Torch Key

Summer Atmosphere

A still summer evening, plenty of insect repellent applied before I left home, and not a ripple on the waters of the salt ponds surrounded by mangroves.

Storm Clouds

I had no expectations when we left the house Rusty and I as I could see the thunderheads and I could even hear the thunder so I fully expected Rusty to have no desire to go for a walk but he surprised me and so we took off and I wondered what I might see.

Another Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for the Keys as a storm formation of no great organization has been named Fred and is rolling up the Old Bahama Channel north of Cuba. I think Tropical Storm Elsa was a useful education and this time around there is less wigging out, so far, as we expect a bunch of rain and some strong-ish winds. They say gusts up to 50 miles an hour and some flooding where you might expect it. Beyond that its another damp weekend forecast for the Keys.

These clouds were just another common-or-garden summer thunderstorm and while Rusty chased his nose I got to enjoy the wind and clouds. Indeed the wind picked up and the leaves rustled and it was all lovely and dramatic and not even raining.

I have noticed over the years that the path of storm systems seems to get set early in the summer. This year unfortunately we are in the middle of the second storm following an almost identical course to the first of the year. That makes me wonder where a stronger middle of the hurricane season storm will go. 

If my theory is correct this could be a good year for the Yucatan and the Bahamas and a crappy year for us if we get a strong hurricane.

On the other hand wild speculation doesn't help and for now we have nothing much on the horizon. We are driving to the mainland this weekend as I have a few days off after a very long period of too much work. Of course our departure is now predicated by the weather. We loaded boxes of stuff we want to keep in the van last night before it rained.

The plan is to drop off the boxes of books and plates and china we want to keep in a second floor air conditioned storage locker near the Miami airport. My wife is keeping up her online yard sale on Facebook while at the same time she is re-arranging what is left to fill the gaps in the home decorations.  I rather enjoy the sparseness and simplicity of the pre-departure home.

My eye doctor said my eyes are good, my modest old age glaucoma hasn't increased and my prescription hasn't changed which is nice. My lenses are starting to craze a little and I'm planning on using my prescription to get some new lenses in Mexico this winter assuming we manage to get on the road early. The vaccine holdouts in dispatch aren't changing their minds and Fantasy Fest is a  go this year so to have my immune depressed wife in Key West this winter seems rather too risky when we have a better option already in the planning stages.

My skin doctor says I have the skin of a 40 year old for which I thank my Italian mother. I have exposed and over exposed myself to the sun over the decades but it seems the stories they tell of Mediterranean skin might have something to do with my good fortune. The older I get the more I appreciate my genetic good fortune. Even my tooth cleaner could see no issues in my mouth on my final visit. The last medical hurdle is a colonoscopy next month. I don't sense any problem there even though I am known for being full of shit. I have been taking psyllium for years ever since my doctor warned me about the horrors of colon illness. My wife says I need a clean bill of health in my gut before I hand in my notice. She is so drearily sensible.

It was time, it was getting dark, the road beckoned and before too long we were home, in our denuded house with enough time to eat dinner, lay out my uniform and get ready for another early start at work. 

Reflections

It occurred to me on  a road trip that I am lucky to have space to be alone, and who would have thought I'd find that space in the Keys?

I suppose the solitude is a product of the lack of social value in the places I walk. These are no kind of shady forest glen, obviously I am alone far from beaches and bikinis.

I think many people fear the mangroves and the ghastly reptiles they harbor and all the poisonous snakes and ravenous crocodiles and spiders the size of your fist. We mustn't forget the human element where contrary  to real life the imagination fills the woods with sex traffickers rapists and robbers.   

Or me, lumbering around with camera  and dog dressed in rubber shoes to cope with high tides and flooding.

For me the mangroves paint pictures, always varying with the light and the weather, always the same for want of topographical features.

You could walk for hours here and the scenery won't change much. Hammocks of high ground produce taller trees but not by much. A pile of rubble produced by digging anti- mosquito gambusia trenches allows a short person to see over the mangroves slightly: they don't vary.

I came across  a death struggle- bird versus caterpillar and the hungry bully won. It's what happens while you aren't looking, lives get destroyed and you travel on none the wiser. 

I drive home after work and lives were changed in the preceding twelve hours, hospitalization, arrest, death, from the banal to the awful and no one around me knows or notices or cares.

I watched the worm curl up in an attempt to defend itself from the beak but the bird was having none of it. Hairy caterpillar was on the menu. I was God and declined to intervene so I suppose the caterpillar had cause to deny me my majesty.

I took a photograph instead of a puddle with a reflection. Life goes on.
 

Clouds

So much pseudo hurricane drama needs a response. The Keys are as lovely as ever.

Summer is my time for cloud watching, moisture in the air produce spectacular shows in the air.

Sunsets over the mangroves, distant traffic on Highway One is ever-present but muted. More like the sound of water over pebbles or sand sliding down a dune.

Winter is the time for birds migrating so summer is the time of year for the holdouts, the year round residents, the ibis and the blackbirds and some heron and no one around to bother them.

Some days the skies are gray and overcast and give off a terrible flat light. Some days there is a fireball in the sky, exploding overhead.

I like the dramatic days of Florida mountains lit up by the setting sun

I think of mountain climbers on snowy slopes far above the sea.

Spiky buttonwoods framing the puffy white mass in the distance:

Trompe l'oeil, a cloud underfoot hiding among the red mangrove roots:

My escape from long days of working and dreaming of open roads and new horizons when I fear I shall miss these just a bit. Quite a bit.