Sugarloaf Sunshine

How this picture came out looking like a misty English lane I'll never know. I tried it n color and it didn't work but in monochrome the iPhone camera caught the after-rain dampness of the old Sugarloaf section of Highway 939A.

It was a good day for my kind of photography, bright whites greens and blues, the colors of my Lower Keys.

The Sugarloaf Loop circles a lagoon out of sight in the middle of this section of the island. The development never happened so there is perfect road useful for cyclists and runners, and shags like me who amble and take pictures and watch the dog play.

The early morning sunlight managed to illuminate the sea grapes quite nicely as the leaves turn color. The grapes are quite edible when they ripen to a deep purple. Birds will get most of them.

As I played with the camera, Rusty hunted will-o'-the-wisps in the undergrowth.

This dog has insatiable curiosity, he is always looking...

A view to the sea. Robert and I have been mulling over a boat trip to the Dry Torugas to take the dogs for a walk. They are allowed on the grounds but not inside Fort Jefferson. He said we needed a day like this to make a comfortable 70 mile passage to the isolated islands and back home after tea.

Rusty having fun:

Rusty waiting for me:

And so home to a well deserved nap.

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Florida Mountains

This was the cloud that got me going, the dawn light after a rain storm, the sun hitting the tops of the cloud. I realized it was summer and clouds are back with all their moisture.

The stillness of the dawn over the mangroves and salt water on north Cudjoe Key.

The noted Florida landscape photographer Clyde Butcher calls clouds "Florida mountains" and he captures them in startling detail over the Everglades, his home turf. Taken from the web:

I couldn't go hear him talk when he last came to Key West (damned work!) but my wife went and got me a signed copy of his then-latest book. He wanders the swamps in waders carrying a huge old fashioned box camera on a  tripod and gets amazing pictures.

Me? I fart around with an iPhone and feel fortunate I don't have to stretch these images to fit a vast canvas.

It is quite the thing to have my dog rushing hither and yon and for myself to be standing there just looking.

A flash of fur and he's gone again. He does a good job of keeping an eye on me and making sure not to lose touch. He comes whenever I call him.

Luckily I remembered the mosquito repellent so I was quite comfortable.

My Clyde Butcher impression:

Reasoning With Hurricane Season

Well, here we are again proposing to reason with hurricane season. No chance! It's June and from now till the end of November there's a chance of a storm. These days happily the National Hurricane Center in Miami spends less time trying to predict the number and size of storms and more time trying to alert people to the possibilities.

I have lived through a lot of hurricanes but owing to the fact the last major hit, a really bad one, was in distant 2005 many residents have never seen a hurricane. Last year I dropped by the hurricane hunter planes that came to visit in Marathon. They fly into the storms and make major contributions to the modern science of hurricane predictions.

However being able to observe the presence of storms doesn't necessarily mean scientists can predict their path. Or their strength. Hurricanes are odd things as they are pushed by air flows and create devastating tornadoes inside their swirling winds. One house can get trashed and a neighbor can be left untouched. All the scientists can recommend is to "have a plan." Good luck.

Another weird feature of hurricanes is that they are part of world wide weather phenomena. They affect large swathes of the planet's surface yet they too are affected by weather formations elsewhere. El Niño in the Pacific Ocean sucks strength out of the Atlantic Hurricane season. Go figure.

The Hebert (pro: hay-BEAR) Box is located between 15 and 20 degrees North and 60 to 65 degrees West and is a marker after a fashion for South Florida hurricane strikes. If a storm passes through the box shown below that contains Anguilla and Dominique there is an added probability statistically speaking, of a major strike in South Florida.

Given all this uncertainty hurricane season creates space for a lot of bullshit. Old timers, real or fakers hunch over bottles of beer and tell wide eyed newcomers what to do or not to do which can leave some people high and dry when the winds pick up and you get that scary whistling sound of winds blowing out of control, lashing rain, leaves flying, the power going out, isolation and fear and always at night when everything is worse. And then it's too late to evacuate.

The Keys are a good place to be in hurricane season. Everyone lives close to nature, it's hard to ignore the fact that you are vulnerable in these small islands. During Wilma in 2005 I saw a lot of heroic behavior and no rioting or looting or anything remotely like that. I'd rather be here than elsewhere in a natural disaster.

My own hurricane plan is pretty simple. I stay at the police station while my wife normally evacuates with the dog when schools are closed. Variations include staying with friends for a minor storm or having a friend over in our place. But on the whole I plan to enjoy summer and Fall and let hurricanes look after themselves for the time being.

 

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Truman Waterfront

I wanted to post this on my Facebook page (Michael Conchscooter) with a title "Limin' in Key West" but she  was reading a mighty tome so for all I knew she might have been engaged in some titanic struggle of learning and "hanging around" might not have done the business justice. 

I am drawn back to the Truman Waterfront these days in a  desperate effort to see what I have not noticed before because soon this place will change and become  a dreary suburban useful space. 

 I am not looking forward to the conversion but construction has begun and its been a decade and a half since the Navy gave the 34 acres to the city so it has beena fine long run of neglect. And I have enjoyed it.

I wonder if they will keep these bollards as a reminder of the ships that tied up here at the Inner Mole?

 I rather preferred the color version of this second attemtp at framing the Navy ship:

 But the former Navy housing now stark white condos were entrancing under the hot afternoon sun:

A jogger caught Rusty's attention as he sat next to me in the shade:

 I dissuaded him from going to say hello. For a Carolina Dog he is far too friendly with strangers.

 Quite aside from the fact his ears flop and don't stick up like they usually do in this breed:

We sat companionably in the shade contemplating the long trek back to the car and warm clean water. 

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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