Walking Duval Street, And Walking...And Walking...

Duval Street in the sunshine: it makes you want to take a stroll, pick up a Cuban coffee, sit and check out the newspaper and do some people watching...The bugger of it is that there's nowhere on the entire street to do that. If you go to Duval prepare to be a zombie.

You might wonder where a man might be going with coconuts under his arms. Wonder away because he can't stop to tell you. The flow of zombies shuffling along the sidewalks carries all in its wake...

 

Brace yourself because the crowds are intense. This is Key West's most famous street after all, 14 blocks that connect the Straits of Florida to the Gulf of Mexico.

People crowd Duval because this is what the visitor literature talks about incessantly. We all know there's more to Key West than the t-shirt shops and souvenir stalls, art galleries and national chain outlets that pay preposterous rents to have street frontage here.

CVS has nice toilets my wife up informs me and she was delighted to see this familiar name offers one useful thing 24 hours a day. Fast Buck Freddie's is gone and there is nothing to be done. Long live CVS. Sigh.

Actually a toilet open 24 hours has one advantage: somewhere to sit. There is nowhere to sit the length of Duval Street. You can sit on your motorcycle of course.

Or you can bring your own chair, I suppose:

There is Jimmy Buffett's place on Duval, itself one of a chain. As I understand it a cheeseburger in paradise is to be found at Le Select in St Barth's, a French island that is even more expensive if you can believe it, than this town.

Nonetheless they crowd Margaritaville fondly imagining themselves in Paradise.

I want to enjoy Duval, but I want it my way. I want a pedestrian zone crossed at intervals by streets open to cars. I want wide shaded sidewalks, with tables and umbrellas, I want interesting shops and eccentric people. I want places to sit, I want street artists with talent able to amuse and enlighten, I want a place worth visiting and hanging out on.

My Duval Street is out of reach it seems. Grr! They have even screwed down blocks to make the planters uncomfortable to rest on.

I pity the zombies shuffling from end to end of this unremarkable street, struggling to find the street we all know should exist, but this town is too scared to embrace.

 

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Thirsty Mermaid

I had heard voices talking about the new place on Fleming across from Fausto's. We made an excuse to check it out, lunch with a friend, and we found a dining room in the modern light and airy style.

The view is not of ocean or beach but this part of Old Town looks good, picket fences, plans and one hopes blue skies.

This is a seafood joint primarily and they push the nautical theme though a poached pear and cheese sandwich caught my eye - not a menu item you see every day! So we tried the long neck clams first, certainly a winner.

They do offer meat as well so don't be surprised to see a burger from time to time...

And I ordered a dish that intrigued me despite the lack of fish. A snapper sandwich might well have hit the spot but I went for the gnocchi with short rib ragú. The gnocchi really did taste home made, like my great aunt used to roll them all soft and sticky in your mouth.

Like I said there was a nautical motif running through the restaurant but if you look closely you will see small potted plants under the artwork.

Potted mangroves. Brilliant and therefore simple and thus effective.

One complaint I have heard was that this place is pricey. We had two appetizers two main courses and two soups and two beers between three people and the bill was more than ninety bucks plus tip. Pricey yes, but good. Good value? You decide. I thought so.

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Memorial Day

 

Happy Memorial Day of course but it would be best to spare a thought for the reason for the holiday too. 

Dinner en Masse

Rusty wanted to come to and the little tyke makes every trip fun so I left the motorcycle at home and loaded my Carolina Dog into the car. He must be wondering when I am going to run out of new walks to take him on, but this wa s anew one for him, 5th Street on Stock Island.

We walked the old street, now closed to traffic and I could get peeks at the homes afloat anchored in Cow Key Channel.

And I also spotted a rather brilliant home made topsy turvy dinghy landing among the bushes. I can't imagine using this drunk on a dark night but each to his own.

Because Rusty was along we elected to eat out, though I would have been happy to leave him in the car. He was unusually restless for him but I did get a picture of him blending in with the walls at Roostica, the Italian restaurant on Stock Island.

"We"  were the night shift dispatchers gathered in one place. We are almost fully staffed so overtime has dried up and after years of under staffing we are all a bit relieved about that. However this means the two shits of three dispatchers rarely meet anymore as we do our own shits. Every Tuesday is a short shift so we have a chance every few weeks to get together as a group. I'm the only one wearing glasses oddly enough, except for my Trainee in sunglasses.

After dinner I stopped off with Rusty on the way home and we went for a walk on Sugarloaf around the bat tower under heavy skies.

Rusty has become  my shadow, we walk together and he listens to me, he loves traveling but he accepts when I have to leave him at home. He is much better in urban situations, less scared of everything that moves and able  to stick close to me without tugging at the leash. 

I enjoy his company so much I am reduced to riding the motorcycle for commuting most days. Leaving Rusty behind seems like a waste of an opportunity to see the world through his eyes.

Ramrod Tourists

Not too long ago I photographed a version of this sign  that appeared one morning, unbidden at the Ramrod Pool. This picture I took last weekend snagged at a poor angle for the light but which included my inseparable walking companion of course. 

 The thing is,  the last time I saw this sign it looked like this:

"We do not negotiate with tourists" which I thought was rather funny. Instead some delicate soul went to a fair bit of bother to rearrange the anarchic sentiment into the more saccharine and socially acceptable  "One human family" logo, which  crops up everywhere and seems to have lost its meaning in the gold rush atmosphere of modern Key West. Perhaps I am allowing my curmudgeonly instincts to get away from me.

The thing is there was a habit of lighting a campfire in a well formed ring on the "beach" at this undeveloped state park. People come here after work and sit on the shore and slap mosquitoes and drink beer and argue over how many angels can drink on the head of a pin. They are working people enjoying their Key and they are no bother to anybody. Except they were because some visitor or part time resident with not enough to do complained to the county who wrecked the fire ring and stuck up this sign:

The One Human Family ethos would condemn finking about something that hurt no one, was done responsibly and brought people some low cost fun. I don't know who created the sign but I'm guessing the original sentiment was a swipe at that whole :ownership and use" of the Ramrod Pool. Not exactly in the spirit of one human anything. 

So here's a nice picture of a mercifully empty Seven Mile Bridge under a hot sun. For no reason at all.

Cuban Landing Drama

I picked up my copy of the Key West Citizen out of my driveway yesterday morning and saw this story splattered across the front page: Some Cuban refugees managed to land on an unoccupied light house on the reef and were being held in a Coast Guard ship while the courts decide their fate. Rubbish I thought to myself, the Conch Republic long since settled this issue. Let me explain.

The following pictures are screenshots from my phone so you can find out all you want on Bing or Google if you know where to look. Ten years ago a group of Cubans landed on an old pillar from a Flagler Bridge as described in Wikipedia (see below) and when the courts ruled they hadn't set foot properly on US soil the intrepid Secretary General of the Conch Republic landed on the unclaimed rock and declared it was part of the sovereignty of the Conch Republic, a sovereign state of mind. This act embarrassed the US and after the Cubans were returned to Cuba the courts ruled that of course the column in the water was  actually part of the US and they should have been allowed to stay.

Cubans get special treatment when they come to the US, and they are coming in droves now they fear the special treatment may soon come to an end. If they propel themselves and don't pay smugglers and if they manage to land on ground. not necessarily dry, but just so long as they can stand without drowning they get to stay in the US. So now the question is whether or not landing on a lighthouse structure built over the reef, anchored by steel screws into the submerged rocks, constitutes a dry foot landing for the Cubans as required by US law. 

I know what the late Peter Anderson, photographed above on the infamous lump of rock, would say if he saw that lawyers were arguing the point. He'd be in a boat with a Conch Republic flag, sallying forth to claim the lighthouse for his sovereign state of mind. Unfortunately he's no longer with us so his peculiar form of cheerful persuasion is no longer available to nudge the US Government into doing the right thing. However his legacy has already proved the point: extraneous lumps and pieces of construction material are part of the US so I don't suppose the ruling on the latest bunch of Cubans will be too long in coming and I have no doubt they will be allowed to stay. The Conch Republic has already proved that point.

It was a life lived well, a master of promotion who made a living and had great fun celebrating the Conch Republic. I don't suppose the new Cuban arrivals will ever be told they owe it to this man:

In a side note every time there is a new landing of Cubans from home made boats they managed to steer across the Straits there is a spate of nasty comments in Facebook, that ultimate arbiter of public taste, wherein people moan endlessly about Cubans coming to live her for the benefits and the modest re-settlement fee ($8,000 at last count). I find those comments repugnant, not least because these are people who would never have the gits to cross the Gulf Stream in the wrecks these ingenious Cubans put together, many of whom disappear without a trace. I don't think these Cuban refugees are afraid of hard work if they can make that kind of effort to get here and those comments are unworthy of people safely ensconced in the comfort of life here. I don't think the wet foot/dry foot policy is sensible or fair, especially considering Haitians don't get the same consideration, and it is an outdated policy supported by the Cuban old timers in Miami, but it's there and it's the law and being cruel to the people who come here to live her and prosper reflects no good on the people who make the negative comments.