Acting Your Age

In my continuing efforts to help Rusty get over his post hurricane stress (and mine) we went for a walk at Sugarloaf Loop, an hour's diversion between leaving my Cudjoe home where clean up is a constant and our digs in Key West with friends. Apparently we aren't alone in our hurricane stress:

It was a beautiful hot still day, the breezes that are currently flowing over Florida hadn't reached us Monday so I was sweating by the time we reached the Sugarloaf Jumping Bridge half a mile up the trail:

 Joe Cool was busy checking out the bushes as we went.

Aside from a couple of youngsters on bicycles who overtook us coming from the main road we had birds for company and silence in the air:

Rusty was crashing through the dead leaves which now make up the underbrush after the Category Four storm blew through denuding all branches. I was checking out the canal and wondering if black and white pictures express the stillness and heat better than color...

 ...when two middle aged cyclists pulled up. I photographed their bicycles later and they looked ready for an expedition.

I saw them standing in an attitude of prayer and I thought to myself...that looks odd...had they been teenagers...

 ...I'd guess they were...

 ...thinking about...

...jumping off the so-called Jumping Bridge of Sugarloaf Key. It's where teenagers come to dare each other to make the status-affirming leap. I've photographed them before in this spot and they tend to shout and grin and jump. These two, affirming their status as rebels made it a more prolonged, thoughtful moment up there on the bridge above me.

 Well damn!

 And down they went.

 They said the water felt good which surprised me as I have not seen it return to proper clarity since the Irma unpleasantness.

The birds weren't impressed but when I made a remark to the effect I'd only ever seen teenagers make the leap they said they weren't known for acting their age.

 Rusty was cooling off while this went on.

He just sat, not needing to make a point by jumping. The only dry one left was me and I was still sweating.

 Oh and him:

 My black and white efforts  (swirled into sepia by my smart phone app) is a mark I think of me moving away from recording the gruesome facts of survival and thinking more about how things look.

 I rather preferred the black and white version of the jumpers' bicycles too:

And Rusty who took off for a solo explore leaving me to find shade where I could and there was none.

 Then the wind picked up out on the Straits of Florida and we went back to the car, back to the world of  post Irma life in the Keys.

West Summerland Key - Before And After

This used to be the sort-of paved road down to the lower "parking lot" where I would leave the car under the remains of the tree in the middle of the picture.

In the good old days people used to camp there, not exactly legally but usually left in peace. It was so lush and green even in winter after the rainy season.

Now the whole place has been scraped and burnt brown by 140mpg winds.

 The coconut palm, background to many a picture got blown away.

All that is left is sand and debris and gnarled trees.

I used to emnjoy sitting in the shade of a gumbo limbo down there:

I loved this place as it gave me  a high view over the water. The waterfront edge has crumbled on line right in front of the old pump station.

IN the old days it looked like this, aiming back at where I parked my car:

   

Rusty was happy; the iguanas which did survive as it turns out have less cover than formerly though he still couldn't catch one.

 Cheyenne used to like plodding around here too:

The carefully constructed little park has collapsed and is closed to pedestrians now. Not surprising really:

 It was finished like this a year or two ago and though formal was quite pleasant:

The approach to the old bridge was a winding path through foliage now burnt off and blown away:

 I have a feeling someone will come along with fencing and close the whole area off and I shall be doubly sad.

The steps collapsed under the weight of the wind and doubtless pounding surf:

 Nothing lush lleft:

The old pump house built to push water through the pipe built in 1942 to supply the military base in Key West on a war time footing:

 As was with the old pipe exposed:

   

This has partly collapsed and no doubt will be deemed to dangerous:

Cheyenne inspecting what had become a public toilet:

 This little spit of land south of Bahia Honda State Park today is pitiable:

Three weeks ago looked like this:

 Rusty paid no attention to my lamentation. He is not a sentimental dog apparently:

 Cheyenne resting in the shade of vanished bushes:

HGis happiness to be on a  walk at home cheered me up:

How long will it be till we see this again?

Sandy Versus Irma

I was feeling pretty sorry for myself as I walked Rusty in the green and pleasant land that is Palm Beach County.  I contrasted what I saw and compared it to where I live 200 miles away in a burnt out desert. He saw  bright green iguanas lounging in perfect safety on a  bunch of ficus roots across the canal. He had taken a decent walk so now was his time to hunker and observe. So he did: 

Then I met Bob Vecchione from Long Island. He came by and asked me how I was doing. For some reason I blurted my tale of car buying under storm duress and he had  his own way of cheering me up. He had survived Hurricane Sandy on Long Island. Now retired in Florida he was hit with two waves of seawater from both sides during that massive hurricane and his car barely survived yet he still drives it today, with a pinch of nostalgia I suspect.

His perspective on the random irrationality of powerful storms was interesting to me as he confirmed my own suspicions about hurricane preparation. I think we do it more to please ourselves and reassure ourselves that we have done what's possible. Certainly some actions will help but all too often people who take no precautions at all often end up with less damage than those of us who obsess over every detail of our storm response plan.

He told me about his neighbors who did nothing and came through unscathed and he talked about the slow and aggravating period of recovery. He empathized, it actually felt good talking to a stranger.

Rusty enjoyed running through the grass but while we talked he sat and stared at his nemesis across the water. Bob told me the ficus tree had been huge and shady and was cut down just a month before. He muttered it had seemed a shame at the time but now with all those reports of trees knocked over by high winds...

Rusty and I wandered back to breakfast at the hotel cutting across dew covered fields and avoiding spandex cyclists who ran hither and yon in upscale Boca Raton.

At the breakfast table we overheard a guest engage in a conversation, a monologue perhaps, with an employee. At one point the hail-fellow-well-met traveling businessman sympathized with the hotel employee saying how much damage he had seen and how much easier Tampa had it from Irma. My wife and I burst into spontaneous laughter. Indeed I'm sure the city of Boca Raton was in a huge uproar over the tipping of some ornamental plants in their pots...

Leafless winter in the Keys...and my electric blue Fusion to replace my bland tan Fusion that drowned. It's not a worthy thought I know but still I had to wonder how many cars drowned in Boca Raton?