It was a dinner date at a friend's house nearby. The wife and I had originally planned to meet the other couple on an island in the back country for a barbecue on one of the few Lower Keys islands equipped with something more substantial than mangrove roots. The island in mind is 40 minutes from my house by boat up a broad channel, but the winds were howling at well over 20 miles per hour on Friday morning. So we executed Plan B, and drove over to their place where we set light to the barbecue on the deck and ate flank steak and salad by candlelight. Which is all very well and good but because we weren't crouched uncomfortably on Tarpon Belly Key's rocky "beach" we had electricity and overhead fans (they aren't big on air conditioning in that household!) and a video player. That meant movie night.
I had no memory of Criss Cross, a 1990 film set in 1969 and shot in and around Key West. I am frequently ready to ditch a movie because I know the location and the plot ruins it, or vice versa I'll watch a movie only because I know the location and the plot is just an irritant. Criss Cross really does show Key West as it was in 1990, and completely recognizable today but the plot itself is entirely worthy if one had no interest at all in the shooting location. In this case the Eden House on Fleming Street, rendered shabby to illustrate the era:
The plot is simple enough, Goldie Hawn's character is divorced from Keith Carradine's and while he mopes in Miami ( they pay a visit from key West illustrated by footage shot on the old Seven Mile bridge:
And very evocative it is too, with all camera angles masking the presence of the modern bridge).
I had no memory of Criss Cross, a 1990 film set in 1969 and shot in and around Key West. I am frequently ready to ditch a movie because I know the location and the plot ruins it, or vice versa I'll watch a movie only because I know the location and the plot is just an irritant. Criss Cross really does show Key West as it was in 1990, and completely recognizable today but the plot itself is entirely worthy if one had no interest at all in the shooting location. In this case the Eden House on Fleming Street, rendered shabby to illustrate the era:The plot is simple enough, Goldie Hawn's character is divorced from Keith Carradine's and while he mopes in Miami ( they pay a visit from key West illustrated by footage shot on the old Seven Mile bridge:And very evocative it is too, with all camera angles masking the presence of the modern bridge). The single mother works in a rather disreputable field, as a dancer, and her son in an effort to build the family budget to buy a house gets involved in some business that is way over his head. Not that he isn't youthful and entirely charming in his shock of blond hair and his Southern California surfer-dude drawl even as he partakes of the childish delights of Key West and environs:
I liked the local scenes which were integral to the plot and not too outlandishly misplaced. Truman and White Chevron after a summer rain:
And the old Peary Court long since lost to Navy housing. This shot can be placed by the presence in the background of the White Street Armory towers:
And an unusual shot, rendered impossible since 2001, of the underside of the Coastguard Piers:
The plot moves along merrily against the backdrop of the first lunar landing and I found this movie to an entirely enjoyable treat. We shouted out the locations as it moved from place to place and none of us fell asleep.
I liked the local scenes which were integral to the plot and not too outlandishly misplaced. Truman and White Chevron after a summer rain:And the old Peary Court long since lost to Navy housing. This shot can be placed by the presence in the background of the White Street Armory towers:And an unusual shot, rendered impossible since 2001, of the underside of the Coastguard Piers:The plot moves along merrily against the backdrop of the first lunar landing and I found this movie to an entirely enjoyable treat. We shouted out the locations as it moved from place to place and none of us fell asleep. My back up movie for the night had their unreliable video disc player failed was a cassette edition of Tollbooth, a movie made in 1994 and released two years later with a pretty low key cast playing out a contemporary melodrama. This one is set "somewhere" unspecified in the Keys at a tollbooth that was rigged on the end of the No Name Key Bridge. The set:
As it was earlier this week:
As for the plot, the video store clerk glowered at me darkly and muttered something about hoping I wasn't too attached to the No Name Key bridge as it wouldn't look the same again to me. I slunk out clutching my films hoping I wasn't in for too much gore. I am no fan of horror films. The movie locations made little sense in relation to reality, because in another scene the booth looked like this:
Its actually a love story, boy meets girl kind of thing and the story goes downhill from there. There are a number of unpleasant people lurking around the tollbooth where he works and the gas station where she works, and the bait shop owned by the third leg of the triangle. It's a story in the style of Carl Hiassen involving road kill:
A fear of butterflies (?!) and trailer parks in the stereotypical Florida style:
All of which combines for a bizarre story with a surprising outcome. I rate it as okay, but by its nature a tollbooth is a pretty static location for a plot and the fact that the booth is known to be on a road to nowhere in this viewer's mind makes it a little harder to get stuck into the plot which in any case is not based on a realistic premise. In my estimation it was fun but not exactly compelling. Same tollbooth supposedly looking completely different than earlier in the movie...
Ah yes, but the Keys are always pretty to look at.
As it was earlier this week:As for the plot, the video store clerk glowered at me darkly and muttered something about hoping I wasn't too attached to the No Name Key bridge as it wouldn't look the same again to me. I slunk out clutching my films hoping I wasn't in for too much gore. I am no fan of horror films. The movie locations made little sense in relation to reality, because in another scene the booth looked like this:Its actually a love story, boy meets girl kind of thing and the story goes downhill from there. There are a number of unpleasant people lurking around the tollbooth where he works and the gas station where she works, and the bait shop owned by the third leg of the triangle. It's a story in the style of Carl Hiassen involving road kill:A fear of butterflies (?!) and trailer parks in the stereotypical Florida style:All of which combines for a bizarre story with a surprising outcome. I rate it as okay, but by its nature a tollbooth is a pretty static location for a plot and the fact that the booth is known to be on a road to nowhere in this viewer's mind makes it a little harder to get stuck into the plot which in any case is not based on a realistic premise. In my estimation it was fun but not exactly compelling. Same tollbooth supposedly looking completely different than earlier in the movie...Ah yes, but the Keys are always pretty to look at. .
Oh and don't get muddled by a 2004 film called The Tollbooth, a zany family comedy set in a Jewish new York household or something like that according to the blurb. A fine film I'm sure but not the one if you want to see the Keys in all their glory!
There was no shelter for the Bonneville so I had to leave it out in the sun, poor thing, while I took off on foot. The signs were faded and illegible but I knew they indicated this as being a National Wildlife area so I wasn't going to drive the Bonneville down the trail:
The path through the mangroves started out in typical style, firm and dry underfoot lined by the pale green leaves of black and white mangroves stretching off to the horizon:
Well, I thought to myself, this won't take long. I strode along in the sun congratulating myself for taking some time on a work day afternoon to knock off this pending exploration. I had sunscreen on my nose and ears and though I lacked water I wasn't going to be gone long as clearly there wasn't much to see. I saw some grass at one point along the trail and it looked unusually pastoral for this part of the world:
I poked around and started to get an inkling that perhaps I might like this place more than I had at first thought. There was a car lurking in the bushes. It had been there so long it was rusted though and it lay sprawling under a mangrove tree that was actually growing through it, impaling it, leaving it with doors flung open and its bodywork brown with corrosion barely visible:
I couldn't help but wonder what it's story was; taken out and dumped ignominiously. Around the corner from the carcass of the car was a gate that screamed Mel Brooks to me:
It sat there bravely guarding its space which was open on both ends. Who knows perhaps it locked the wrecked car inside, those many years ago.
And as if I needed further proof that this was a bridle path I came across these in the crusty dry clay left behind from a rainless winter:
I think this place would be a positive marsh after a downpour, and underneath the mangroves I could spot puddles of water here and there and vast areas of more dried clay:
And then around a corner in the path I found a puddle of epic proportions, deep dark and mysterious. As lakes go it was small, and really outside of the Keys it would probably not rate as a pond, but this is Cudjoe Key so I call it a lagoon of what is, in all likelihood fresh water. I wasn't about to taste it though: 
And I could hear some pretty heavy rustling from the clump of mangroves on the other side of the water. It could have been the light west breeze shuffling the dead leaves...or could it have been...an alligator? Nah, I don't think there's enough water to support a dinosaur out here. Besides the prey would be pretty sparse wouldn't it? Key deer at the drinking hole, birds perhaps and the odd motorcyclist sweating by as a pedestrian in his sneakers...I kept moving briskly.
This giant piece of rubbish was not representative of the trail as a whole because of human trash there really wasn't much at all. I saw a couple of pieces of plywood (?) in the mangroves and very worn tin cans far off the trail but that was about all. It was pristine. Except for signs of vehicular traffic in the mud:
And clearly the ATV riders had some fun kicking up spray into the mangroves as they went by:
By now I could discern marine engines racing, deep throated, up the channel alongside Cudjoe to the east and the breeze seemed stronger the closer I walked to the water, which was still unseen through the mangroves. Except when it wasn't! A finger of salt water pushed through from the middle of the island a perfect canal penetrating deep into the interior. I needed a kayak:
And so I called it a day. On a map I measured the walk at just over a mile and a half, and there does appear to be the possibility, depending on water levels, of connecting by trail to the Spain Boulevard area off Blimp Road. That would explain the evidence of horses as there are stables on that part of Cudjoe.
And so I turned and started on the return journey down the long winding trail of hard packed dirt and mangroves:
I took a break, in the sun lacking shade, and in so doing I observed that which I had been taught in class. Because mangroves flourish around salt water some people believe, erroneously, that they survive on saltwater, but only in a manner of speaking. They absorb the saltwater, but have adapted to expel the salt through their leaves, which die, turn yellow and fall off taking the salt with them. These white mangroves had salt coating their leaves:
I can't remember the ins and outs of all the botanical details, they never stick in my brain, but there it was, salt on the leaves. At this overheated stage I could have used some potable fresh water as the path through the bushes was snug and breeze free.
In winter it is very pleasant to be out on a brisk 65 degree (17 Celsius) day with a strong north wind blowing overhead and to find oneself snug among the leaves and branches, listening to the wind ravish the crackling palm fronds and mangrove shrubs. In the heat of summer it is rather less so. But in the distance the baking summer sun illuminated a few tin roofs reassuring me that the civilization of Cudjoe Key was to hand:
Home, home to air conditioning, ice cold water and shade. Exploration is all very well, but in summer its best enjoyed in moderation, especially when you have a night's work ahead of you.
I haven't taken a night wander lately so I left work last week with the intent to do some prowling downtown. It gets light early this time of year so I didn't have much time to take pictures before the sun started to peak over the city spoiling the night effect. I zipped down to the 
The marina attached to the hotel is known in the city as Pier B. Why B I don't really know. The Outer Mole is called just that or the Navy Pier because the military owns it and Mallory Square where smaller cruise ships tie up is called Mallory Square so the 
During the day, later than six o'clock in the morning, this area bustles with visitors, hotel guests and boat Captains who keep their boats in the 
The waterfront is quite attractive as far as resort construction goes. Lots of people might make the argument that this was proportioned better for human use in the Good Old Days, when shipping in Key West was commercial not tourist based, and the docks and wharves were classic 19
And yes, there are the usual tourist oriented shops including, I might add, a coffee shop that opens at six to service the boat Captains getting ready to take their passengers out for a day of fishing. Buy a coffee sit out on the dock and wait for the sun to come up. Or you could wait a few hours and buy a...whatever it is they sell here:
Or anywhere else 
I'd rather eat worms than go shopping but this complex isn't as 
The marina still attracts people with expensive tastes in boats, people who for some reason like to leave their outside lights on all night:
Take heart, they bring excellently varnished furnishings with them, the better to sit out and admire our 
There are boats built to a more modest scale but don't be fooled, even this cute little launch all lit up and ready to go is here to serve those of a certain standing, for this is the Sunset Key ferry: 
There are a few retirees who have chosen to live year round on Sunset Key, the 
Sunset Key is another stark example of Conchs selling their heritage for a mess of 
I am no 
Give it twelve more hours and they will be out to crowd the waterfront and toast the sun as it disappears yet again.