I am not fond of gated communities. I cannot stand the idea of being told what to do by a block committee. I find the notion of hiding out behind locked gates rather caddish, as though the rest of the world is simply too awful to commune with. But another gated community has sprawled it's way onto the eastern end of key West: 
It is a whole bunch of developments imaginatively called:
And happily decay and decadence is already penetrating the manicured perfection of the place:
They drove out Houseboat Row so this place could get built and overlook Cow Key Channel without being bothered by little people living on boats.In that, they were only partly successful:
The complex has bunches of high rise buildings grouped around a central traffic circle (roundabout):
There's the Grand Key Hotel equipped they say with a nice pool and bar open to locals at no hassle:
Las Salinas consists of more-or-less affordable apartments: 
And the newer Seaside Court apartments lining the entrance off South Roosevelt Boulevard:
These are not designated affordable, not in the least. They were charging something like 1.4 million dollars when land speculation was at it's height a few years ago and these units are not terribly spacious. Imagine paying that much for an apartment you use but a few weeks of the year...
But they are within spitting distance of saltwater:
I had planned to do a little exploring especially as I like to know the lay of the land when I'm at work sending officers out to these places in the middle of the night. But peeking through the gates gave me the idea that short of a few Stepford Wives there wouldn't be much to see:
I should have liked to have seen whatever it was that caused these spectacular skid marks...
I was quite cheered up to see an actual person walking an actual dog in this place:
If anyone has a notion to buy into this community there is a real estate office ready to serve on the premises:
There is also a deli in the little business complex next to the traffic circle:
In looking at the building and then the sign advertising it's presence I find it to be a perfect irony that the symbol they use, a houseboat, had to be destroyed to make way for this clump of buildings:
Houseboat Row is gone: long live the memory of houseboat row!
Fifteen miles per hour was too slow to escape this manicured place.
It is a whole bunch of developments imaginatively called:And happily decay and decadence is already penetrating the manicured perfection of the place:They drove out Houseboat Row so this place could get built and overlook Cow Key Channel without being bothered by little people living on boats.In that, they were only partly successful:The complex has bunches of high rise buildings grouped around a central traffic circle (roundabout):There's the Grand Key Hotel equipped they say with a nice pool and bar open to locals at no hassle:Las Salinas consists of more-or-less affordable apartments: And the newer Seaside Court apartments lining the entrance off South Roosevelt Boulevard:These are not designated affordable, not in the least. They were charging something like 1.4 million dollars when land speculation was at it's height a few years ago and these units are not terribly spacious. Imagine paying that much for an apartment you use but a few weeks of the year...But they are within spitting distance of saltwater:I had planned to do a little exploring especially as I like to know the lay of the land when I'm at work sending officers out to these places in the middle of the night. But peeking through the gates gave me the idea that short of a few Stepford Wives there wouldn't be much to see:I should have liked to have seen whatever it was that caused these spectacular skid marks...I was quite cheered up to see an actual person walking an actual dog in this place: If anyone has a notion to buy into this community there is a real estate office ready to serve on the premises:There is also a deli in the little business complex next to the traffic circle:In looking at the building and then the sign advertising it's presence I find it to be a perfect irony that the symbol they use, a houseboat, had to be destroyed to make way for this clump of buildings:Houseboat Row is gone: long live the memory of houseboat row!Fifteen miles per hour was too slow to escape this manicured place.
Over the past three years I have come to enjoy returning to my roots, a place where I wasn't at all happy growing up and whence I never returned in 25 years of emigration. Our family home, all 50 rooms of it, has stood brooding for eight hundred years in the village where I grew up, more history than I really wanted to deal with then, or now. My 700 square foot stilt home on Ramrod Key is old because it was built in 1987:
Morruzze has seen very little excitement over the centuries, just seasons of growing and harvesting. Our home was taken over by the German army in World War Two as the allies advanced up the Italian peninsula. My grandfather went into hiding and helped allied airmen and resistance fighters to escape the round-ups, so they posted a plaque on the wall of his house in gratitude to celebrate his bravery. Since then the village has been as quiet a spot as you could wish. It always seemed to me to be a good place to run away from.
I spent my summers in my hat playing in the dirt with my buddy Diego and riding mopeds with Giovanni, which is what I still do when get together, here avoiding a downpour on the road to Spoleto. Giovanni is a good deal grayer and the mopeds have become a good deal bigger since then:
I'm ready for a vacation, be it ever so short, and I'm ready to ride some twisty roads with whatever BMW Giovanni has managed to line up for me. My family history? I'll try not to let it interfere with my riding pleasure.
That being the case I would turn north off Flagler at the white wall shown above which marks Leon Street. The white compound was built at this location after Hurricane Wilma flooded the area in 2005. This house is located across Flagler from this landmark:
It's actually a shrine, not a kennel for a bad dog. And this would be as good a spot as any for the obligatory Key West cyclist photo, in this case one who appears to have mislaid his diminutive passenger:
Leon Street is a bit of a pain to negotiate between Flagler and Catherine as every single cross street has a stop sign...
...forcing me to proceed in a herky jerky fashion.
I have tried out alternative streets but they none of them seem any more direct than this the most direct street. Besides Leon has lots of greenery to make it pretty:
This house has always appeared mysterious and desirable to me, hidden behind it's trees and its high fence:
This house is much more straight forward and more traditionally Florida in style:
And here we have what appears to be a home closed for the summer:
And the usual crop of brightly colored flowers, some I recognize, others I can't name:
Those last are oleanders, poisonous to eat but used frequently in Italy in median strips on the freeways. I know it's necessary as everything has a finite lifespan but I hate seeing trees get cut down:
I'd rather see trees trying to provide inadequate cover for a McMansion like these spindly palms:
The community garden is visible from Leon Street at May Sands School:
This is a place where urban gardeners come to make things grow:
Stuff grows everywhere in the Keys given a little bit of soil:
There are some squat apartment buildings as well on this picturesque thoroughfare:
Before Leon dead ends into the parking lot at Horace O'Bryant Middle school, which forces me to go around three sides of a square to get to the police station on the other side.
Because the House of Brats is a formidable obstacle, even when the youngsters aren't in residence:
North Roosevelt Boulevard is a far quicker, far more direct route, though not so interesting. 
I have been realising how much I miss riding,especially on Highway One which has been plagued with people doing very little to get out of my way on my commute. It's getting warmer too so I have been thinking about my last trip up to the Everglades with Bruce on his BMW: 
So naturally I look around and feel envious of people who are riding. Like this overloaded BMW looking like an Andean llama in the parking lot at the end of Front Street:
The machine was covered in dirt and stickers which gave the barest hint what the rider might have been doing:
Here today, gone tomorrow: seen Key West, cross that off the list...
Nearby I saw one my preferred scooters, an Aprilia Mojito, known as a Habana in the rest of the world that doesn't embargo Cuba. I like the Vespa-like looks with the low comfortable seat:
They don't import these scooters anymore which is a shame. I guess Piaggio which owns Vespa and Aprilia doesn't see any point in competing with it's own products, but there are a few of these machines left in Key West. This orange one was in Casa Marina:
This one was near the High School:
The Mojitos were offered with 50 or 150cc engines and with classic handlebars like these or with extravagant chrome motorcycle bars in the "Custom" version. I prefer the restrained good looks of a classic Italian scooter:
The one good thing about being stuck in the car is that one gets added opportunities to take pictures at random. This one I snapped in the mirror as I was driving down Eaton Street:
Of course I never wore a helmet when I was a child. Heads were harder perhaps or we hadn't been trained to be so fearful? And talking about the past I got a blast of history when I crossed paths with this shopping cart lurking on Thomas Street:
So, how long ago was it that Eckerd Drugs sold out to the national chain that goes by the rather bland initials of CVS? This cart reminded me why I keep this blog, because change is endemic to Key West. But somethings don't change much, including the wildlife, seen here on a sidewalk.
I stopped to let them clean their plates and immediately some other pedestrian stepped right into them. People need more vacation. that includes Giovanni, seen here in the mountains abaove Amalfi, south of Naples. 
We had a good time riding there last year. A couple of years before that I took my vacation in Corsica where we rode his BMW R1150 all over the island for two weeks. I even forgot to wear my helmet in the lonely fastness of Corsica's rebellious mountains:
On that subject we were at the doctor's recently where my wife was setting up an appointment for surgery on her shoulder which she injured at work. The secretary peered at my raw knee and asked what happened.
And working in that office she knows exactly which bones go where. They call this demonstrator skeleton Mr Bones which I think is rather cool so I snuck a couple of pictures when they weren't looking, I also took a peek inside the skull cavity which was, unhapppily, empty. Mr Bones' bones are all numbered and he grins all the time.
It must be exhausting being a skeleton. Just hanging there grinning madly.