Flora and Fauna

I think of it as new but the H2O Suites hotel on Simonton offers watery rooms and has been so ding for a couple of years. Apparently you get a plunge pool with your suite and a rooftop bar witha swimming pool for all guests to enjoy when they aren't stepping out onto nearby exciting Duval Street.

It doesn't look exactly the sort of architectural style Old Town Key West is known for but it does catch your eye. Well it caught my eye; other people  have to spend a lot of energy finding their way.

Bright sunshine is supposed to be the time of day people with cameras avoid going out into the noonday sun. I like bright sunshine and I find that even with my camera bright light and dark contrasts make me happy. I do like the clouds to be interesting where possible but even a clear blue sky can turn into a backdrop that looks right sometimes.

If I had to wait around for gray skies, fog and drizzle and overcast I'd never go out with my camera.

The Italian restaurant on Simonton Street, Abbondanza, has found a way to discourage undesirables from camping out on their comfortable bench. They have removed the seat.

I found it inside the front doors ready to be installed fro guests when they start dinner service at the restaurant. It's how you take the imitative to manage your affairs when you are bothered by people hanging out. Pretty smart and self reliant.

The bright sunlight gave me a chance to nail some lizards relaxing and soaking up the rays.

Neither of them seemed intimidated by my camera pointing at them and the FZ1000 has a pretty big lense when it's pointed at you.

I don't often get the chance to hang out with stationary relaxed lizards so I gave them the treatment as they clung brilliantly to the palm.

And while we think about wild tropical animals we can't ignore the ever present, ubiquitous wild chickens of Key West. People say they were brought from Cuba to be used as betting tools in fights, which never made sense to me. I've looked  at photos and paintings made in the early 20th century of Key West streets and there are no chickens to be seen. I suspect they were domestic creatures that just escaped and came to be accepted or ignored until they became darlings of the tourists. But that is a much more rational and uninteresting story than making them out to be descendants of prize Cuban fighting roosters. Perhaps Cuban roosters have figured out a way to reproduce than no one knows of, but I prefer rational thought to make believe. Boring is Me.

Key West Bight Shadows

I count myself a reluctant visitor downtown in winter when crowds are the norm. Key West with a population of 23,000 counts roughly two and a half million visitors a year, and I don't count them so I take public statistics as real for such an unreal number.

Faced with an empty lunch break the question is what to do? My wife does food shopping  as she feels she has a better grasp of what we need versus what Michael likes to buy on impulse when let loose in Publix or Winn Dixie. Car repairs are not an issue except on days off and other chores fall by the wayside when you have workday that lasts from 5 am to 6:30 pm. When I worked nights I would either roam Key West The Sleeping City or I would take a nap in the break room at work.

Now I work days it seems criminal to waste my one hour of daylight indoors so I head out to practice recording the town where I work.

Rusty gets his walk at four in the morning obviously in pitch dark unless the moon is up and we wander various roads and suburbs near where I live. He gets the day to himself sunning his lazy self in the driveway or using his private dog door going indoors and sleeping off his nap in air conditioning. I have to say I do envy him a bit as I pull out of the driveway and settle in to my 30 minute commute.

Some people commute by boat. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and were I single I might do that again but Rusty wouldn't stand for life on a boat and though I am speaking for him I will venture a guess he likes being master of his bed, the couch, the sunny side of the deck and the bushes in the driveway as the inclination takes him. A small boat might be a step down in his world. Though one has to say as commutes go it looks pretty even to my jaded eyes:

So with an hour to burn and only a small town to walk in I come back to places that require me to look closer to see things through new eyes. Like the glossy paint on the hull of America 2.

Christmas decorations have sprung up around Key West including the waterfront alongside Schooner Wharf Bar. You might imagine boats docked nearby like the schooner America 2 gave the bar its name. These days the boats are for pleasure where once they were the lifeline of commerce in Key West a way point between both coasts and Europe and the New World.

You can rent a power boat or you can watch seagulls ignoring people. I did both at once. 

Refreshed for an afternoon of 911 calls.

Casa Marina

Henry Flagler, the 19th century oil baron knew that if he wanted his railroad to prosper he had to create destinations. So he built a number of palatial hotels down the east coast of Florida to fill his winter excursion trains with frozen New Yorkers coming south taking the place of ripe Cuban pineapples going north.

His Key West hotel is called the Casa Marina Resort owned these days by a rotating list of chain hotel names currently Waldorf Astoria is responsible for the old pile built in 1912 when the Florida east Coast Railroad arrived in Key West. Nine years ago (!) I wrote out the whole story and posted it on this page. Digital cameras have come a long way since then I discovered when I went back to look. This is the back of the resort which is the huge pile visible behind the lead bicycle rider:

Many years ago I overheard a conversation between two puzzled visitors. They were studying a  map, not on their phones as I said this was a long time ago, and one said to the other; "I'm amazed a town this small has separate neighborhoods." A comment I've never forgotten, apparently.

And it's true there are several neighborhoods in town. And furthermore I'll tell you this, kids who grew up on Big Pine divide themselves. North "Piners" despise South "Piners" even though Big Pine Key has a population you could conveniently house in your garage. The highway divides two ardent communities. Weird. Upper and Lower Sugarloaf is the same way. You drive down highway one oblivious but "As The Keys Turn" is playing out just beyond your windshield.

Casa Marina is an upscale neighborhood with expansive expensive homes a bit like Cudjoe Gardens is a cut above my neighborhood (Spanish Main) on Cudjoe Key (population: not many). If you live in Casa Marina you aren't in The Village or Midtown or The Meadows. But you are still under the flight path ready to get your TV drowned out by another load of trippers coming to town.

Like every upscale neighborhood in America and I dare say the world at large where there is wealth there are trees. and here they are spectacular. If you like tropical greenery that is. If you prefer coniferous forests you are out of luck.

Wind palms bowing and scraping in the air far above me. I really enjoyed that on my lunch break yesterday.

And the architecture of even the modern bed and breakfasts and homes reflects the Key West style:

This is where you come to escape the snowdrifts of your home town, a lounger under the palms, a barely adequate banana hammock and a fruity drink. If it ever comes up I prefer a gin and tonic to something that looks like a crushed coconut or blended strawberry.

And on the subject of snow going swimming on a day that registers barely 76 American or 24 degrees Canadian is not a day to go swimming. 

You just can't tell some people anything.

Even among the seagulls sunbathing space is at a premium.

A fine sunny splendid day on land. Swimming days are over but they will return in the fullness of time when in fact the time changes and we know Spring and warm-ish seawater is back.

Mall on Duval

Mallory Square upon my return from a trip round the bars (not into them for heaven's sake! I had my poor innocent dog with me.) I saw "two couples enjoying the moment." I thought it was a funny caption but the pigeons looked at me balefully as pigeons do, while the humans kept walking. 

Joking aside I read in the newspaper recently that the City Commission barely managed to muster the votes to have another season of Mall on Duval  It's taken a  fair bit of discussion and debate to test drive the program which closes  down a couple of blocks of Duval Street to traffic and allows pedestrians to mingle and sit at tables outdoors on the street. It was an implementation of the not very radical notion that pedestrian zones boost downtown businesses.

Of course Key West manages to buck every trend ever  and the newspaper says many of the previously supportive Duval Street businesses now want the program to end. They say the pedestrian zone is hurting business not helping and they put their case to the city commission which had to authorize the pedestrian program once again.

Three of the four members of the commission voted against it but Mall on Duval will take place every other Friday and Saturday until February 17th when the program will close and be evaluated. Shutting down an open air street event in the middle of winter at the height of tourist season only makes sense to commissioners of the Southernmost City. Last year the program ran from February to July and was considered a massive success. Now suddenly it is on life support.

There was an issue with cost as the city was paying $5000 each weekend for police off duty to patrol the event until somebody figured out this isn't a high risk gathering requiring a police presence and that expense was cut, allowing the Mall on Duval to press ahead.

Now the plan is to take away a program once seen as a great way to encourage locals downtown, to keep people in the area and to support the image of a street that really might be at the heart of the city.  One has to wonder what could save it and keep it going after February 17th next year. 

Colors Of The Keys

I have posted a few pictures of the colors i see daily on my walks around the Lower Keys. I haven't much to say about them except that I accumulate pictures like these over time as i am out twice a day usually and always with my camera. I decided not to clean them up or filter them or process them as they are a reasonable representation of what I see or as close as a camera can get to what the human eye sees. This is the time of year downtown Key West is crowded which pushes me away from Duval Street and helps me find my best walks away from the crowds.

 

My wife took this one of me walking the neighbor's dog with Rusty who was none too pleased to be sharing me.

 Rusty and Roxie at West Summerland key.