It was long overdue I thought, an essay even more than usually about nothing in particular. I could have called it a vignette but the unifying theme was me hanging around Lower Duval and neighboring alleys one sunny afternoon with nothing much to do. So I took some pictures of course.
I have never found Duval Street to be especially photogenic, and every time I try to take a street scene it ends up looking rather blah. So I turned my camera on things and people closer to hand. Hog's Breath yielded a couple of stereotypes,two riders of BMW motorbikes who were somewhat overdressed by local standards. Helmets, gloves, jackets...phew!
This cool cat is more like it, with it seems, skin to spare in case of a wreck:
He was also playing loud music as though he thought he was riding a cruiser, and I don't suppose it would be surprising were I to confess loud speakers are second only to loud pipes in the noise pollution stakes. Grump.
There, that's better. Strolling Duval you never know what you might see. A man balancing a sidecar on his Vespa 150, for instance:
As you can tell I barely caught the picture, such as it is, and I missed entirely his dutiful wife following along behind on her yellow Vespa. Very cute I'm sure. This dude collects money for parking and doesn't he look like he's been sitting under the sub tropic sun for quite a while:
And this man was not apparently getting the information he needed so he glued a phone to his ear:
For some this is all they need on Duval Street,or indeed Key West as a whole:
Which prompted me to photograph a store advertising "Fine" Silver Jewelry, and if that wasn't inducement enough to enter they had this sign up as well:
Elsewhere look for the mannequin if you are an energetic shopper:
Or an Adirondack chair if not so much:
Dogs are welcome in Key West more than many cities though the Health Department has stepped up enforcement as far as dogs in eating establishments goes and generally they aren't welcome inside. They show up on Duval nevertheless:
And then there are those working scooters, frequently Chinese made, that give sterling service yet are so often the object of scorn from people who ride flash Italian scooters. I like my (wife's) Vespa but scooters like these are the back bone of Key West's rental fleets and they are abused day in and day out:
And on the subject of food... you know those little rolled up napkins with cutlery in them? Someone has to do that rolling up every day, like this worker at the Lazy Gecko:
And even though it may not look it, I'm sure working the bar at Captain Tony's ("Florida's Oldest Bar") has to be hard work. He's the one leaning up against it, not the dude with the back pack who is I think a customer and was probably hoping his mom didn't know where he was:
Perhaps it's the not-so shorts, they are youth enhancing. I should take notes I suppose for my wardrobe. And what would Duval be without it's energetic cyclists?
On the subject of bicycles i saw this rather trim cruiser propped up against the wall. Then I saw the
No Trespassing sign and then I thought how valuable that sign is. I was just about to consider trespassing up that manky moldy looking wall on Telegraph Lane, but I was saved by the presence of that stern signage:
I stayed on the street and mold free. Kino Plaza was around the corner and looking good in the sunlight:
Sunlight there may have been, all over downtown, but not enough apparently for this spendthrift:
By the time I was back on Greene Street I had time to wonder how lucky, or smart one might be to make a living selling kites and similar apparatus:
And for the love of Art someone built this biplane, not for sale but decoration:
Gotta go, I hear my wife calling,
Duplicity's playing at the Tropic. Tour's over.
I cannot deny it, I have been thinking about cruising by sail once again. The facts are against any possibility of taking off on a sailboat in the near future but I cannot deny the thoughts that have filtered into my brain. My wife and I were discussing our Plan B in the event our parlous balancing act of income versus massive mortgage fails to stay balanced, and I got to remembering travels past. I wonder if perhaps moving back onto a boat, forced to abandon our pretty little canal side home would be so bad? Well, actually I think it would be. Nevertheless, faced with the requirement, we both know we could live on a boat again if we had to.
My thoughts of cruising are fueled by the time of year; I know hurricane season is scarcely weeks away but this is when I like to be in the Bahamas, when the weather is warm and the waters are hot. This is the time of year the crowds have left and the islands are quiet. And even though a June hurricane is a possibility, early and late season storms tend to form in the Western Caribbean where the waters are warmer at those times of year. As you can tell I have given a fair bit of day dreaming time over to the notion of going sailing. 
The fact is, I have turned a corner. For the first time my itchy feet are quiet. I like my life, my wife, my job, my surroundings. What's not to like? I grant you cross country skiing is in short supply, mountain biking is feeble and river rafting is not possible, as there are no rivers down here, but for a tropical sloth like me, a day in the life of the Florida Keys is almost as good as a day afloat in the Great Exumas. Better, if you look at my wheels, under the sun at twenty four degrees North Latitude:
Smathers Beach is a pretty modest strand by Florida standards, but it does okay for the people who turn out to enjoy the sun, the shells, the coconut palms the breezes and the waters:
Taking off sailing would be hard to do when the house is underwater, while my current boat is a fine but modest 14-foot skiff. One needs time and money and both are in short supply, times have changed since the carefree 1990's... Besides which I don't want to give up my job, my commute, my home and all the things that tie me down. I am looking forward to a second growing season in my garden, hopefully more productive as I learn from my mistakes and make some modifications pointed out by my more experienced friends (thanks Celia!). It used to be that I spent my time plotting and planning my escape, nowadays I am domesticated, aground in a world that somehow keeps my interest.
A walk on the beach, a trip out to the swimming hole in the boat and I am always in awe of this place that I call home. I surprise myself by my domesticity after spending most of my life as a nomad. Stationary societies tend to look down on nomads with envy and suspicion all mixed together. A common complaint from Key West residents is of people living in vehicles on city streets, they want them moved along. I, obedient public servant set the wheels in motion,unable to stop myself thinking about all the miles I've covered, hobo-like, motorcycling through towns resistant to the beauty of a life lived "on the road."
The village elders used to remind the youngsters of the fables of Aesop to pass on the collective wisdom, but as my friend William pointed out recently in a moment of insight, the collective wisdom has been supplanted by the electronic message of television and the Internet. Nowadays youngsters travel the electrons, not the highways, and nobody bothers to teach them the widsom of Aesop.
It is their loss if they think the Internet could be as intimate a journey as a real road trip. We live our life in small increments. We work, we play, we move we vacation. Cruise ships come to Key West for a few hours and their residents "do Key West" between lunch and dinner, all they time they are allowed.
I have spent the past two years making almost daily observations on these few islands with no end in sight. So here I am, a member of a fixed community, a reliable pendulum between home and work, and at last I like it.
Horrors! I must be maturing.
It's proper name is the Dante Fascell Bridge, named for an industrious Dade County member of the US Congress, whose photo I append here from their roll:
He was born in New York and went to law school in Miami and served in Congress for decades, more precisely from 1954 to 1993, and he died in 1998. Perhaps his crowning achievement was the creation of the Biscayne National Park in 1968 (and which itself deserves an essay). Spend any time in South Florida;s open spaces and Dante Fascell's name will pop up. He also has a research boat with the marine sanctuary named after him. This is the view north from the bridge looking at Long Key:
I am fond of the Long Key Bridge because it is extremely handy for passing slow pokes, as it is about two and a half miles long and the yellow line is dotted all the way. The only thing to be careful of is the hump at the southern end that can mess with your sight lines. The beauty of Keys bridges is that visitors like to slow down to admire the water which makes it easy to zip past them.
That isn't the only reason to enjoy the bridge, it does have some pretty views, including this section of the Gulf side of Long Key which reminds me of the Bay Islands of Honduras
I got these three pictures by way of comparison from the excellent site aboututila.com:
Nowadays the Flagler bridge is a most excellent walking, jogging, biking and fishing pier:
To prevent critters like this from tangling themselves in it:
Fishing was on the mind of this man who scrambled down under the main bridge to try his hand, not successfully apparently because later I saw him walking back to his vehicle, an 18-wheeler! Quite the enterprising trucker, I thought.
Fishing isn't the only sport. A period of sustained southeast winds has raked the Keys with gusts to thirty miles per hour and this couple figured their own entertainment in the conditions:
I was on a mission with no time for frivolities, so I had to saddle up and get going:
Taking a ride up the Keys on my day off was the name of the game.