Wandering Elizabeth

If one wants to rent a place in Key West September and October are a great time to find a place, before the winter rush fills the city up. Rents aren't cheap though.Work to live and live to work. I'm guessing the electricity is included because there isn't a separate meter most likely. Or, if you have a spare $900,000 you could just buy your own place, a little further up Elizabeth Street. There's even a separate unit in the building one could rent out to help pay the horrendous mortgage. It all sounds rather pre-2008 when real estate was an investment, supposedly.I like the idea of these hurricane shutters for inaccessible windows. In summertime it's air conditioning all the way for most people and they don't need to throw windows open... My shutters are made of corrugated aluminum and I only put them up when a storm actually threatens. I have walkways all round my house so mine are easy to install.

The Key West library lurks on the corner of Fleming Street, daytime home to the dispossessed as well as those seeking videos and books and computer time. Patrons arrive on an array of bicycles.

I am fascinated by the human need to accumulate stuff. If us middle class people could pack all our crap onto a modest bicycle we would consider ourselves bereft. Though why the most mobile part of our community wants to burden itself with plastic bags filled with crap as they pedal from refuge to refuge I couldn't say.

Stuff is an anchor but an emotional reassurance too and hard to let go. The book drop looks hurricane proof: Some of us bring back oddities from distant travels. This porch ornament look Asian to me, perhaps Indonesian? I caught sight of it across Elizabeth Street from the library as Cheyenne wandered the library parking lot. It got me thinking.Perhaps it just came out of a papier-mache class at the college. The library is actually county property and a Sheriff's deputy gets a detail working here keeping order during the day.And the inevitable rooster even though pets are eschewed at the library.

A hurricane proofed shed.

The garden next to the library is a pleasant place to eat a sandwich when it's open.

Back on the street I spotted these skylight hatches apparently protected from cascading rain by tin eyebrows on the steeply pitched roof.

I may be horribly wrong but I think this is a frangipani flower. I hope mine does the same some day (thank you Tim in Seattle for the plant).

More crap laden bicycles, this time at the front of the library. Aside from the sheer boredom of being homeless the inability to put anything down must be exhausting.

This magnificent palm species deserves a place on North Roosevelt Boulevard alongside the controversial coconut palms. I wonder what it is?

People wonder at my pink Crocs. Fair enough, but let me wonder at the choice of a Salmon pink car. Perhaps it was purchased when the Prius was in huge demand and you got what you were given, Soviet style.

And, leaving Old Town, this picture that has nothing to do with anything on the Overseas Highway on Stock Island.

Scooter riders who drag their feet look stupid. And that is your unsolicited, opinionated, pointless comment for the day. Other bossy control freaks will nag on about people riding without the proper gear. I'll leave that to them. Those dragging feet irritate me.

Circling Caroline

I was intrigued by the lateral thinking on this attachment for a hurricane fence on Stump Lane.Then, as I trailed my dog, I noticed similar improvisation at a home apparently not occupied and locked up tight. No Parking where chains and locks protect the empty space. The garage door behind it was also secured with a metal pipe locked and bolted.Further up the lane I spotted a fine pedestal for a modest mailbox. Walking the streets of Key West with a camera (and a dog) has that effect on me. I keep seeing things that tickle my fancy, things that give me pause. And out comes the camera. This next sign in the Cuban Joe's marine hardware store looked like it was addressed to boats rather than cars, after the recent downpours.This is an area prone to flooding along Caroline Street. The ticket machine sign wasn't very accurate as there were two working machines, not 25 yards away across the parking lot. Nowadays the city lot is unstaffed and the barrier is gone. The idea is to park and buy a ticket and run the risk of getting a parking fine if you fail to so do.I noticed this apparent liveaboard boater wheeling his laundry back to the dinghy dock.Romantic notions of living at anchor could be dispelled by the realization that doing laundry in steamy heat and rainy conditions takes quite a bit of effort. or you could just smell the lavender.The Art Bar doesn't look like it's being remodeled. It just looks closed.
The New Market has been around for ever formerly known as Maun's, one more of those inconvenience stores that litter the landscape across Key West. This lot need to brush up on the spelling of medicene. What"all kinds of energy" means I'm not sure I want to know.
The big cement block of the Park and Ride garage at Grinnell looks out of place in Key West.
But it is home to a few geckos.

And what I think was a dead toad. I kicked it away with my foot but not before she had nibbled enough to make her throw up copiously a short while later. I enjoyed scraping that off the sidewalk with a plastic bag, but I did not have the presence of mind to photograph it...

A motorcycle, a banana tree and the open road. Or street at any rate.

Harpoon Harry's on Caroline Street looking toward Duval Street. I used to like the restaurant a lot but televisions hanging on the walls spoiled the place for me.
This venerable place services my water pumps and I am now worrying what will happen when they go. A coin phone.
I wonder how long they will be around.

Bonneville Towed

The question came up during Bike Week: why tow your motorcycle? Well, one reason might be if your wife is in California attending Pete's wedding in Santa Cruz, and Jiri has scheduled your bike for a service how are you going to get your bike to Stock Island from Ramrod Key?You could ride the Bonneville there and take the Lower Keys shuttle back. That would take a while and you'd have to leave Cheyenne at home. Using a trailer gets you, the bike and the dog to Stock Island. Drop off the bike, chat with Jiri, walk the dog, come home, shower, put on your uniform and drive to work ( dropping Cheyenne off at her godparents on the way). Nobody said my life was easy when my wife is away.I try to remember to hitch the trailer before I roll the motorcycle up the ramp. That avoids scratching the back of your newish-to-you Ford Fusion. Oh well. I put the motorcycle in gear and lower the side stand, just in case. I have a handlebar attachment that allows me to strap the bars down without hooking the straps directly to the bars.
I have found the bars tend to slide under pressure and turn down so in the future I will most likely attach the frame to the straps as I have two convenient attachment points on the frame. With the motorbike on the trailer I lay out my straps.
I use a couple of shop rags to prevent chaffing on the straps on the edges of the trailer. I use one bungee to strap the front brake and the other to hold the front wheel to the edge of the trailer.
The bungee is also a useful way to hold the strap in place until I can get proper tension on it.
My utility trailer is four feet wide and six feet long, small enough to park easily under the house. However it was a nice fit for my Vespa GTS and is a tight squeeze for the Bonneville so I need to keep the front wheel tight to the front of the trailer.
And up she goes. Keeping tension on the straps with the bungees the motorcycle is now balanced by it's handlebars.
The front brake is on and clamped...
And the bike is ready to go, thirty minutes after staring the process. Phew!

I check the bike out in the mirror before I set off so that if anything changes as I drive I can pull over and see what's happened. Typically the front wheel may settle and the headlight may turn as the bike bounces into a new position.
A half hour later the motorbike is on the ground at the shop on Stock Island.
I don't like to anticipate my projects for fear of jinxing them but I am hoping to get off on an attempt at an Iron Butt 1500 in early October so the Bonneville is getting not only new tires and tubes, which it needs anyway, but an early oil/filter change, new brake fluid and a caliper check, also a new chain and sprockets which Jiri recommended as the original chain is now 42,000 miles old. "That's twice normal" Jiri protested and he was worried that sustained 80 mile an hour riding could be catastrophic. He is impressed by the effectiveness of my Loobman chain oiler as the original chain and sprockets still look like new. I was impressed by this bumper sticker.
"Are you turning into a Bonneville shop?" I joked with Jiri. I appreciate the SE is a much lower bike but I prefer the slightly more upscale T100 which has better components and nicer styling in my opinion. The SE has a thinner seat, the Thruxton style mufflers, smaller (tubeless alloy) wheels and though it does have a tach it uses the spindly switchgear found on the Scrambler. Not my cup of tea, though I am surprised how the few changes make the two bikes look so....different.
Apparently some Key Wester bought the SE for his wife. I hope she enjoys it as much as I do my old work horse.
Jiri hates having his photo taken, so of course I like to piss off my trusted moto mechanic.
He grew up in the pre-1989 world of Czechoslovakia so he has a special fondness for brands of motorcycles i also remember from my youth.
Here's the cause of the towing trouble. If she could ride the bike and the bus with me we'd never have had to tow the trailer.
I'll see Jiri in a few days and I shan't forget to bring him something around $900 for his trouble. I hope the Iron Butt is worth it!