We were driving the middle Keys and at the north end of Marathon on Grassy Key I spotted a likely turn off. It looked like a low maintenance bike path, one side paved the other not. We took the path less paved.
A woman of advanced middle age (I think) approached me in a village in Italy last month and told me she remembered my mother. "You caused her a lot of heart ache," she said and I winced because I am fond of my mother's memory. What had I done, I wondered...
...it wasn't as bad as I had at first thought. "You were always running away and she never knew where you were," she went on.
Well indeed that has always been my abiding problem, a desire to see what's over the horizon, and my nature hasn't changed that much even here in these little slivers of land set in the middle of the ocean.
Cheyenne likes to explore too though this time of year she goes from shade to shade wherever she finds it even next to a slender power pole.
And then she hunts for water to cool off in, but if fresh she'll drink it too.
The odd thing is she prefers mangrove water to the proper clean water I provide her. My dog is weird.
I have met quite a few people complaining of the heat as though anything else were to be expected in August. Even so I find the weather quite bearable. We have a light southeasterly breeze blowing most days, the humidity is low and if not directly in the sun, like Cheyenne, it is quite pleasant.
We walked about half a mile paralleling the highway until the trail ran out.
If you wanted to move here some optimist is offering land for sale.
Good luck finding a bank that will make a loan though, these days.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
In my case I am the old fart, while my motorcycle is a much more modern machine than the original Bonneville that might have been built around the time Chuck's 1985 Harley Davidson came off the production line. Chuck notes with pride that his machine is the last of the breed with cast iron cyclinders, a material that is old fashioned and out of date but that has properties that make it useful for internal combustion- heat dissipation and self lubrication. Nowadays we see motorcycles built of exotic unobtanium, cooled with liquids, operated by electrons and impossible to comprehend. To revel in the old is to be, by definition, an old fart.
We met at my place last Friday and cruised over to No Name Pub for food and conversation. As one does, and we weren't alone.
Chuck wanted a slice or three of No Name's famed pizza, so, being men we ordered too much and devoured hot greasy pastry and cheese and crispy slices of salted meat products. We were ashamed of our greed and revelled in it. Chuck made up for it by drinking tap water, I had a Yuengling draft to start and strong iced tea to chase the alcohol away before we ended our long leisurely meal and left behind a picked over plate.
We are coming up on Bike Week at Daytona the annual orgy of Harley Davidsons on the beach Up North so this past week saw a disproportionately high number of motorcycles rented or trailered to Florida and ridden to Key West- the ride of a lifetime on the Overseas Highway.
We had a slight problem here as we both like to ride alone and Chuck very decently agreed to take the lead to start and thus set the pace, something I hate to do. I popped my squeezbox out of my jacket pocket and started shooting off pictures as we rolled south on Wilder Road back to Highway One.
Temperatures were in the low 80's and our motorcycles, though 22 years apart in age are very similar in performance. Chuck has four speeds to my five, neither bike has a tachometer but both get around 42 miles per gallon and cruise happily between 60 and 80 miles per hour.
It was a matter of minutes to find ourselves crossing the turquoise waters on a windy afternoon in bright sunshine.
I saw these campers on the spoil island south of the Seven Mile Bridge and figured they were having quite the adventure. We were amusing ourselves quite nicely on the bridges admiring the views...
...avoiding getting blown around...
...blatting along at a steady 60 miles per hour into the headwinds. Chuck has no windshield, which is fine for him. Me? I'm a wuss and enjoy my Parabellum, the top of which can just be seen, here below:
At the start of the weekend one usually sees much heavier traffic heading south and in fact last Friday afternoon we had plenty of oncoming vehicles.
Then we arrived in Marathon, the wide spot in the Overseas Highway with a 45 mile per hour speed limit and two lanes in each direction.
That early Harley has several features I like. The riding position is what is known as standard, not cruiser style with the feet properly under the body, which gives better control over the machine. The Harley is also a very basic motorcycle, chain drive, discs fore and aft and reliable electric starting. However it all comes together nicely with no superflouous body work , no electronics no nothing that detracts or adds to the fundamental pleasure of the ride. Chuck is quick to point out this is his first ever Harley but he really likes it, and I can see why.
Clearly the bike is doing no one any good stuck in the garage but the value of this lump of forgotten metal is hundreds more to one of the men in the picture below than it is to the other. Chuck was worried about engine damage, the owner was worried about dust and rust so he polished the wreck.
As we talked across the gas station pumps the son, if that is what he was, put his helmet on and I was fascinated, like a parakeet with a mirror, by the camera bolted on his head. I am sure my eyes followed it back and forth as he talked. I could only bring myself to photograph the accessory as he rode away, thinking it rude to point and click in his face. I guess it's better than my method of holding my camera in my hand but it sure looked more unusual than a pair of pink Crocs, for example.
The road was of course lovely as we went back the way we came over the Seven Mile Bridge.
Still sunny, still windy and this time with me in the lead setting the pace. We got on the Seven Mile Bridge and I opened it up to pass a dawdling car. I startled Chuck for a minute but he was game and we passed a few more before settling into an empty stretch of road. The view as always is a mixture of little lumps of land, turquoise waters, and every now and again a familiar human made landmark. Like the old Bahia Honda Bridge.
We parted ways in Big Pine as I had a chore to do, to check on the availability of tires for my car, which was of no interest to Chuck so he went off after promising to do this again some time. While I was talking to Donnie at Monroe Tire I noticed this elderly Yamaha in the perfect position to attract Chuck... just as well he didn't follow me over there.
Of course I'd like mine not only running but restored and ready for use as a hardcore daily rider. And Chuck to keep it running for me. I ride when it's windy or rainy but I am a wuss when it comes to wrenching.
Most people who choose to live in the Keys, particularly the Lower Keys, and even more so Key West city residents, take as one of the highpoints of island living as being the ability to do without a car much of the time. The freedom from driving is frequently celebrated as a desirable attribute of life in these connected islands, as much as the pleasant winter weather.
I, by contrast love driving, I enjoy road trips and if it is a question of riding the motorcycle, well i would do that all the time if I didn't have to haul my dog or my wife from time to time. To me living 27 miles from my work is a source of pleasure, the drive across the bridges, the views of open water and mangroves that city residents rarely see if they never leave Key West...these are all aspects of life ion the Lower keys that I love. I also enjoy the fact that we ar eindeed connected to the mainland by a contiguous road- the belssing and the curse of the Keys.
Gas stations line the highway including several that are open 24 hours, because despite all claims to the contrary modern industrial civilization is as much present here as it is anywhere else in Florida. Indeed much of the landscape of the Keys is a hodge podge of terrible zoning, or lack thereof, billboards disfigure the skyline and buildings pop up whereever space allows with minimal landscaping. The situation seems likely to get worse as the governor is abolishing the state oversight agency and local county commissioners have shown a marked lack of enthusiasm for putting the brakes on developers.
I cannot conceive of nte being able to take the occasional trip to the mainland. Shopping for me is mostly Costco for foodstuffs and motorcycle gear from specialty shops; my wife likes Target, Nieman Marcus and the Container Store so we make the rounds when in Miami. Then there are the longer road trips like last year's drive to California and drives to see friends, or the odd Iron Butt endurance ride...they all start with a two hour roll down the Overseas Highway.
To live in the Keys and to be fearful of the drive down the 42 bridges between Key West and Florida City would be just too limiting for me. I watch the price of gas go up and I know a shorter commute would make more sense, but I well remember the feeling of being trapped when I lived and worked in key West and rarely got out. 
The Highway is a life line and it creates dependence because we expect it to be there and we expect trucks to come rumbling down every day bringing supplies. On the rare occasion the road has been closed, typically by a vehicle wreck, if the closure is too prolonged things start to get gnarly in a hurry. I recall a tanker fire on the Seven Mile Bridge ended up closing the road for 36 hours and panic shopping set in almost immediately at the Big Pine Winn Dixie supermarket...
It's an odd thing when you think about it, driving out a hundred miles across the water on this thin ribbon of asphalt. 
Really the highway makes all the islands part of an extended peninsula, like it or not. 
The tall communications towers along the way are visible reminders of our dependence on the mainland.
