Early Morning In The Alleys

Rusty was pretty insistent at 5 in the morning that we go for a walk. I held him off for ten minutes but he was an irresistible force and we left over very comfortable eighth floor room in the hotel to head out into 57 degree St Petersburg morning.  

I had planned the night before to walk the alleys that I used to enjoy exploring when I lived in St Petersburg 30 years ago. When I am on the road and looking for a place to run Rusty I usually look at a satellite view of Google Maps on my phone. Checking the St Petersburg peninsula there wasn't any obvious interesting open space so I decided to walk the alleys early on Presidents' Day morning before the world was astir.

 This is a city with an extraordinary number of murals, artistic merit cannot be denied but neither can the optimism of painting vast murals on the walls of buildings that merchants expect to occupy for a a very long time. This city does not exude the sense of being a transient population. 

 I parked on Central Avenue and led Rusty to the entrance to the alleyway. He was fascinated, once again demonstrating his amazing curiosity which I enjoy so much. He ran back and forth, pausing as I struggled to take a picture, pausing for the occasional car, waiting for me at cross streets...the perfect companion.

For those worried about my safety, and there are always some worriers when I show pictures taken before dawn, I carry only a leash, a plastic bag and my phone in my pockets, with my camera (Lumix FZ300) in hand. No one ever bothers me but if they did Rusty would be a formidable opponent. He is very friendly normally but once when I was playing with a friend he intervened in no uncertain way to look after me. My friend was quite surprised, as was I. Good dog.

It was a still morning, cool and fresh and I was glad of my vest over my shirt. It wasn't cold enough to see my breath or anything wild but it was quite a bit cooler than the Keys. 

There is a lot of neighborhood renovation underway all around St Petersburg, as evidenced by all the paint variously applied:

 St Petersburg is a large city by area occupying much of the peninsula that is Pinellas County. Incomers pronounce it Pin-ell-ass while crackers call it Pine-elass and as I was never more than an incomer I was always used to the more prissy pronunciation. Its a huge chunk of land 140 square miles of city on the sandy peninsula. Clearwater is the county seat of Pinellas County but St Pete is far bigger with a population of 250,000 people and rising. Its a popular city as its very livable, housing averages less than $250,000 and you've got beaches and lots of arts going on here and across the bay at it's arch-rival Tampa the grittier former industrial city and major commercial port. 

The bits I don't much like about St Pete are the summers which are long and hot and still. It rains like clockwork every afternoon on the Gulf Coast of Florida, a heavy downpour for an hour or two with thick vapors left behind as the sun burns the moisture off. Also you have to drive a long way to get anywhere. There's one of everything at least in St Pete but the city is so scattered it takes an age to get wherever it is. And it's reputation as a retirement center still lingers making it less than hip even though it is undeserved as younger people are flowing into this city. If you are looking for a home in the sun St Petersburg is an interesting possibility.

 I have my home in the Keys and we have pensions to earn so a change of residence isn't in the cards. Besides which the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are rather murky and brown which is a bit of a change to the clear waters of the Florida Keys I am used to.

Rusty was doing a nice job of waiting for me when he got too far ahead. At one corner I was slow catching up and I came round the building to find him sitting on the sidewalk rather in the way photographed below. Some young guy going to work was getting out of his car and saw Rusty being perfect. He couldn't believe how he waited for me and didn't run out into the street.

St Petersburg has a mixture of old and new, business industry and residential. There is some tourism but I don't see much of an impact compared to Key West which gets overrun all winter.

 Who are all these mural artists?

 I found this public art to be stunning.

 Lovely tree lined streets.

 And brightly painted buildings.

There are tons of locally owned coffee shops, yoga studios, craft beer outlets, furniture and consignment stores and furniture outlets all over the city. Not a chain store to be seen. 

 I parked near Haslam's a city landmark. It is a vast book store unlike any you have seen.

We sat on the sidewalk a while watching the sun come up. The plan had been to see the Kahlo exhibit at the Dali Museum but the crowds were so thick we had to line up and wait to get into the parking lot so we decided to come back another day. Nevertheless it wasn't a bad visit to the Sunshine City, and I'm looking forward to going back. It's a lot nicer than Miami or Tampa and less frantic than Orlando. 

Vespa Transamerica 1981

This link will get you to the story about the best motorcycle trip I ever took:

Vespa trip 1981

Vespa Day

I have had a long standing love affair with scooters built in Italy and known to the world as Vespas. I got my first 50cc in 1970 when I was twelve, two years too young to ride it legally on Italian roads, a rule my mother was happy to encourage me to flout and so it was I learned to travel by Vespa on my school vacations. The picture below shows me at age 23 in Mexico in the summer of 1981 half way from New York where I bought the Vespa 200 and San Francisco where my six month trip would end. I kept the Vespa with a friend and rode it for another ten years until I foolishly sold it. 

I tried unsuccessfully to recreate that long lived relationship with the Indian built Stella when they came on the market around 2004 but that machine was horribly built and utterly unreliable:

I then went back to proper Vespas and bought an extraordinarily comfortable and powerful Vespa 250. Unknown to me 2007 was a terrible year for Vespa 250 models plagued with fueling problems.

 After ten months I had to give up the Vespa 250 and in despair I bought my Triumph Bonneville and motorcycled on in perfect reliability.

The Triumph still runs perfectly ten years and a hundred thousand miles later...

My wife meanwhile found a Vespa 150 very lightly used by a nervous newcomer to riding who decided to sell it after 250 miles. We went round to Cudjoe Key and I rode it home. We still have this machine with 30,000 miles on it and recently refurbished it looks set to go for another ten years and 30,000 miles. The most successful Vespa of all, 150cc four stroke automatic, Vespa's first automatic Vespa and now a classic, the ET4:

I wanted none of that automatic nonsense, I wanted a simple two stroke Vespa with gears and I found this in Iowa, a 1979 P200, classic of all the classics, not as pretty as some but more modern and solid:

Four years later I have given up. The P200 has never run right and the shop that refurbished my wife's scooter made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Today I say goodbye to nostalgia and drop off the white Vespa when we pick up my wife's scooter in the trailer. Thanks to Darren of Vespa Servicing in Bradenton for all his hard work: 

The trailer only has room for one scooter so in a couple of weeks I will come back to Bradenton (seven hours by car from Key West) to load up this modern orange Vespa 150:

I figure it is the same simple scooter my wife cleverly bought for herself so it should run as well, give me 60+ miles an hour like hers which makes it good to run on the Overseas Highway for my commute. 

 And like hers which was ultra low mileage in 2005, this one is almost brand new even though the S150 is  a model that was sold about seven years ago.

New old stock indeed.

With a sigh and no regrets I enter the modern age at last. And even though it is an automatic it is still a Vespa, and like my first scooter this one too is a flaming unabashed orange. I have gone full circle.

Morning At The Beach

These lovely cool winter mornings. 

I left home with the sunlight pushing up over the horizon though the orb itself only managed to break the horizon itself by the time I got down to the beach.

I met a dude sitting in a chair shown below. He was friendly enough and petted Rusty and asked how I was doing and so forth. He had had a close call recently the almost victim of unfortunate luck and now with life once again stretching out before him apparently limitless, he was approaching each day with renewed fervor. We watched the sun come up and he told me he was glad to be there and as Rusty dragged me off down the beach to his favorite spots it was a moment worth reflecting on. I am nto much given to telling people how to live but I was glad he shared the moment. I like to think I have made it a lifelong habt to live in the moment as much as I can. And its not an easy thing to do either.

The light tower would be Sombrero Light south of Marathon. Amazing telephoto lens on my Panasonic Camera.

Hmm, low low tide, for now no sailing.

And so back home under threatening skies.

The Feast

I was picking up a con leche, as you do, from Sandy's and across the street I saw a temporary sign indicating the future path of the much missed Bistro Sole which used to offer an eclectic menu during the winter months on a rather pleasant outdoor patio area.

Al Maidah is Arabic for a table laden with food according to my translation services and these days it seems rather daring in a Trumpian world to name an eatery after the 5th Sura (chapter) of the Quran. Take heart those of you who fear all things Muslim as the menu appears mostly to be of the Central Asian variety, Muslim yes perhaps but of the 'Stans not the Empty Quarter. I wanted to make a joke about Trump and an Arabic restaurant but I wasn't sure the server would grasp it and I was pretty certain my fellow diners would frown so I shut up. Spinach "empanadas" that could have been crisper and could have benefited from hot sauce. The spinach was fresh and there was plenty of it inside.

We had plenty of time to observe our surroundings as the service was languid in a most un-American way. They have retained the rather romantic patio and they serve water by the bottle. Beer and wine is bring your own because as usual the city has its own extra languid response to a new business seeking a beer and wine license. Why does it take so long? Who knows. 

The restaurant has a  Facebook page and is getting rave reviews. They should too as they offer food not seen at Kennedy Cafe which has its own take on Central Asian food and which I also like. This is a kachapurri (spell it as you like) where the crust is filled with a soft stringy cheese while the middle has a soft fried egg like an egg-in-the-hole. The combination as you break the egg and stir in molten cheese and salty bread crust is extremely filling and very rich. The white lumps on the crust are rock salt. An excellent shared appetizer.

 I tried the lamb iskender because I have also had it at Kennedy Cafe. It is comparable, small pieces of lamb accompanied in our case by grilled vegetables which were done right, crisp and tinged with delicious aromatic olive oil. We took the Uzbek bread home for breakfast we were that full.

Service needs to pick up the pace though most likely that will come with experience, but I am hoping they are cashing in on their popularity at the moment to build a foundation that will see them through the summer and hopefully make them a fixture just as Kennedy Cafe has managed. And perhaps the city will remember that they have simply taken over where Bistro Sole left off and the beer and wine license can magically appear before the winter season ends...One way to support local business with no effort expended.