Summer In Winter

The seasons everywhere are going haywire thanks to that Chinese hoax called climate change. Or not, perhaps a snow-free winter will be the norm just because in the decades to come. Perhaps California will go from drought to flood and back again like a meteorological yo-yo, just because...Don here in the Keys the weather has gone weird. We are coming into Spring and we had but a couple of nights with temperatures below 60 American degrees or 15 Canadian. That is the new normal.

And then the rain comes and goes at random just like it was summer. Walking back to the car from Sugarloaf Creek, almost two miles of dirt road it started to rain and I wondered if I was going to get wet. Rusty didn't seem to mind and honestly I wouldn't have minded so much as it was a hot humid morning and rain might have cleared the air...But it stopped as soon as it started. Typical summer weather nonsense.

 Rusty is the one with the brown fur, I'm the one going gray,.

 I told you it was a hot morning and this was taken around 8 o'clock:

 A sea grape leaf. I was bored while Rusty paused so I was playing with macro functions on my Lumix  camera.

 Yes, it has been raining at random, we even had summer thunderstorms that night. It's not normal I tell you. Perhaps the Chinese aren't running a hoax but the real thing?

The Wheels of Commerce

Rusty was ambling with his nose down and I was looking around through the eye of my camera lense, a  habit which makes me focus on the details I otherwise wouldn't notice. I saw the scooters parked under the thatch palms and without my noticing the telephoning cyclist hove into view. I see it all the time: people on bikes and scooters (and skateboards too!) with a phone glued to their ear, or shouting into an earbud microphone...All things are critically important for those of us equipped with a  portable electric telephone.

 And then there are those moments of introspection when we present a blank face to the world as we ponder, and finish a Cuban sandwich. I kept Rusty on a  short leash because, even though he isn't very food driven he won't ignore low hanging fruit, especially in the form of a proffered Cuban sandwich from Five Brothers. The owner of the food woke up suddenly and withdrew his hand as my furry predator got closer.

Limin'  - a Caribbean term denoting hanging out and chatting and accomplishing nothing more. He was buried in his paper behind his bare feet, something I doubt he would do in his suburb Up North, while the dog was far from limin's and looked ready to challenge Rusty on a  mere pretext but my boy ignored him as you do bullies.

I laughed when I saw the prim and crisp representation of a modern chef caught between the stacks of just-in-time supplies from mainland warehouses. Rusty paused long enough for me to compose the picture before we were off again.  

Some lime, some wheel boxes of food under the winter sun, some turn bicycles into offices. And the wheels go round.

Those Picket Fences

Not all fences in Key West are proper picket fences.

 I saw this "AAA Approved" sign on the fence outside Mangia Mangia restaurant. Does anyone, I wondered, use AAA recommendations anymore? Does Triple A make recommendations? I am a member and I have Tripadvisor on my iPhone...

I think this next picture was on Margaret Street near Carey Lane with my back to the cemetery. The dude on the left had just stepped inside clearing the way for the picture, then he stepped out and butted into my frame. I felt like complaining but that seemed a bit harsh as it was his front yard.

 This one made its way to my Instagram account, Angela Street alongside the cemetery:

Strictly speaking this isn't  a picket fence but I like Bonnie Albury's house even restored to gleaming perfection, as I remember it the way it was when Bonnie, the last of her family was fading away there and calling 911 petulantly complaining about painters setting up easels on the sidewalks painting her old pile against her wishes. I talked her down many times when I worked day shift in 2004  and 2005.

Lots of lines and woodwork to keep pristine in these non-picket fences at the Albury house on Southard Street. The decks are painted with some weird gleaming paint that looks like it just got rained on.

 Quintessential Key West:

 The Citizen newspaper box on its side at the same location, however its label still manages to come up right side up. Down but not out: also quintessentially Key West.

Key West Monochrome

I really liked this picture of the church at Fleming and William:

 And this one worked for me, a corner of the Old Harris School on Southard:

 On my Instagram account I labeled this one "waiting."

 Not quite black and white this shot of an empty dining room at Turtle Kraals:

 A lighted boat:

 A post doubling as a bill board display:

 The Galleon resort:

 Front Street looking toward Duval:

Aground In Key West

I took this picture for the scooter tag thread in the Adventure Rider motorcycle website but I liked it all leafless evocative of a northern winter. Deciduous trees tend to lose their leaves in winter in the Keys more I think because of the lack of rain and decreased hours of sunshine than for the presence of cold.

The Keyviche building on Caroline Street remains closed and unused, a tourist winter gone to waste. Surprising but true. They were said to have great fish but the prices reflected the quality and high prices are killers in this economy oriented eating town. You can still see the old flame holders from its previous incarnation as the Brazilian steak house chain Braza Lena.

 The newest CVS on Duval street continues to display the worst windows ever. I suppose they feel no need to entice shoppers in or beautify the street at all. All I can say is it was much dirtier when the building wasn't  occupied at all. 

 The souvenir shop across the street at the Conch Train station shows how it is done:

They do make a mess overnight around Duval Street. Before most people are awake the city's employees have it all clean and tidy again:

And the day starts again as the sleepers get up and start their aimless wanderings:

Someone was tidy as they drank:

 Mallory Square coming to life:

 Out in Key West harbor someone was waking up on a slant if the boat was even occupied:

West Summerland Key

I was glad to note in a recent Key West Citizen caption to a picture by the noted photographer Rob O'Neal that he referred to the location as West Summerland Key. Ironic too as it was in regards to scouting as I recall.

I think West Summerland, known to cartographers to day as Scout Key is one of my favorite spots in the Lower Keys. Luckily Rusty likes it too. For me this place offers an almost natural mound of dirt from which I can look down on a panorama and this makes it unique. Think about it: I live in place which is so flat tall bridges constitute  hills. Here I can climb the mound that was the railroad approach to the Bahia Honda bridge and I can pretend I am on a mountain. Pretty cool.

 Then there is the history, in this case the old water pipe installed by the Navy with a pump station hereabouts, built in 1942 to supply the wartime garrison in Key West. The infrastructure is collapsing but that makes it all the more photogenic. Above we see the remains of the original water pipe. The 1982 replacement runs alongside the highway and hangs under the bridges.

West Summerland also consists of friable white rock which weathers into odd rounded mounds. It looks like hard clay. Sometimes I sit on it while Rusty hunts. In the picture below the white rocks look like cotton wool balls strewn about:

 Rusty on the trail:

Rusty hunting

 The tide was far out so I wandered the tide pools staring down at sea anemones trapped in puddles waiting for the return of the ocean. I also found a common-or-garden plastic bottle turned into art by the crushing of the waters and the silting of the sand (and a little dexterity with the camera settings).

When I see hardcore photographers setting up their multiplicity of equipment to catch a sunrise or some other moment on their headlong flight back to the mainland I feel privileged. For me there is tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow if today doesn't work out. Sunrises will get more colorful, wind and waves will conspire with me tomorrow not against me...who knows.... who cares...I will be back when I feel like it.

 Besides which I am too impatient to deal with tripods and long lead times- I have a dog to keep up with.

I did have time to play with shutter speeds and light conditions while Rusty ate a long dead fish. There wasn't a lot of movement in the water but I managed to soften things up with slow shutter speeds a bit.

Whatever it was he thoroughly enjoyed crunching down on it and it gave him terrible dog breath. No kisses for Rusty for the rest of the day.

Seaweed was pushed up onto the beach. What you see here is a floating mat and were you to step on it you would sink immediately into the water below:

Another fine morning walk at West Summerland Key.