Frances Street By Night

As absurd as it sounds I have become quite fond of my utility vehicle, a mundane and unremarkable Ford Fusion. It takes night photography to make this 32 mile per gallon dog transporter look minimally flashy. I generally only drive the car when I can't use the motorcycle so I tend not to get too involved in the car ownership thing. I like sedans because they handle better and four doors are helpful when a Labrador is involved.

As much as I like motorcycles I have little or no interest in cars. Perhaps because they always seemed expensive to own and run especially compared to motorcycles that went a lot faster and used a lot less gas. Winter was a problem but a clunker got me through the critical snow filled months, so I don't have much of a history of owning interesting cars. A heater, windshield wipers and decent tires work for me.

We had had a splendid dinner at my wife's second favorite restaurant in Old Town so in an effort dissipate the effects of Key Lime Pie and Grouper and a surprisingly full bodied Tuscan white wine we went for a stroll in darkness from Café Sole on Southard Street.

Key West manages to look excellent in black and white and my phone camera does a brilliant job of capturing the monochrome images.

In a town with abundant greenery and Conch cottages every picture ends up looking atmospheric.

Even though It is winter and supposedly high visitor season the streets were pretty quiet around seven o'clock at night.

I could sent ours staring at palm fronds reflecting the light or stylized pineapples decorating fences.

But it was time to go home and my wife had indulged me long enough, me and my phone camera. I was a little wistful pondering the lives lived behind illuminated curtains but we had to get home to finish our plonk.

We got the best to go box for my wife's left over tuna, all wrapped swan-like in foil which was a lovely touch,

And there was plenty of San Gimignano white left over for a second tasting at home. As plonk goes it wasn't all bad.

Posted with Blogsy

Key West Cemetery

I posted pictures a while back of well known people interred here but there are lots of pictures to be taken in the cemetery.

The cemetery used to be at Rest Beach until a 19th century hurricane washed the coffins out of the ground and the burial ground was moved inland to the edge of town.

That the town grew out and surrounded the cemetery simply put these 19 acres in the middle of modern Key West. It was not originally intended to be in the middle of the city.

It is a tourist attraction as well, though the Sexton gets annoyed by people who treat his charges as though they were just attractions and not the last resting place of real people belonging to real families in town.

After many years of pleading with the city money and attention seems to be flowing into the cemetery with visible improvements to the signage, the care of the tombs, grass cutting and pointing of damaged cement.

 

The water table doesn't allow much digging, even if you had a mind to dig a hole in solid rock so people get their permanent resting places well above ground.

And those put in the ground suffer the consequences of the peculiar geography of this place. Subsidence happens.

The cemetery has a monument to the sinking of the USS Maine, which sank in Havana harbor in 1898 and whose sinking was a pretext for war which netted the US Puerto Rico and Guam and influence over the Philippines and Cuba. These days historians suggest wet coal gave off explosive gases in the hold that caused the sinking but it was the Gulf of Tonkin incident of its day.

The cemetery to my mind makes a good neighborhood for houses alongside its four sides, no bars no noise no living people.

Bicycle tours have been banned because the Sexton deemed them disruptive to funerals. Scooters suffered the same fate. He is the defender of the families not a facilitator of tourism, which makes him rather delightfully unique in this town dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure and money in equal measure.

There are lots of fascinating headstones here as in all elderly burial areas, and the stories aren't always clear. Three men, all of the same last name of similar ages dying within a year of each other.

In defiance of the One Human Family bumper stickers the cemetery is divided into different faiths, including the Catholics who live in death behind their own gate and the Jews who have their own corner.

Key West is home to the oldest synagogue in Florida, a fact that fills my wife with pride even though she married outside the tribe of Israel and is thus excluded from membership. There have been acts of vandalism here because nowhere is exempt from stupidity and swastikas have appeared on tombs.

The Jewish headstones do not always have the date of birth on them and flowers are not left on the tombs. One is supposed to leave a stone placed with the left hand (don't ask, I don't know why) as a mark of the visitor. It is said early Jewish tombs were marked with piles of stones and the stones visitors left were supposed to keep the tomb visible in their natural surroundings. Some seem to do better than others in the stone piling stakes.

And the aeroplanes fly overhead, in this case the seaplane from Fort Jefferson. Nowhere in Key West Seems to be exempt from noise, which is why I prefer to live outside the city.

If you are afraid of death don't be put off visiting the cemetery, it is filled with life. And tons of photographic opportunities. The Key West Historical Society offers guided tours if you want to do the job properly.

Key West Cemetery

 

Posted with Blogsy

Seascapes Under Gray Skies

Sometimes you need to stand at the water's edge and instead of looking forward to a hot summer's boating, you just need to stop and look at the horizon.

I love seascapes unruffled by wind and waves. It's like a huge Japanese meditation garden.

Unless you are my headless dog who prefers hunting in improbable places to enjoying the view.

A sentimental appreciation for Nature's beauty is not Cheyenne's strong suit.

Neither is it I dare say, for a flock of ibis going about their business at the park at Bay Point.

Posted with Blogsy

A Challenge To Love

Say what you like but it takes a special talent to love Marathon.

This is the heart of the Florida Keys?

Not only that but the city forces you to drive the north end at an absurdly slow speed until you get on the Seven Mile Bridge.

Marathon is a stretch of four lane Highway One on either side of Mie Marker 50, and the city makes no bones about its industrial roots. Where Key West is a tumble of wooden houses on narrow lanes, Marathon is a set of straight lines spiking off the Highway, those to the south described as "Ocean Side" those to the north as "Gulf Side."

Marathon wants tourists and some people do stay here in what is euphemistically called a family friendly environment which is to say Marathon does not have a reputation as a gay haven, which Key West does even though the gay component of the Southernmost Coty has been shrinking over the years.

The Border Patrol station was built here to much opposition as it was viewed as likely to bring the wrong element to town, which is kind of weird as the Border Patrol ere doesn't deal with what you might call hardened criminals. Most Cuban migrants want a fast ride to Miami and a new life with their prosperous American relatives.

I was amused to see the Bimbo Bread sign over the town. When i was traveling through Mexico I sued to see the brand for sale everywhere, the equivalent of US Wonder Bread, and equally tasteless. Amazing really in the land of delicious corn tacos.

Marathon isn't scenic, it's all light industry, boats fishing dust and zero landscaping.

Cheyenne naturally found a park with thick soft grass and a chance for a rest.

The boatyard was for sale with a few boats left over in the yard. It had an air of decrepitude and the usual dustiness of a boatyard.

Marathon has a few fish restaurants worth eating in and they do a lot of fish chasing in this town.

But for some people this really is the heart of the Florida Keys and its what they want for a vacation spot or a place to live. It's a bit bleak for me though we did consider buying a house here once.

I like the utility of certain stores, the Home Depot is easily accessible, there's a great liquor store in town and Publix for some reason is bigger and better in Marathon. I also like the Driver's License office and the hospital better than their equivalentsbin Key West. But most of my life is pointed at Big Pine and Key West and that's where I go. Crossing the Seven Mile Bridge to Marathon usually happens as part of a trip to the mainland and. Hats when Marathon s a 45 mph wide spot in the Highway. Besides I like the color and madness gays bringbt a community of boring straight people like me.

Posted with Blogsy

100 Montaditos

Key West needs another chain restaurant! Well, you wouldn't think so but I've never heard of anywhere quite like one hundred monta-deetos, a Spanish themed sandwich shop, that has landed in Key West on Fitzpatrick street across from Kino Sandals.

As locations go it's aimed at the tourist trade certainly but it makes for an interesting possibility for locals too, looking for a cheap and filling meal unlike any other in town. The chain is actually based in Spain and was founded in Andalusia in 2001 according to their website, in Spanish. They have 230 restaurants in Spain and sixteen elsewhere including Andorra, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia and... two in Miami and now one in Key West. So this is a chain but not like you'd imagine most chains to be in the United States and if you don't live in South Florida you won't see this place anywhere else in this country. So far.

It's a pleasant space inside the restaurant both cheerfully bright yet welcoming. I ordered the food at the counter including a $3:50 mug of some Spanish beer of which I had never previously heard, Mahou, a light honeyed lager with a big frothy head on the mug.

The sandwiches are simple European style small servings on proprietary breads with none of the usual American mustard-mayo-lettuce folderol. The ham shown below came with a delicious pesto dressing but otherwise they are very plain with first rate ingredients. And there really are a hundred varieties, including seafood and vegetarian, carefully labelled on the menu. You order by number and presto, sandwiches and chips with a side of fries appear as if by magic.

Ten dollars had me stuffed and the breads really are crispy and delicious. I liked the elderly Franco-era black and white photographs crowding the walls. They made Spain look like a 19th century memory buried in the recesses of my mind. I remember riding my motorcycle across Spain just after Franco died and I recall an air of suppressed enthusiasm as the country waited to see what the new King would do with a country grown weary of Fascist dictatorship. The photos seemed as far away as that motorcycle trip in my youth.

I liked this place a great deal and I can imagine a visit here with friends would open wide the possibility of sharing flavors and buying a much wider variety of the relatively small sandwiches to pass around for a bite.

Bloomberg calls 100 Montaditos the "Spanish Starbucks" as executives plan to open 500 franchises by 2015 all around the Americas. Critics naturally think they are overestimating the speed of expansion.

Meanwhile Key West has its own private sandwich shop on Fitzpatrick Street. Different and interesting and nicely done. Well worth a visit.

 

Posted with Blogsy