A three o'clock lunch break and for some reason I wasn't sleepy so I took the Bonneville to Higgs Beach where i ate a Dion's chicken breast, drank a Zero coke and listened to some youngsters sitting on the sand strumming a guitar.
I was going to stroll over to ask for a picture but I thought that in my official badged shirt I might not look like the curious photographer on a lunch break that I was, so I left them to their playing. This was a 15 second exposure of the White Street Pier..
I am no great fan of street lights as they kill the night sky. But they illuminate a motorcycle nicely. I thought the gables on this house had a faintly South African air, all whitewashed as they were. 
White Street is the outer boundary of Old Town, the inhabited limits of Key West from it's founding in 1828 till after World War Two when city residents started developing and expanding into what is now New Town. The eastern part of the island was dairy farms and open space criss crossed by white gravel roads and paths.
For all my want of religious belief I do like posing the Bonneville in front of illuminated churches at night. This is the Spanish language Baptist church. 
The national Weather Service claims to have been serving Key West since 1870. An enviable record, no doubt and now that have a worthy headquarters in the modern style. The weather station used to be on the Navy Base where Truman Annex is now.
I may not have been sleepy but not everyone enjoys my nocturnal hours. I have often thought my job would be ideal for a vehicle dweller as you would be asleep in your car in daylight when it is socially acceptable to be parked in a park snoring. 
I am so bourgeois I enjoy having a place to call home. This is home to much of the night time activity on White, the hub of the Citgo and Chevron all night gas stations. 
The Citgo shown above sells Dion's chicken and has a rather extensive mini mart. 
Some people swear by the Chevron's coffee. By day the Chevron has a mechanic's shop where my friend William labors on cars. Gas prices are edging up. Luckily most people around here don't drive as much as I do so the cost is relative. 
My lunch break ran out before I could complete the street so I limited myself to this view due north toward Southard Street and Porter Place public housing.
And this view south, whence I had come, a series of traffic lights and the inimitable Sandy's all night coffee shop.
And with a last gratuitous shot of the Bonneville at rest... 
...it was time to go back to work. A short hour it seemed.
I was going to stroll over to ask for a picture but I thought that in my official badged shirt I might not look like the curious photographer on a lunch break that I was, so I left them to their playing. This was a 15 second exposure of the White Street Pier..I am no great fan of street lights as they kill the night sky. But they illuminate a motorcycle nicely. I thought the gables on this house had a faintly South African air, all whitewashed as they were. 
White Street is the outer boundary of Old Town, the inhabited limits of Key West from it's founding in 1828 till after World War Two when city residents started developing and expanding into what is now New Town. The eastern part of the island was dairy farms and open space criss crossed by white gravel roads and paths.For all my want of religious belief I do like posing the Bonneville in front of illuminated churches at night. This is the Spanish language Baptist church. 
The national Weather Service claims to have been serving Key West since 1870. An enviable record, no doubt and now that have a worthy headquarters in the modern style. The weather station used to be on the Navy Base where Truman Annex is now.
I may not have been sleepy but not everyone enjoys my nocturnal hours. I have often thought my job would be ideal for a vehicle dweller as you would be asleep in your car in daylight when it is socially acceptable to be parked in a park snoring. 
I am so bourgeois I enjoy having a place to call home. This is home to much of the night time activity on White, the hub of the Citgo and Chevron all night gas stations. 
The Citgo shown above sells Dion's chicken and has a rather extensive mini mart. 
Some people swear by the Chevron's coffee. By day the Chevron has a mechanic's shop where my friend William labors on cars. Gas prices are edging up. Luckily most people around here don't drive as much as I do so the cost is relative. 
My lunch break ran out before I could complete the street so I limited myself to this view due north toward Southard Street and Porter Place public housing.
And this view south, whence I had come, a series of traffic lights and the inimitable Sandy's all night coffee shop.
And with a last gratuitous shot of the Bonneville at rest... 
...it was time to go back to work. A short hour it seemed.
Life in the Keys is different and for some reason some people learn to adapt and thrive here and others fail miserably. I'm not sure what it is about living here but in part I believe some people have overblown expectations, some people have ambition and some people have no idea what they are letting themselves in for. Face it: the best most rewarding jobs are all taken. Sure you can start your own business and compete with already established well known organizations, but if you, like me, enjoy being a wage slave you will be hard pressed to find a job that pays the equivalent cash or satisfaction of what you do now (assuming you have a position where you are). I am extremely fortunate that I have a job I love in a place that respects me and gives me room to enjoy my job. My wife as I shall explain landed her job by sheer chance and determination and luck. You can land your dream job but if you can't do you still want to be here? Life in the Keys is close quarter living; you will see the same faces, the same vehicles and the same places over and over again. The art of living in a small space requires tolerance and the ability to turn a blind eye. If you are a control freak and think everyone should learn from you, the master, you will rapidly lose any chance at all of making a go of life in the Keys. Things get done a certain way here not because it is the most efficient or sensible way to you but because it works for what needs to get done, and paradoxically that usually is the best way to do things here! Often there is a secret Byzantine hierarchy that controls certain activities and threatening the power structure is never a good thing. The best advice I give newcomers is not to make waves, not to have any opinions and never ever have anything bad to say about anyone. You never know who is related to whom, who sleeps with whom, who wishes they could sleep with whom or who used to sleep with whom and have remained friends anyway. Start talking shit about people and it will come back to haunt you in a hurry. Get a bad reputation and Key West will close ranks on you. You get work, you make friends by invitation. And no one wants to work or play with a fink or a grouch.
In the larger picture I don't believe this is a very good time to be making a change in your life. It seems to me the musical chairs of the boom years has stopped and wherever one is when the music stopped playing is exactly where one is likely to have to stay for a while. Easy for me to say, I suppose. I like my house, my job and my location generally. I wake up every afternoon and look out the window at the sun playing on the palm leaves outside my house and I know this is where I want to be. I actually miss going to work sometimes even though I like being home with my wife and dog. I have more and better friends than ever and I don't want anything much to change in my life... In a society where people are used to packing up and making a change at the drop of a hat the new reality of high unemployment, shrinking wages and general immobility is going to be hard to take. Frankly I'm pissed off that the banksters have fucked up the world economy so much that even little old me could have his comfy middle class life affected by their greed. Happily Cheyenne plods on regardless and cheers me up when I read how world food prices are set to keep going up and starve more and more pissed off people around the world.
Key West is in many respects a little south of reality. The economy here is not hurting near as much as one hears about Up North. Housing prices have dropped a bit but for the most part houses remain largely unaffordable- especially considering how hard it is to qualify for a loan these days. There are a few fixer upper homes for around $300,000 but compared to what you can buy on mainland Florida house prices have a certain air of unreality about them, despite large numbers of foreclosures on the market. Lower Keys homes have dropped a lot more than those in town. I have asked around among my colleagues who rent and here is a run down of rough rental prices in the city for reasonable units most likely not deep in Old Town. The more picturesque your place the more it will cost and the more functionally uncomfortable it will be. For a two bedroom two bath (thus with potential for a room mate) $1500. Two bed one bath possibly $1300, and for a "real" one bed unit $1200 and a nice studio $1,000. A starting dispatcher's salary will pay one full check for rent at prices like these. It's not uncommon therefore for people to hold down at least two jobs...or for middle aged people to re-learn how to live with a roommate. Ugh!
Speaking with people familiar with the hospitality trades the same applies. People who are known quantities in town get the best jobs, and networking is everything. It used to be easier of course but... In the matter of jobs it's easier to get a job when you are settled in town, but looking at those rental prices it means coming to town with something like $5,000 in your pocket just to get started. Or you could sleep among the working poor and homeless on a mattress in a dormitory at the Keys Overnight temporary Shelter on Stock Island...it's free but it's not what people come to the Keys to do, to live among the indigent. 
For those that have supportive partners, that can live in close quarters and can find and hold down as many jobs as needed to pay the bills, life can be very good. There are of course restrictions, no lakes rivers or streams, no hills within 800 miles, no skiing, no frost, no freeways and not much shopping. The joy of living without a car can translate into island fever or "rock fever" as it's known. Lots of people in Key West rarely get out on the water, and as they hate to drive rarely get out of town never mind drive to Miami for a change of pace of a weekend. Me? I like living outside Key West. I have space around my house, perfect peace and quiet especially in the long hot summer months and with a dock and a skiff tied up behind my house my wife and I go swimming in the ocean five days a week when the waters are warm. That we don't go fishing is one of those cruel ironies that we live here and don't enjoy one of the best local sports available...
And then there are hurricanes. These can be a total pain in the ass especially if they keep showing up one after the other all summer long, as has happened in summers past. If there is a likelihood of the city or county being hit officials will issue a mandatory evacuation order. All that means is if you elect to stay behind you can count on not getting any help when the winds start to blow. Some people make a point of swaggering and ignoring official warnings, my strategy is a little different. As soon as the schools close my wife packs the dog and her evacuation bag in the car and drives north to stay with friends. I close up the house and retire to the police station when we get locked down.
Hurricanes get a lot of press because they seem dramatic but more people seem to die in mid western floods from overflowing rivers than die in our storms. I can't think of one death attributable to hurricanes in Key West at least since Georges in 1998. However hurricanes do produce tornadoes and destruction from the embedded twisters can be quite dramatic. The chance of losing one's home is ever present. Renting has that advantage too.
It is difficult to overstate the isolation produced by living in the Lower Keys (those islands south of the Seven Mile Bridge). Get used to the idea that you will be a long way from what you know, your friends and family. You will have to live for quite a while in Key West, maybe as long as three years before people start to get used to seeing you around and trusting that you might be staying long enough to make it worth their while to invest the time in getting to know you better. It gets tiring meeting people and then having them "go home" just when you get to know them. This creates a rather reticent society, so plan on taking your time getting to make new friends.
Do you enjoy rock climbing? Mountain biking? Hiking in mature forests? Waterfalls? Shopping? Activities are limited but you make life your way in this collection of small lumps of flat rock scattered across the ocean. Me? I am not fond of gatherings. I like to go out and be with friends, but I'm not interested in costumes and balls and parties with a bunch of strangers so you won't see me around town much unless I get dragged there by the scruff of the neck. I don't drink in bars but I do like going to the Tropic Cinema. I like Goombay for the food, the local's parade during Fantasy Fest though lately it has been suffering from excess participation in my book, and the Holiday Parade in December. Other than that I'm not much for food festivals standing around in the sun eating stuff I can buy much more comfortably in a restaurant. I doubt they miss my participation as tons of people do enjoy that stuff. I used to like Sculpture Key West a lot more when it was located solely at Fort Zachary instead of being scattered across town...but I am not fond of change as a general rule. That's a bad thing as in Key West things are changing all the damned time.
Key West is a multi faceted jewel in the respect that my life here is likely to be completely unlike anyone else's and my perception of what works and what is worthwhile can appear completely wrong to that someone else. Naturally the more gregarious are out and about all the time, the wealthy view a lot of the tedious money calculations as pointless, or worse as tacky, God forbid, and oftentimes one tends to forget the struggle it took to get settled here. Yet in trying to paint an honest picture one tends to come across I think as excessively morose and too focused on the aggravating details. For instance visitors often wonder why I don't want to live in charming Old Town and ride a bicycle everywhere, and I am at pains to point out that my fuel burning 27 mile commute is fun, I look forward to the ride every work night! I live in the Keys and I am not supposed to enjoy driving. What can I say? I like having offsets alongside my home to give me some distance from my neighbors, I don't like roosters and I loathe having drunks puking in my yard or screaming their way down the street at 4am.
I am sensitive to noise so living with crowing roosters and lots of neighbors close by while trying to sleep in the middle of the day would be hard for me. On Ramrod Key I live cocooned in blissful silence. To my way of thinking living outside Key West is proper Keys living with starry nights overhead unblemished by street lights, easy access to the water and space to enjoy views across the open spaces of the Lower Keys.
Here at Simonton Olivia is flanked by two distinctive wooden houses. This one on the north corner.
Not every narrow street is one way in Key West but Olivia is, outbound, which is to say away from Duval Street.
Palms and picket fences, and it's a pity it's too expensive they say to bury electrical cables.
from the outside it's just another little white structure, on Olivia at Elizabeth.
