A message from GarytheTourist:
My Conchscooting friend, in the summer you would love the color in Tennessee because the color palette that you prefer is in abundance; there is plenty of green, blue and white. Everywhere we look there is green grass and green trees topped with blue skies and white fluffy clouds. Those colors get old after a while and so the stunningly bold, varied colors of Key West attract my family and I. It should be illegal for one small town to keep so many colors from the rest of us. As we approach Key West on the Overseas Highway one of the first splashes of color to greet us comes from the Bougainvillea trees that dot the drive down. Those scattered trees only hint at what is to come. It seems that Bougainvillea are everywhere in Key West. Yes, I know the locals hate sweeping up after them and hate the blooms that fall on their roofs and cars and graves but to a Tennessean they are lovely. Look at this house.
The house is attractive enough on its own merit and I'm sure it would look just fine stuck in the middle of a corn field. But put that massive Bougainvillea in the front yard and that house claims its rightful place in paradise.
Even houses that are less than grand suddenly become special when dignified with the color of a Bougainvillea (and a small red convertible).
Sidewalks become tunnels with color above and below.
Up close the blossoms look like this:
Here's a nice shady, colorful spot to spend eternity:
Where even the graveyard is colorful .
Gary sent me this essay at my request some time ago and I offer it here by way of introduction to a month's worth of his pictures that I will be publishing here at Key West Diary. I had been thinking about just leaving the page blank for the month of July while my wife and I are in Italy renewing acquaintance with Giovanni my childhood motorcycle riding buddy and my sisters and their families. Giovanni and I got our first mopeds together and we rode them all over Umbria together, graduating to motorcycles and cars as we grew older. We still like to ride together.
So for the next month as Giovanni and I plan our adventures for ourselves and our wives, I will be publishing three pictures a day from gary's archives that he has very kindly loaned me.
I expect I shall make room from time to time to publish the odd picture of our rides together as we make middle aged mischief across Umbria and Tuscany this July.
Till August,
Cheers,
Conchscooter.
Where even the graveyard is colorful .
So for the next month as Giovanni and I plan our adventures for ourselves and our wives, I will be publishing three pictures a day from gary's archives that he has very kindly loaned me.
5 comments:
Dear Gary:
The color in Tennessee is indeed delightful. Now what about the beaches in Tennessee? There must be a few lakes someplace where the local lovelies come out and sun themselves. I sincerely hope you will do them justice, while Conchscooter reacquaints himself with mechanical perfection — the BMW Marque — riding around the broad Roman compagnia.
Fondest regards,
Jack/reep
Twisted Roads
Grays pictures are of key west and as I have already uploaded them and scheduled them for publication I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt there is no Internet porn there... Bummer, eh?
I only get to the library in conway SC twice a week to see Key west diary. we have made 4 trips there since 2005 and stay at The terrific Palms and each time we read the KWD I feel happy again. I know I am just a tourist but you know none of us own this world and its beauty. When we can..we'll be back!
Aim greatly looking forward to being a tourist. I find it odd how all the world depends on tourist and then claims to despise them. Biting the hand that feeds, or possibly it is a matter of resenting the dependence.
As it is in my nature to name botanical things, the red-flowered trees and close-up blossoms in these pictures are Royal Ponciana. The purple blooms in the 2nd and 3rd pictures are Bougainvillea.
But Gary's sentiment is true nonetheless.
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