Miami Heat

The van in Miami. We made it 130 miles from home for a day in the big city. The van acquitted itself better than we did.

We left home at four thirty in the morning on Monday with a plan to drive to Miami to get my wife infused with her  anti arthritis drug, a disease of long standing that has left her with a compromised immune system and thus total vulnerability to the coronavirus. One more reason to travel self contained. However I did manage to forget that we had the van plugged into the house electricity and we cheerfully drove off until we heard a noise and memory returned in a  flood.

$75 by mail order from an organization I expect to get more intimate with as time goes by....etrailer.com. Should be here by Thursday...and it arrived as advertised! Silly me, every new sailor gets warned not to forget the shore power cord as apparently does every van driver and I managed it well when it was my turn! I am very good about minding out for the high roof...so far.

It was a steaming hot day with a fell-like high estimated near 105 degrees and by early afternoon it was still baking. I like summer heat in Florida mostly because it stays near 90 and even though there is high humidity that doesn't bother me near as much as these kinds of desert like summer highs. I found a shady spot near the doctor's office and after a run in the grass in this huge strange open space apparently undesirable to any Miami developer, we settled down to a few hours of reading and waiting.

We both enjoyed ice cold water from the fridge and I whipped out our Kermit chair and settled in to some quiet time while Rusty buried himself in the shade of a droopy palmetto. It was actually quite pleasant and serene in the middle of the urban madness.

The plan was to do a little light shopping and perhaps spend the night. In the event after the infusion we  hopped over to the Jamaican place next door for some patties eaten at the dinette table inside the van with the air conditioning going full blast, and then we stopped by Trader Joe's and The Container Store for some storage solutions in the van's  spaces. With those three stops as my sample I can say social distancing, limited numbers of customers at a time and total mask compliance were the order of the day. The complaints one hears in the Keys about "those people from Miami" and their bad manners and endless masks violations were not at all in evidence in the Miami we visited.

With some creative parking, at the corner of the lot in this case, one can cram a 21 foot van into a car space. Most people like to crowd the spaces closest to the entrance so choosing to park across the lot makes it much easier to find a spot without blocking anyone else.  The van has a back up camera and an extremely tight turning radius thanks to front wheel drive so that makes it easy to maneuver. It's bulk also gets attention a lot better than our diminutive Fiat 500 so people and cars tend to notice us and not take a chance. I don't even have to scowl to get compliance...

The outdoors was so hot that Rusty who gets a chance to go outside at each stop, hopped off the asphalt in the parking lot right onto the grassy medians. He is not yet much of a fan of the van which is cavernous and makes strange noises that our little Carolina Dog is not used to, though being a creature of habit he is learning to cope, but slowly. The air conditioner could barely keep up with the heat and at 120 amps of power needed to run it we had four hours of run time on our batteries at full strength. When combined with the engine air conditioning while driving the interior was quite cold but clearly these levels of heat would have needed a campsite plug in to stay cool overnight. And we had no plug thanks to distracted me...brilliant! So a back up plan we had of going to Everglades National Park was scrapped and we drove home.

It wasn't a wasted trip as we got some containers to help sort the contents of the cupboards and we found some stuff at Trader Joe's as you always do but my wife was ready to sit back while I did the driving. It wasn't a terrible drive home once I managed to pass a couple of very slow tourists going 45 in a 55. I am obviously very familiar with the bewildering variety of speed limits on the Overseas Highway and the locations of the passing zones but the Promaster's passing abilities are new to me. It does quite well though the engine roars rather  a lot to get up to passing speeds. I enjoy it at 70 or less on the freeways and on the Overseas Highway it is a pleasant way to cruise all high up. The trouble with slow drivers is they cause people to clump up and get impatient. Most people don't know how to pass on a  two lane highway and no one (except me) bothers to pull over for impatient drivers. My tactic is to try to stay away from all of them and stick within five miles of the speed limit and not have to worry about getting a ticket. It's not easy to do but I was happy I could find a quiet space even with the Promaster van and leave the tail gating slow pokes well behind. Rusty found his happy place too. 

I mentioned to my wife I was feeling a bit tired after a long hot day and she said to pull over after we got off the bridge and she would drive. I said okay a bit surprised as I hadn't wanted to push her into driving the beast but off she went. I got in the back with Rusty to avoid me back seat driving and while she learned how light and easy the beast is to drive, I got wise about my poor dog sitting in a  cave at the back where he often likes to look out of the window of the car as we travel. So I opened  a side window and got some air and opened the back curtain and he started looking out avidly. I think I figured out how to make the van desirable to my dog. He ignored me and lay there watching the world go by backwards. He didn't even have to sit up.

Not at all the trip we expected or planned for. but my wife, as she drove confidently into our driveway announced that she felt we had learned a lot on this first outing. As usual I think she was right.

Duval Before People

Rusty moves in mysterious ways which I doubt he himself could explain had he the power of speech. Ever since the lockdown when we would come to the top end of Duval Street (known as Lower Duval for local reasons too impenetrable for mortal minds to grasp) and we would sit together on the water's edge looking out into the blackness of the night over the harbor. The city was silent and clean and virus-free. 

Nowadays, as though he too suffered from nostalgia he likes to come back to the Ocean key Resort and peer out across the docked jet skis and pine for the Good Old Days. I was looking at the reflection of the hotel in the car window and pondering how to frame it between the leaves when a man walked ponderously by and asked how "it" was going. Bored I blurted without even thinking. I wasn't really bored and I have no idea where that thought came from. "Aren't we all" was his sad reply as he shuffled heavily back to the diverting life of a Key West tourist on vacation.  Well, I thought, don't we make a happy couple.                 

Key West is full of signs, little white flaps of paper pasted to doors windows utility boxes and lamp poles and most of them express sorrow at closures forced upon them by the coronavirus. They are so common nowadays I hardly notice them but for some reason a notice posted outside Sloppy Joe's caught my eye. Street closures will happen at random for a few days more as we finish up street repairs.   

That should all be done by now and what a brilliant time to complete the task of repaving Duval Street. Usually the water bucket at Casa 325 is full of crap such that Rusty won't go near it but one benefit of fewer visitors is clean drinking water I guess. He was at it like a water buffalo in drinking hole. When he came up for air we pressed on St Paul's at the corner of eaton where there happens to be a viewing station.

I was ready to sit and look for a while. 8:30 am and it was balking hot so Rusty wa sokay lying down for a bit. We watched a few people amble by, some bicycles and presumably some coronavirus particles wafting though I couldn't be sure. Key West does look pretty with a little rain and some aggressive budding of flowers.

I am told Duval Street later in the day is a total shit show of exposed faces no social distancing and crowds everywhere. Oddly enough having been living a  monastic life of self denial since the Ides of March I prefer to avoid sharing my breath with the idiot crowds packing Duval Street so I take the word of eye witnesses that it is so. My wife's hairdresser told her that she took a golf car t tour to see for herself and it was as described. 

In order for my wife to cut her hair she heard from a friend of the existence of a very careful hairdresser and very expensive hairdresser who takes sanitation mask wearing and social distancing very seriously. It sounded to me more like a Prohibition era speakeasy than a haircut but apparently she presented herself at the appointed hour and had her temperature taken, washed her hands and was one of two customers in the room much further than six feet apart and everyone was masked all the time. That's for a safe haircut these days.

Meanwhile the crowds build and crowds cluster and masks are a symbol of weakness they tell us. This can't end well can it? A vaccine please...anyone?

Mallory Morning

Where were you last Friday morning having breakfast? Not here I doubt, sharing a waterfront view with three pigeons and a friend.

I cannot imagine the day might come where I might find a refreshing night's sleep waiting for me in the public space that is Mallory Square, and I have done some rough sleeping in my time, but Key West is a different space for different folks. 

I did not pose Rusty but I do feel the picture accurately reflects his feelings about chickens. He will cross the street rather than share the sidewalk with a chicken. He takes social distancing to extremes with wild chickens. I applaud his wisdom as he got chased down Appelrouth one time by a chicken and I dropped the leash in surprise and had to hare after him. And keep ahead of the chicken.  Discretion is decidedly the better part of valor when it comes to the wildlife in town.

I don't recall why I took the picture below but I applaud my good taste. It looks like I might even have painted it, which I did not as my talent extends nowhere, but it is growing happily alongside the Key West Welcome Center at Mallory Square. The public restrooms at Mallory Square are not open in case you were wondering. I wonder about that a lot, as it happens. The coronavirus has a lot to answer for.

I stood there for a few minutes and watched the comings and goings, on the water...and I was not alone in my pleasure.

I don't know what he was expecting to see or who he was waiting for but there was an intensity, a longing perhaps that made me hope that whatever it was he got the full measure of it eventually.

I took this next picture to post on Instagram "one if by sea, two if by land" but after a conversation I had at the liquor store I'm not sure the joke would carry over too well. 

I went to Walgreens liquors for a bottle of the hard stuff my wife wanted, inexplicably as she isn't much of a drinker and she doesn't bake so bourbon seemed out of character. I nevertheless hastened to obey and found myself with a giant bottle of Four Roses cradled in my arms. The woman wants bourbon she gets bourbon and if I buy the biggest demijohn in the store some may be left over for yours truly after she's finished tippling. "Time to refill on the demon drink" I remarked to the excessively young clerk who looked at me in horror: "Demon drink?" she said shocked. "Well, you know" I stuttered clutching my giant bottle ever tighter, "Prohibition and all that" I said noticing it wasn't quite eleven o'clock and I felt like a dipsomaniac of long standing. She looked at me as though I were mad and I couldn't figure out how to escape so i kept digging and mentioned 1920 a hundred years ago and so forth. "my family hadn't even arrived here in 1920." she snorted. It turns out Jamaica didn't have prohibition, which I knew, but she thought that fact exempted her from thinking about an era in the US when alcohol was illegal. Anyway she looked at me and said "I was born in 1995 and what happened in 1920...." her squawk of indignation faded away and I shuffled out backwards as though departing the presence of royalty.   History ain't what it used to be. Or knowledge of history at any rate.

Gratuitous Rusty photo resting after his morning's labors.

Sunday Clouds

Boca Chica Beach is a reliable spot to snag a solitary sunrise and when the clouds are out the sky looks good. Rusty finds this place less and less interesting but I like to stop off here on my way to walk him in town. On a breezy Friday morning it was just about big free and this place is packed with no-see-'ums on a  good day. 

After Rusty laid an egg, conveniently disposed of in one of the many trash cans around here he simply sat down and watched the light and the birds and the clouds. In the picture below I totally failed to catch a dive bomber but instead of deleting it I found I liked the effect - you can see the splash between the green and the blue just hinting at the undersea life and death drama. Pretty cool eh?

Then Rusty sat and because these walks are his time I did the same, nothing loathe to sit around and be gormless for a while. 

It has been so hot lately even people who don't complain about the heat have been heard to moan piteously from time to time. While mask wearing has become the latest political division deployed across the country the old fallback of climate change must surely entered the thoughts and minds of people breathing Sahara sand and choking on this astonishing heat.

I have sat in Harmattan winds while trying to ride a very exposed motorcycle around North African sand pits and the experience was not at all pleasant. I wasn't terribly excited to hear the winds were blowing sand from West Africa into our neighborhood. Apparently they have brought high heat and strong breezes but no visible dust as the main bundle of sand for once missed the Sunshine State. But the heat has been ferocious.

The good news is that the dry sandy air is supposed to tamp down hurricane activity for a while. You might imagine that the possibility of a severe storm this year has been on a  few people's minds and fervent hand clasping is the order of the day.  It's hard to imagine what the outcome of another Irma landing might be on a tourist economy already half washed up. 

The irony remains that even in this time of cholera the Keys as a getaway is a high priority and a balm for minds wracked by lockdowns and exhausted by monotony. I get the feeling that were the government to discover dangerously high levels of radiation blanketing the Keys the numbers of tourists wouldn't drop even then. Such is the need for hot sun and palms. I need to harness some of that enthusiasm even as I find myself changing into my second shirt of the day while the first one crumples into a small ball of sweat. 

Tourist Problems

Friends visiting from Tennessee got out just in time. Or they would have, had their view of Key West been the usual "drinking town with a tourist problem."  They drove by and waved goodbye as Rusty and I were walking on Caroline Street yesterday morning in a race to get to the air conditioned  car on another roasting day. A few hours later the officials in charge of alcohol sales sent down a decree across the state from Tallahassee: no more bars. I guess Sloppy Joe's was right to not waste time re-opening. I thought to cheer you barflies up with some chicken yoga  from in front of the courthouse:

With around 22 million Floridians, this is the third largest state by population and  second only to Texas in the number of daily coronavirus cases. Yesterday the Sunshine State reported 9,000 new cases of coronavirus and several hospitals around the state have no more ICU capacity. More precisely one in Homestead and three in St Petersburg, wrenching back it's old title of God's Waiting Room, from the days when it was a popular retirement center (when I lived there incidentally...). Rusty mentioned he was tired of handouts and in the spirit of independence for which I admire him he took a position of valet at Ocean Key Resort. 

It is wearisome to repeat the obvious but considering the incubation period of the virus and considering how too many people preferred to ignore social distancing and others fought the mask requirements we can only assume that during the past three weeks visitors to the Keys have added significantly to the viral load. The number of infections two weeks to a month from now will surely be interesting. At the moment the official numbers stand around 188 and stationary at four deaths. The health department in the Keys is led (I use the term loosely) by a lawyer not an epidemiologist, who has led by being invisible so I don't put much stock in official figures. The Sheriff is running unopposed this Fall which is hardly surprising as he is the sole countywide official who has stepped up in this mess and offered old fashioned leadership. It took the Sheriff to close down the roads into the Keys, a controversial action that has now proved conclusively to my mind that lockdowns work.

Work. Ah, there's the rub.How do you lock down a tourist economy and expect people to starve? An Irish friend of mine remarked how slowly they are re-opening across the Atlantic and how low infection numbers are in the Republic, but the Irish government pays it's citizens $500 a week to stay in lockdown. In Florida you can't even access unemployment benefits and in a  country where health benefits are all too often tied to your work,  joblessness is a double disaster. Under these circumstances locking people down was a non starter. All the virus had to do was wait and indeed here we are...Politics however continues and the election for mayor promises to be extra interesting this year.  Reduce cruise ship arrivals? In the year of joblessness thats looks like asking a lot:

Our own vacation plans are scotched as we pariahs from Florida can't drive north at will so Maine is out. For the geographically challenged you can't drive a van from Miami to Maine without crossing New York State or Canada and both are closed. New York is threatening fines and forcible quarantine of two weeks if you don't quarantine voluntarily and our Florida tag will be a bit of a giveaway even to New York State troopers...We are looking at Wisconsin via Chicago at this point though we may be restricted to the Southern States where the "no virus here" pretense is at its finest right now. In the end we are lucky to have no tickets, no reservations and no need for much social contact at all as we travel. 

I don't remember my time on a ventilator fondly so I relish every day I can be out and about before the gathering of the crowds. I find myself enjoying the colors and vibrance of a city in bloom and that makes it a good day. It's blazing hot, like an airless September, but my past two days off saw no rain so I was happy to be out alone with Rusty to enjoy them. And my Tennessee friends were actually sorry to go so coronavirus aside, it's another day in a bar free paradise which as I don't much like bars isn't as bad as not being able to drive to the cold misty shores of the Pine Tree State.

Pretty Pictures

A walk in early morning sun enjoying the colors and the water and the peace and quiet. Have a taste...