Northside Drive

Northside Drive is a useful but unappealing street that runs parallel to the major thoroughfare of North Roosevelt Boulevard.


It's useful because it goes east from Kennedy Drive and services the loading docks at the rear of Searstown. It also provides access to the shopping center and the six screen mainstream movie theater.


On the south side of the street there is a bunch of housing including the curiously named Mariner's Cove.


I wondered about the name and apparently it was originally intended as affordable housing for people connected with the sea. These days anyone can apply for affordable housing.


Next to the apartment complex are the offices of the Key West Citizen an unassuming building Tucked out of sight behind a row of trees, most conspicuous thanks to then orange newspaper boxes lining the parking lot.


Thusly:


This is the surgery center on Toppino Drive across from the newspaper offices. When it opened it was supposed to provide competition for the Lower Keys Medical Center on Stock Island, the Lower Keys hospital. From what I've heard they do a nice job. My city insurance doesn't rate this facility so I got my colonoscopy at the hospital and survived just fine.


The other side of the street is the loading dock area for the restaurants and stores in the shopping center. Not attractive but extremely useful. You won't see tours and trains around here.


Solana Village is another apartment complex.


It doesn't look too bad at all behind the super tall security fence.


The view isn't ideal in this direction and trucks do make deliveries but it's a convenient place to live.


Boats on city streets are not allowed technically but it is a common problem that neighbors call the police to act upon.


Northside Drive is also the scene of accidents and not everyone gets out alive, worse luck.


More housing, here in the form of the largest trailer park in Key West.


Stadium is huge by local standards with every conceivable type of mobile residence packed in row upon row.


So there it is, Key west's seamy underbelly! Even tourist towns need their housing and loading docks and all that boring stuff.


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Key West Bight

It feels like summer, it looks like summer though it isn't yet officially even Spring.


It seems so carefree doesn't it? Hanging in the Key West harbor.


It's where people come and go and take day trips on the water.


I was checking out the equipment on the traveler's boats, like the classic wind generator on the back of this sail boat. It's the sort of tool travelers use on longer cruises, to enjoy the benefits of home made electricity.


The classic glowing teak stern rail marks the back of one of the classic square diggers that take tourists on sailing trips.


They don't just offer classic teak either, alcohol flows.


The front of the Appledore (the bowsprit to be technical) versus the stern of the Western Union in the distance.


The life of a paid sailor seems romantic to youngsters especially it seems to those raised far from the ocean in icy land bound states. They come to Key West in winter and sail to New England for summers.


They sell tickets on the boardwalk for the trips.


And park their Sportsters in front of "No Parking" signs.


It's where the visitors come for an afternoon stroll to check out the waterfront.


Key West Bight.

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92 In The Shade Movie

This essay was first posted December 22nd 2007, a review of a classic Key West film that would make a pleasant afternoon's entertainment on these seasonably windy afternoons we are having this Spring in the Keys. In the Caribbean the strong winds in winter are known as The Christmas Trade Winds; here in the almost-Caribbean we have powerful Spring winds most years.

A sunny afternoon at home with one's feet up.

" I guess I've had an adventure. At least I moved to Key West. I thought I was leaving the real world behind." So says Peter Fonda's father William Hickey, in the movie 92 In The Shade, as he tries to dispense fatherly advice in the face of a threat against the life of his son. The film was made in 1975 on location in Key West, which is probably its greatest claim to fame. The plot is simple, the pacing languid and the characters not too complex, which happens to work well enough for the setting. Some parts of the film are depressingly true to 21st century life in Key West, and the old saying about the more things change the more they stay the same comes ringing through. I noticed the Pirate Torture Museum of Key West as a backdrop in one night scene, so I guess the Pirates in Key West myth has been propagated for some considerable time, and visitors have been bamboozled by that one for decades apparently. The waters, the fishing the beaches are all in place as they always have been. The streets are similar, the houses and greenery lining them are there and the essential quality of other worldliness that attracts people to Key West is in evidence. Old bars, long gone will cheer the hearts of old timers, but my brief visit in 1981 wasn't stamped strongly enough to enable me to remember much. I think the other side of Key West, the drab, hard scrabble, know-nothing booziness is clearly portrayed in a way that looks cool on film but reminds one that life in Key West has long been nasty and tough. The plot is simple enough. Tom Skelton is a talented flats fisherman and gets hazed by the old timers on the dock who are threatened by his potential. Warren Oates plays Nichol Dance, Fishing Guide and all around nasty guy. Tom doesn't take kindly to the practical joke Nichol plays on him, and overreacts to establish his turf and the retaliation spirals down from there. Throw in Burgess Meredith as his weird old monied grandfather, a bra-less girlfriend, Elizabeth Ashley and a crusty Greek Chorus played by Harry Dean Stanton and all Key West needs to be is a pretty backdrop. That's what its about really, its just a B movie set in the Fabulous Florida Keys, and the locations are real even if moved around a little.

Bridge Fishing

I like the old Flagler Bridge that connects Cudjoe to Sugarloaf Keys.


Cheyenne likes it too and she enjoys wandering the bushes next to the bridge also.


While people stand like mannequins dipping dead worms in the water Cheyenne stumped down to water level to make sure there wasn't any edible trash going to waste.


I can't say I have ever understood the attraction of the sport, and after years in the Keys, paradise for anglers, I still don't.


The views are pleasant enough.


And the bridge itself has been beautifully refurbished by the great State of Florida.


Cheyenne loves to hunt for abandoned bait fish.


With a strong east wind blowing up Bow Channel the waters take on a steely gray color.


But for these people chasing fish is more important than checking out pansy views.


Some people like to spend money chasing fish on the water.


Women can be martyrs to fish hunters. This one I don't get at all. Many women love to fish, you see them all the time on the bridges with poles, but to be out here wind blown and bored without even a book (or a Kindle) blows my mind.


Te bridge is also home to families cycling together. They liked Cheyenne but happily my pink Crocs kept them at bay.


And to cap it all we found dead fish strewn around the parking area. Raw fish does not appeal to Cheyenne but she gave them some close scrutiny before leaving them where she found them.


And I scrutinized this abandoned bra for some time trying to figure out what the story could possibly be. Nothing good I think.


I have no idea how the bloodmobile got into this essay, but here it is on it's way to Summerland Key for a round up of donors.


I have a rather rare blood type but can't give because I had Heptatis A, contracted in Africa when I was a wild motorcycling youth and not very conscious of cleanliness as I camped rough through Nigeria and Cameroon and ate whatever I found. The interior of the bus is therefore a mystery to me and all the more fascinating for it.


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Pelicans

Like Amanda on her Bassett's BVI blog in the British West Indies I too like pelicans.


A little black speck in a large wind blown ocean.


Which manifests itself as a graceful pair of wings hauling the round body aloft.


Soon they will all be buggering off to some other place for the summer. Kansas perhaps like the human snowbirds.


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Spring Break Road Hell

It is inevitable if you drive US Highway One with any regularity...


Traffic slows, and the brake lights appear and your heart sinks when you realize you are dead in the water on the only through road in the Fabulous Florida Keys.


In these first pictures I was driving north bound past Square Grouper on Cudjoe Key Thursday evening where I encountered a serious accident, what police call a traffic homicide investigation or T.H.I. That doesn't necessarily mean someone died, just that the wreck must be investigated with great thoroughness because people severely injured may die later and in a wreck when the evidence is gone, if it was not properly recorded it will never come back.


The Square Grouper is one of the finest restaurants south of the seven mile bridge and had I not had a pizza date at home with my wife on the deck I would have been tempted to yield to the temptation of the ugly red roofed building.


The restaurant is right next to a broad intersection which sometimes tempts idiots into passing and other idiots to cross the Highway without looking. Whatever happened here they forced a lengthy, aggravating road closure. I blame youthful testosterone filled drivers and I have no evidence to back my suspicions...


I have talked to traffic investigators at Key West PD where I dispatch and to me it would be the specialization I would prefer were I to become an officer (in another life because in this one I don't have the stomach for police work) because the body of knowledge and the ability to recreate the sequence of events before impact is quite fascinating.


And while they measure and calculate we the public sit on our hands and wait. Or, if we are lucky enough, we get to slide by on a small piece of frontage road. Of course the rubber-neckers keep the pace to a slow and intermittent crawl!


Thursday night not enough mayhem? There was more action, or rather inaction, early yesterday afternoon which gridlocked traffic south of Big Pine. I went happily off to do some chores, none of which involved buying fresh or frozen food luckily, and was promptly mired in the merde. Zut alors! Seen here stationary for an hour among the Torch Keys.


Unfortunately this kind of stuff is to be expected from time to time and the blessing of the road that makes a peninsula of all these islands, promptly becomes a curse.


Cheyenne was bored on the back seat and some bored human nipnunks took short cuts, hopefully to their homes on intermediate islands.


Luckily this time I had the car and my iPad and the a/c was cool on an 86 degree afternoon so all was not lost.


Please drive carefully when visiting, be patient, and don't drive like the locals who know the quirks of the road. Plus, if stuck dial *FHP to find out what's going. Please don't call 911, as we don't consider being stuck in traffic an emergency, just an inconvenience in Paradise.


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