Solstice At Smathers

I took these the day before the Solstice, Friday morning so the sun was rising at its most northern point on the horizon before it rolls back down south to bring us all into the darkness of winter. Of course this seasonal stuff is all relative at 24 degrees North Latitude, so if one stands here in six months (I'll try to remember) the sun will be further to the right, the temperature will be lower by a bit and it will be later in the morning. But all that notwithstanding, none of it by much.

It's turtle nesting season so after hunting and eating these inoffensive creatures almost to extinction and glorifying the hunt on the walls at Turtle Kraals, where the turtles were corralled prior to execution, we now turn off the street lights to avoid confusing the hatchlings who scamper towards the light of the moon reflected on the water. 

By the time I had sufficient sand in my shoes I made my way round to Dead Man's Curve where motorcycles used to prang with some regularity, and stopped to park alongside the sidewall where Houseboat Row used to exist. The houseboats were towed to slips in Garrison Bight to make a more pristine view for the new multi-million dollar condos across South Roosevelt, but this stretch of stupidly empty seawall is still known by its old name. I ask myself why buy a condo in colorful Key West if your first request is to remove the color; but just because they're rich doesn't mean, against all stereotypes, that they are smart. 

My wife is working in Key West this month to help out the schools and make some vacation money so she suggested breakfast at El Mocho on Stock Island. If you want genuine local's food that's your place and since I wrote the essay in 2008 not only have my photographic skills improved but they have spiffed tghe place up a bit. The grub happily remains the same.

I was driving my wife's Fiat as shewas bringing Cheyenne into town and as always it is a fun drive. However last Saturday she had to take it back to Rick Case Fiat in Davie, four hours away as the seat back handle made of best Italian plastic had snapped and the clock computer had failed and was running abysmally slow. I was laughing as neither of our Fusions have been to the dealer even though the driver's seat heater has failed in my car, bummer. Last month the Fiat's computer controlling the opening roof and trunk lid goofed off. Fix It Again Tony indeed but my wife loves her car and it is a blast to drive. No regrets!

It was a lovely morning, flat and serene.

Except of course for the people who came clumping by waving their arms, pedaling their bicycles and generally behaving oddly if you didn't know they were exercising heroically in public and setting a  good example.  I reserve my tussles with weights and elastic bands and stuff to the privacy of my home, but that's how I was raised.

Hints of sun to come:

It was a perfect morning and then the phone rang and I received my summons to cross the channel for bacon and eggs and grits and con leche and so it goes. Extra physical jerks later to pay for that little lot, and an extra long walk for Cheyenne before bed. A long day ahead.

Fix It Again Tony

This is not a low stress moment in my life. The island laid back lifestyle has been thrown out the window, mixing metaphors, like a baby with the bath water. Work has been turned on its head by some renovations which are closing offices and moving equipment all round the building. My part is minuscule in all that but how the bosses are keeping a twenty four hour operation going like this week after week boggles my mind.

At home my wife has been packing our lives into boxes and I have been flexing my muscles ready to haul them to the new place. Which should have been happening yesterday except the wife's car had got buggered up.

The 2004 Vespa has sixteen thousand miles and it runs like clockwork.

My 2007 Bonneville has 80,000 miles and likewise starts and runs as God, and Mr Bloor, intended.

The 2013 Fiat Cabriolet has six thousand miles on the clock and it developed a couple of quirks. The trunk lift gate wouldn't open and the roof controls lost their pre-set stops, so opening and closing the roof required holding the button. In these circumstances Google is my friend and the Fiat 500 a Forum appeared on my screen advising lift gate problems are not unknown and the computer needs to be "re-flashed." Which sounds very rude but in the event I made an appointment with the largest Fiat dealer in the United States (they say) and drove three hours to Weston on my Monday off to get flashed. Nice. The manager's special was a hardtop 500 for $21,000, five grand more than my wife paid for her convertible. Rick Case must be rolling in it.

The showroom isn't terribly large but Rick Case got the franchise for several brands in Ft Lauderdale and it felt like I was driving into Case's own Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth as long as you are ready to be ravaged by salesmen and get in hock to own a car. They do make it look good, buying a Fiat, check out the original 500:

Italian grammar is not their strong suit. "Signore" is the feminine plural ( for "ladies") of...

"Signora" which means a woman. "Signori" means "Men" but neither door was thusly labeled. So with my literal brain I had to pause for a long moment before I figured out which toilet was meant for me...

Once my bladder was relieved in the proper place (I think) I got my eyesight back and look what I found lurking in the Fiat showroom, an 8C Alfa Romeo!

The young salesman told me 2015 models of the eight cylinder and new four cylinder Alfas will be for sale later this year in a showroom next door that will soon be under construction. One more brand for the ubiquitous, indefatigable Rick Case.

My Fiat was reflashed in less time than it takes to write and the roof opened and closed properly...

...and the lift gate once again yielded as expected to the touch of the handle:

Then it was time to dive back into the mainland crowds...

I stopped at Florida Keys Fisheries in Marathon and ordered a couple of lunch sandwiches from a seriously pissed off cashier, whose grumpiness did not overwhelm the deliciousness of the fresh snapper, one fried, one blackened.

We shared the two sandwiches in my wife's office, and I left her the Fiat and took my Fusion home to a very grumpy dog.

I left home at eight and got back at three and I don't think Cheyenne would have enjoyed the interminable driving. She seemed to disagree until I scratched her tummy for a good long while.

It was a tedious drive all right despite the splendid views, but it's what you do when you live in the Fabulous Distant Florida Keys; but at least we can get to what we need on the mainland. Even if it takes all day.

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Fix It Again Tony

 

I made the mistake of stopping to talk to a dude yesterday as Cheyenne and I strolled the suburbs, she sniffing and me enjoying the temperate summer day cooled by a post-cold-front breeze. I have walked past that particular Big Pine home a lot and admired the bizarre collection of Fiats parked at random in the gravel space in front of the house. This time as I walked by an erect rather distinguished man with white hair, big tortoiseshell glasses and a green t shirt appeared from behind a modern bright red Fiat 500 and I stopped. "I have admired your wild collection of Fiats,"  I said rather incautiously.

It happens I am not very good at being social and the company of my patient dog is usually enough for me, especially when combined with the occasional encounter with a friend and altogether too much work and overtime during Spring Break. Twelve hours sitting in a  room  with two other overworked 911 dispatchers can tax the limits of my ability to be anything but morose and withdrawn. One would like to imagine that a brief encounter, a chat about a funky brand of car might help recharge the internal battery of a recluse and reaffirm the value of human interaction...The problem though was quite a different one. I am not a car enthusiast, though I like motorcycles and enjoy riding them and reading about them. They are my passion and I do not discuss them with anyone much in the real world though I do struggle on a few forums on the Internet where I find opinions abound and are frequently passed off as fact. Cars? Useful but not exactly exciting. My interest in Fiats stemmed more from the fact that there is a dude living in Big Pine who collects them. How weird is that? Big Pine Key is the Lower Keys refuge for people who want to enjoy their guns and their paranoia in peace not to be sitting around collecting cars that in no way resemble giant pick up trucks...That was what interested me, not a thirty minute disquisition on double barreled carbs, twin headlights and 1972  gray imports of Fiat 850s. But, by gum, that's what I got. My mother drove a car like this one below, a Fiat 850 coupe of which my interlocutor had had one parked in front of his house.

 

 



That one was off being  restored he said and then he proceeded to uncover a black convertible and he lifted the hood and I got to see a new collection of pipes and wires powering his 124 Convertible. That was a car I remembered from my childhood. My father bought my twin sisters the car and they drove it all over Europe, to England and Italy, Germany and Austria and across France and Switzerland. It was an unhappy time for them as they tried to convince my mother their lives should be lived in Italy but they kept pissing her off in her Italian castle and she'd send them back to her ex-husband in England. I took quite a few trips in the rumble seat of my much older sisters' fancy car. You can imagine the attention twin good looking twenty one year olds in a convertible got in the 1960s. I was eleven and wondered about the fuss we got at every border post. 

 

Where was I? Oh yes, it seems not many 850s were imported to the US and the Fiat crazy guy on Big Pine got his, the one with the dual headlights direct from Italy with a speedometer in kilometers and he only paid forty five hundred bucks for it. Which made me wince as my 1977 Vespa is going to cost more than  that by the time all's said and done, maybe six grand. At least his fancy 850 still has to be restored though he says it may be worth seventy grand by that time. My Vespa may be worth three grand by the time I'm done, but my plan is to ride the snot out of the thing as usual  and destroy all resale value. I tried to ask how he got into Fiats and why but all I heard was he felt that these funky cars kept him alive through his recent cardiac problems. "More likely caused them," I said, trying to crack a funny in the middle of a lot of technical mumbo jumbo. Oh no he said, sincerity larding his voice lest his cars hear him deprecating them, they saved  my life he said, missing my little joke entirely. Sigh.

 

 

I never really thought about it too much until my mind started to wander from all the minutiae of owning collectible Fiats but I've actually been around quite a few of them. I bought my own when I was in my early twenties. I remember driving to the dealer in Perugia at the urging of a friend and there it was just like the car pictured above offered for 9 million lire I seem to recall, perhaps three thousand dollars back then? I wrote a check and took home ( a few  days later, Italian bureaucracy is generally quite slow but I think the dealer wanted to unload the weird car while he could so I got my tags in a hurry) my first  own car. People in the village thought I was joking when I showed up with this extraordinary space ship of a car, accustomed as they were to seeing me riding my motorcycle in all weathers. A Fiat they said incredulously, looking at their own utility Fiats by comparison. A convertible? With a hard roof? And the seats don't lean back? They looked appalled at the thought of spending nine million lire for a car you could not get laid in. That was okay; I had fifty empty rooms at my disposal in the castle my late mother had left to me. Space was not cramped for me in my lonely youth.

                                                                                    

None of this was of interest to the Fiat dude. We had not exchanged names in the flood of technical details that I had been drowning in. Then I asked about the Internet, thinking that restoration is so much easier with the Web. I know it encouraged me to get my 1977 Vespa and helped me find what appears to be a top flight restorer in distant Pennsylvania. Fiat Dude looked appalled. Oh no, he recoiled, I don't have a computer. Never had in the twenty five years I've lived here. I call So-and-So in California for my parts. Oh I said, so he has the computer! I needn't have said anything because now Fiat Dude was in full flow about how the Internet interferes with human relations and how he believed in true human interactions and making the world a better place etc...and when he started to refer to his comparative religion class at the university I started to send signals to Cheyenne that this conversation needed to end. Now, please. Obediently my old Labrador picked up on my invisible distress signals and got up and started lumbering off.  I said I could never have had the courage to buy my Vespa without the Internet for help. Vespa car he asked hopefully? Oh God no I said thinking of the weird little Vespa 400 that makes an old Fiat 500 look large...



 

My mother would never let me have a motorcycle when I was growing up in Oklahoma Fiat Dude said. So much so she encouraged him to get a car, unlike my mother who encouraged me to get a motorcycle by buying me my first Vespa when I was 12. But what did he care, the lonely humanitarian too busy talking to listen? He got in his stick shift Fiat 500 Abarth and drove off toward Highway One as Cheyenne led me gently away my ears ringing. I had even tried to find common ground by pointing out how much I like my wife's convertible, seen below uncharacteristically not converted (though she can open the roof all the way while under way...), but Fiat Dude poured scorn on the automatic gearbox, because clearly ours is inferior to his manual shift. I wonder how high he scored in comparative religion class?

 

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but no matter how I slice it, I like Cheyenne's company best and she I am flattered to think likes mine. Besides all that imagine the total lack of curiosity that leaves you thinking that having access to the world around you, albeit only electronically, isn't something worth doing. Screw Facebook if you like , but all the world's literature, newspapers, films and music are on line available to you in Bumfuck Big Pine if you want it. I think this ability to explore the world from this or any other isolated spot is one of the great benefits of modern times. The Internet is a pain in the ass, and creates dependence and screws up youthful minds and all that but I love having the world at my fingertips. I can watch episodes of  Dad's Army or Don Matteo any time I want on U Tube and if I want to be intellectual  I can download all the world's books to my phone and I can send pictures to my nephews half a world away any time I want. Fantastic - and this dolt immersed in his rusty machinery thinks its all a waste of time. Dull is as dull does.

 

I suppose it's my Asperger's but I just don't get what the point of conversation is when you have a dog and a book and a warm sunny day. And I didn't have to take a class to learn that.

 

 

 

Driving My Fiat 500 Convertible

I have been pondering how much I like my wife's Fiat 500 convertible and I guess the short answer is quite a lot. Enough that were I ever to be physically unable to ride a motorcycle I would choose to drive a Fiat 500 over say a CanAm 3-wheeled Spyder or some other not-quite-a-motorcycle solution to the problem of ageing.

 

My wife is one of the few people I know who likes to commute with her roof open. She will convert her convertible in any weather short of actual precipitation, she loves going roof-less that much. Indeed I never cease to be amazed how many convertibles I see on the road in perfect weather with their roofs firmly closed and I wonder why anyone would go to the extra expense and bother of a convertible if they were not perpetually drawn to the cabriolet driving style. Perhaps they are just driving their spouse's car and are not attracted to the roof down style; and before the arrival of the 500 that was me because I like my car to be an air conditioned cave.

However in this car the business of opening or closing the roof can be done while underway at speeds up to sixty miles per hour and it all happens with the simple press of a button. To open press once and the roof goes most of the way open, press again and hold, then the roof goes flat, lowering the glass rear window in the process folding like neat origami on the back of the car.

To close press the other button and the roof returns to sunroof mode, so then you hold the button and the roof closes completely. Dead simple, no latches, no stopping to open or close and no noise no muss and certainly no fuss. Lovely. Indeed with the side supports fixed in place the car does not squeak or flex and the side windows, the only ones that open are so large you can get all the fresh air and openness you need. With the roof in sunroof mode, ie: partially open, you do get some percussive helicoptering noise which will require you to open the windows a crack. With the roof fully open that hammering sound goes away but there is more turbulence in the cabin. The compromise of convertibles!

On the other hand I have to say this is the first convertible I have actually enjoyed as I am generally no great fan of open touring cars and I don't often use the sunroof on my Ford Fusion for that reason. The Fiat though is a convertible I have come to enjoy and I think the soft roof is definitely worth the money. In our case it was a no brainer, not only because my wife wanted a convertible to replace her aging Sebring convertible but because we found this 2012 at CarMax Tampa with 1130 miles at $16,500, almost ten thousand below brand new list price. There is another one listed now with heated leather seats and twenty thousand miles for $17,600 as though to prove my point. Here is the car with the roof fully open:

The trunk in this small car is perforce not huge but not tiny either. In the original 500cc air cooled twin cylinder Fiat 500, this space was occupied by the boxer style engine (think traditional BMW motorcycle engines) and in summer in Italy you'd see the truly tiny cars buzzing around with the trunk open to vent the over worked little motor.

Nowadays the motor is in the front and comes with a 1.4 liter four cylinder gasoline engine. In Europe they offer a 1.2 liter and also a diesel variant that the boys on Top Gear described as somnolent. Our "Lounge" model convertible comes with a six speed automatic gearbox with an optional manual shifter which I have tried but rate as not terribly helpful, because I find manual shifting without a clutch to be a little off putting. But that's just me. The interior of the car is surprisingly comfortable. As you can see in the picture below the Fiat is a tall two-squash-two seater with a tall roof height only inches lower than the neighboring Ford Escape.

You can squash two people in the back if you want, or you can put a large Labrador there though she prefers the space of the Fusion, and though our model is the up market "Lounge" whatever that means the cheapskate who bought the car new not only did not get leather or heated seats he also declined to get his wife electric seats. Which is actually is not a problem as the seats slide easily and rapidly and they will also return to their original position if moved as illustrated (the manual for this car was written by an English speaker who has never been near a Fiat 500 as it lacks any useful information on how the seats work, the doors lock or the roof opens- all discovered by me poking around). First use the black handle to move the seatback forward.

It's not hugely spacious if you are used to a five ton self propelled cup holder like an Escalade but the back seat does the job on a small zippy car that will yield forty miles to the gallon if you drive like my wife, or 35 if you accelerate like me and enjoy pissing off Escalades by passing them in your little egg car.

Push the seat pan back until it clicks. The seats actually are quite comfortable and I've sat in them for six hours at a stretch so far...

...then press the seatback into place and voila the seat is back where it started and you can sit down and insert the key and turn on the ignition only to be greeted by an ear piercing screech from the seat belt warning noise which turns itself off mercifully, but only after you have lost your sanity as you desperately fumble to insert the belt in its lock.

The flight deck is quite sober in this color choice. Some of the Fiat 500s have bright exterior colors which are carried over to the dashboard while the interior controls are rendered in white plastic which I think looks a bit garish. I suppose you get used to anything but this color combination is brown outside -"espresso" in Fiat sales talk- and black inside which is quite elegant.

The speedometer is styled after the original rather simple instrument in the early 500 models but this modern rendering includes all possible information, with a tachometer inside the speedometer and fuel and temperature gauges. There is an inner menu to scroll through but its not very intuitive and I haven't spent a lot of time trying to figure out all the trip miles and range and instant economy etc etc...The manual is short and as usual makes for pointless reading once again.

I wish the 12 volt socket stayed on even when the key is off, as it does in my Fusion which has spoiled me as I have come to enjoy leaving my phone on charge when I am out of my car. That is kind of picky of me because where it counts the Fiat is a fine car. For instance I wanted to like the Smartfortwo when it arrived in the US. However I never could get behind the square looks and the clunky gearbox that made the Fusion's automatic shifter seem smooth by comparison. Unlike the Smart, the Fiat is a pleasure to drive and is an enjoyable small car to own, whose Italian good looks are appreciated by a lot of passersby, not that I much enjoy fending off questions about my choice of car. The interior is spacious and complete, rather than feeling like a cut off full sized car.

The controls are the upmarket version which I suppose is okay though pressing plus and minus buttons to change temperatures isn't as convenient as twisting knobs in my opinion. The sport button speeds up the gear changes apparently and firms up the steering for mountain driving- fat chance in Florida. The two window switches are either side of the gear knob which is slightly confusing when you are used to them being in the doors but their position makes sense for what is in fact a two door/two window car. I find the hard plastic center console rubs my right knee the wrong way when I am driving and I have to rest my leg in a slightly unnatural posture to sit comfortably. That's probably the most annoying quirk of the car.

The door locks are funny, another Italian quirk, as they don't actually have any visible locks. You are at the mercy of your remote key fob to lock or unlock the two doors and the trunk.

This is a fun car to drive, not only because I can squeeze it through Key West gaps denied other cars, but also because it has firm suspension ("like a truck" a critical friend remarked) and also because it is quite perky for such a small engine. It cruises easily at 80 or more illegal miles per hour on the freeway and I frequently find myself at illegal speeds in the 45 and 55 mph dreary world of the Overseas Highway. I cannot wait to drive this buzz bomb in the Appalachian mountains where my sister in law resides. In one respect it is rather like a scooter in that for some reason modern Americans think that because this is a small car it has to be an act of deprivation to drive it, and boy are they surprised to find out how fast and maneuverable it is. Being passed by a scooter or a small car is an act of defiance in the face of the natural order of things and thus The Fiat satisfies the hooligan in me.

After all one is supposed to lust after this sort of nonsense shown below, which in a world of diminishing resources makes less sense than ever. And besides a hobbit like me can't figure out how to get into a vehicle this high off the ground. I'd probably end up impaling myself on the hub nuts like a bad bloody version of Mr Bean:

I'm not sure who would want to buy a Fiat 500 but I'm guessing its someone looking for a second car, and I think that would work just fine. But this is a complete vehicle, capable of being a sole car in the family. It draws attention wherever it goes which I find to be a little uncomfortable but it is more than a novelty, I think this is the type of car we all know we should be driving in a world of scarce resources. Once you try it you will find you are not at all deprived, that in fact small is fun and greatly worthwhile. And I'd love to drive this car to Alaska at 40 miles per gallon with heat blasting and satellite radio keeping me company. I am now officially jealous of my wife's ride.

 

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