We all need heroes don't we, as we go hunting for stuff, fulfilling our evolutionary potential.One more t-shirt and happiness will suffuse me.This may be a deprived Key West youth enjoying the last of summer vacation with "nothing to do." Perhaps he hasn't been trained properly to hang out in shopping mauls.

No parking on the sidewalk! "But Officer, I'm not parked, I'm just hanging, Key West style!" I can hear his defense now were he to be challenged. I'd let him go with a warning and a smile if I were a police officer. This could be anywhere exotic like Europe or somewhere less strait laced than North America. Two guys hanging and bs'ing while sitting on a scooter. An image from my youth. A scooter and a friend and nowhere particular to be (maybe).
I like Rooftop Café and don't get to go there often. It is in my top tier of Key West restaurants for service and ambiance as well as the actual ability to get food cooked right. ( I am not a tour guide please note, I am a curmudgeon who knows what he likes, thank you).

I hope those stupid slider fad things go the way of all flesh (DIE) soon. A clever way to add bread to a national diet already overflowing with starch and corn syrup. Dinner is much more interesting here, sitting out with a candle on the table. And even though the view is just that of Front Street, the overhanging trees and stuff really makes this place more pleasant than you might expect.Did I mention people shop on Front Street on their way back to their cruise ship? Check out these Key West economic engines, helping to keep me in paychecks, bless their hearts:

Brick is not that popular in Key West, mostly because it was inordinately expensive to get bricks to the island during the 19th century building boom. This is the Sawyer Building and yours for a song, no doubt.

Hog's Breath of course. I still have yet to take a drink in any bar on Lower Duval. It is my not-so-secret ambition to go to my grave without ever having drink taken below 300 Duval. So far so good. I do my drinking at home, because I like my home.
I hope this picture at the Haagen Dazs ice cream booth warms your heart, I see a child and wonder: what possessed those parents? I am sure anyone can agree it was a great thing I did for humanity choosing not to reproduce myself.

Don't just walk, shop dammit!
This is the time of year workers in key West wish they had year round jobs like mine. In winter they make my paycheck look like spare change. I am told HTA recently cut employees to half time status to avoid buying health insurance for them. If true I hope they are actively campaigning for no change in Health Insurance laws.Too much chatter, just buy it.

This woman's job, standing in the doorway all day long shouting "Everything five dolla'!" is something I need to remember when I am lamenting my fate at two in the morning as I try to reason with a drunk.

Front Street can flood during hurricane season. This is what is meant by taking precautions: This woman is riding with too much aplomb to be a renter, though I could be wrong. I was wrong once, my wife tells me, back in 1998.

I was right when I got the Bonneville though. 28,500 miles and still purring like a cat seen here parked in the shade of Fitzgerald Street:
My buddy Bruce bought a Tiger recently in Santa Fe. I'm glad he dumped his unreliable BMW 800, but I wonder why he needed a 33 inch seat height? Oh that's right he's an engineer and he needs the complexity of water cooling, three cylinders and a hundred horsepower to drag him through the airless altitudes of New Mexico. Congratulations Bruce, I know you will be as blissfully happy with your Triumph as I am with mine. They are great bikes and I am only slightly envious of you.