Mile Zero

I am frequently reminded how unfortunate it is that tourists come to Key West and enjoy getting around on bicycles and scooters and then go home and fail completely to adapt any part of their suburban lives to using a bicycle as part of their daily transportation. And yet as this appreciative driver instinctively understands, a female cyclist in motion is a thing of beauty.Riding a bike with a minimum of skill is a thing of elegance. Or it can be a thing of physical pain. The pirate shown below is hanging 8 pounds (3.7 kilograms) of water from his arm. On the other hand a longer arm could be helpful to him in other areas of his life.
Friends let friends ride scooters and cruise Key West together. Cute aren't they? And remember they are getting miles to the cup of gasoline. What would happen if they behaved like this at home?This is my idea of the perfect wheels, sturdy sensible, a covered chain, lights and room for luggage. Across the street the tourist checking the map failed completely to walk into a car. I was hoping for a pratfall. Do not drag your feet as you ride a scooter or motorcycle. It looks stupid and illustrates the fact that you are an anti-science Tea Party member who doesn't understand how gyroscopes work. Plus, if you whack your foot at 25 miles an hour you will get a $30,000 bill from your health "insurance" company and you will walk with a limp for the rest of your life. I'm still limping a month after I rode my Bonneville over my ankle in Pennsylvania and I was wearing motorcycle boots at the time. One inflexible rule of being a Key West tourist is men always go at the front, walking, riding a tandem or cycling. Why? Ask riepe, I haven't a clue.Some lucky bastard is getting a Badboy Burrito delivered down Whitehead Street. The best (only) burritos in town get delivered by Vespa, of course. The best for the best.

A convertible for the fearful is the next best way to see the Key West sky. My wife is still enjoying her Sebring. And I am under orders to deliver her Vespa 150 to work for her to use around town. I have been prevaricating as I enjoy riding the ET4 from time to time. This was the whole point of this essay. Tourists taking pictures at the Mile Marker Zero sign, the start/end of Highway One down the US East Coast. This essay was suggested by a reader after I took pictures at the Southernmost Point and watched tourists taking pictures of themselves. On this occasion I had a moment between dog walks downtown and I sat at the county building waiting to see who would happen along. These were the only photographers who showed up so clearly I'll need to come back during the winter. They look pretty serious so there is potential for some fun pictures this winter.Bobskoot keeps threatening to show up in Key West with Jack riepe; I can hardly imagine Mr Fussy being dragged around the titty bars by Mr Foul. Bob is so wedded to the idea that he's sending Jack some money to help him get down here. Bob is a Corvette driver, though I don't think he's bringing his car as Jack and his arthritis wouldn't fit. Then the rain started and the government workers, the next privileged class to be dragged into insolvency by our homespun wild eyed clerics, discovered they had forgotten their umbrellas.Not many scooter riders carry waterproofs, so like the improvident virgins in the Good Book they find themselves without their lamp oil at the critical moment when it is most needed.

If you are bald and butch a little rain doesn't hurt. Get undercover and run a piece of newspaper over your head and you are ready for the wet t-shirt contest.There was another misanthrope sitting a few feet down form me in the arcade at the court house. He was amusing himself with a book, I was taking random pictures and Cheyenne was watching the world go by. We were all happy. Except the homeless dude who shambled off grumping, presumably because we were cluttering up his living room.
Finally, a sensible person properly equipped for the forecast.

Horrors! It dawned on me suddenly she only looks sensible from the ankles up.Sensible people started showing up from all points of the compass.Rain washed out my attempts to hang with the Parrotheads this past week. I was on my way Thursday and got massively washed out before work. Friday my appointment went late and so it went. So I took a commemorative picture instead.The zero mile marker has gathered a few extra signs over the years because I guess everyone wants a piece of the action. This sign is at Whitehead and Fleming Streets, an otherwise undistinguished intersection for one very good reason.

It's where the seat of power resides in Monroe County, the county court house, symbol of government. For some it is an oppressor, for others it offers shelter, so I left him to it.As an aside Wikipedia has a picture of the other end of the road, 2300 miles away.I expect Fort Kent, Maine is under six feet of snow by now. I wish them joy of it.

Johnson Street

It's the time of year in Key West when the snowbirds come back to roost in our midst and we are supposed to be grateful because they bring filthy lucre in their wake. Plus they prattle on about chickens and noise and parking and how things are done Up North. Because I am a graceless clod I resent their intrusions upon my life, the slow moving long lines of cars idling along Highway One, the retirees walking on my street and TALKING REALLY LOUDLY at 8:15 am just as I fall into a profoundly deep sleep. I see chickens and I wonder how people can find the energy to get annoyed at them. The fact remains I prefer ibis and herons and local wildlife that does the same good job of eating insects, but these wild birds do it with dignity and in silence, unlike the feral chickens.I got to thinking these thoughts when I saw the birds photographed above, while walking Cheyenne on Johnson Street.It also occurred to me that there were a fair number of still unoccupied homes so perhaps not everyone has arrived yet to escape winter, though it sometimes feel like they have.Quite a number will show up, throw back their hurricane shutters and air out their winter homes. But the holidays will intervene and they will hurry off back Up North to celebrate Christmas with snow and then they will be back in the New Year for a few months.These ruminations on winter migration patterns were induced possibly by the rainy weather and dark skies of the past few days, which have given way to a blast of cold air as winter starts to settle in, especially now that we have moved our clocks back an hour and the days are appreciably shorter. Darkness will close in around 6pm and the sun will rise around 6am on the winter regime of Eastern Standard Time.Key West is less wintry than many places not least because of the influx of money into this resort town.Palms and grass are a year round phenomenon here.It's better by Bonneville.

this section of Johnson Street, it occurred to me, is full of 1960's type Florida ranch homes.I get to use the space underneath my stilt home but these places have those splendid American inventions called car ports.

And lacking a car port there is room enough around here to park your mobile storage unit off city property more or less.All the charm of Key West home with none of the hassles of living in Old Town.Another old fashioned but entirely charming home.

As usual I have no idea what possess people to decorate their gardens the way they do.

Here's another car port.

These tin wraps on the trunk of the tree are supposed to keep rats at bay, I think, though one hardly ever sees them around here.

Strange people, strange dogs, what's the difference.From splendid mansions...

...to strangely decorated cars. This was labelled a boom box:

Another street, another day wandering Key West.

Summerland Wood

I liked the school bus stop but the presence of a tumbler, of the type used to sip whisky made a photo irresistible. I imagined the little dears sitting and waiting for the bus while refreshing themselves with a stiff 'un. I was never so lucky.

Put enough trees together and you make a tunnel. Sometimes you have to stare at the details to see the whole.

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A weather related note: we are in the throes of the first hard core cold front of the winter. We had one a few weeks ago but it was pretty mild. The second front of the Fall usually breaks the back of summer and with night time temperatures tonight predicted around 60 degrees I am off work and will be snuggled between my wife and my dog who will be pressed into service as a hot water bottle. I know 60 degrees (15 Canadian) doesn't seem like much to the lost souls Up North but the thing about temperatures is that they measure contrasts and it hasn't been that cold around here for a while.

This time of year the cold is a pleasant change. We will open a bottle of red wine, perhaps something we bought in New Mexico this past summer to remember the heat of Las Mesillas and Sunday morning we get to sleep in an extra hour. If Cheyenne wants to go out she lets herself out through her dog door, and she is already getting frisky with these cooler days. Of course the heat will come back in waves and we will soon be seeing temperatures around 80 or more degrees (28 C), but this weekend is one to savor as the first and refreshing cold weekend of the winter. By January I will have had enough and be looking forward to summer's heat once again. But for now I'm seeking out my sweatshirt and a down duvet to sit under in the living room as the wind howls and we pretend snow is falling outside. It will feel cold enough to us.