Photographing North Roosevelt Boulevard presents not a few challenges. There's tons going on along its two mile length and cramming it all into twenty pictures seems like an impossible job. Then again this isn't the most visually appealing part of Key West, but it seems to me it is still a story worth telling, perhaps it is especially worth telling because it is such a peripheral area of town. This is Key Plaza where Key West people go to shop, I mean this is the real locals shopping area.
Can't get more real than K Mart, and in this picture we see the third most profitable K Mart in the country. Not surprising really because as we shall see, there ain't much in the way of competition. I read a plaintive comment in the Citizen's Voice a few months ago. "If they let us have a Wal Mart we wouldn't be so poor," went the comment. From the height of middle class mediocrity I could sniff on reading the plea as of course Wal Mart is all things bad in corporate America, but they do help make ends meet for many milllions of Americans. Not in Key West where the cold harsh reality is that things cost more here, not because we are a "long way away" but because we are isolated. And here's the competition, flying the flag, Sears Roebuck and Company:
Searstown was an early development in the wilds of far Eastern Key West, built up in the salt ponds and mangroves, a 1960's outpost of shopping civility for an island that relied on Fausto's and Pantry Pride for groceries and then Sears stepped in to compete I suppose with downtown Kress: 
Nowadays Publix is located in Searstown, along with a six screen Regal Cinema and an Outback, a Champs and a whole bunch of stores both chains and locals. There's a Home Depot in Key West which was built in 2004 as I recall and that opened up a lot of shopping possibilities. Beyond Searstown is a region for a future essay, currently a line of chain hotels that will soon make way for a giant convention center(!). Megalopolis here we come... Meanwhile we have got used to Albertsons, next to K Mart:
And then in the third big shopping plaza called Overseas Market we have Winn Dixie as the anchor supermarket. This chain used to advertise itself, years ago as "the beef people" on their old signs and for the longest time I thought Winn Dixie was a butcher's shop. 
I love the totally black sky at night, and no one in the parking lot except me and my trusty Bonneville which of course I have to sneak into a picture...
I know Pier One, and Ross next door have given local shoppers a few more choices when it comes to furnishings and clothes. Around the corner from TGI Fridays there is a dark delivery area alongside the mangroves. I love poking my way round these spaces, sneaking a peek as it were behind the facade of the nice stores up front:
And shining a light into the bushes, where Salt Run Creek flows, from the Riviera Canal out to the Gulf of Mexico to the north. Our residentially challenged locals hang out around here too, not so much for the shopping I believe, as much as for the peace and relative quiet:
Until my Bonneville comes rumbling through at some ungodly hour. I saw no one while I chased the dirt road with the Triumph, doubtless they were all asleep like solid citizens, not drifters like me. I had to smile when Heinz and Frenchie sent a note worrying about me riding around town in the middle of the night. Key West is a very safe place to live and travel around in. Random violence is almost unknown, and as long as you are sober and not looking to buy drugs you will be fine Prudence is always a good thing and following your instincts is wise too (when in doubt take a cab!) but I suppose I should say here that I know my way around and perhaps it would not be wise for an innocent tourist to poke around as I do in these pictures. If you do and you get the crap beaten out of you.. that's when you put your big girl's blouse on and order another drink while figuring out how to turn your experience into a proper Key Weird story...
Here's a spot no tourist will get to see unless they are ducking out of Stick and Stein, the sports bar at Key Plaza, just down from Albertsons and Office Max. And if they are skipping out on their tab they'd better know where to go to next because this is a long way from Duval Street:
As I viewed this picture I thought to myself, "hmmm, Anywhere USA" and all I can say is that this really is Key West and not the back side of your local shopping maul. And just around the corner across from the back of K Mart lies this magnificent structure in all its cement glory:
Looking at the Professional Building you'd think this would be the spot to take refuge in a hurricane. Well, it turns out Wilma did a number on this place in October 2005. The building is on stilts with parking in the lit up space underneath, but the roof yielded and the entire building flooded from the top down! It was a nightmare for the many offices in there, which lost all their records and their furniture, including my optician. The building was closed for ages while they gutted it and rebuilt it from the inside out.
As I viewed this picture I thought to myself, "hmmm, Anywhere USA" and all I can say is that this really is Key West and not the back side of your local shopping maul. And just around the corner across from the back of K Mart lies this magnificent structure in all its cement glory:Looking at the Professional Building you'd think this would be the spot to take refuge in a hurricane. Well, it turns out Wilma did a number on this place in October 2005. The building is on stilts with parking in the lit up space underneath, but the roof yielded and the entire building flooded from the top down! It was a nightmare for the many offices in there, which lost all their records and their furniture, including my optician. The building was closed for ages while they gutted it and rebuilt it from the inside out. Back to North Roosevelt Boulevard known simply as "The Boulevard" to locals. Sure my wife would like a Target and a Costco but she has to put up with K Mart and this, Smart and Final as was, and she does okay with occasional trips to Miami:
The family owned Gordon Food Service bought this little warehouse and added it to its chain a few years ago. That was weird because apparently they don't sell alcohol, the family being religious in some manner and teetotal, and for a while they were dumping their stocks of wine and beer from the Smart and Final store at fire sale prices. A bit of a stampede in heathen Key West ensued. Nowadays we get our fizzy water here, but I believe restaurants appreciate the bulk supplies.
The family owned Gordon Food Service bought this little warehouse and added it to its chain a few years ago. That was weird because apparently they don't sell alcohol, the family being religious in some manner and teetotal, and for a while they were dumping their stocks of wine and beer from the Smart and Final store at fire sale prices. A bit of a stampede in heathen Key West ensued. Nowadays we get our fizzy water here, but I believe restaurants appreciate the bulk supplies. The Boulevard reasserts its fundamental nature of down at heel individuality the closer to Truman Avenue one gets. Truman used to be Division in the old days before president Truman started vacationing in Key West, and the Boulevard becomes Truman almost in front of the Police Station. There's the Yamaha motorcycle shop, a rather ragged building though they are showing a lot of inventory their windows these days:
Then you can have your burgers your way, just next door, past the Borders Express bookshop:
Looks familiar doesn't it? This doesn't though, the "mobile" seafood vendor at Owens gas station:
In the land of the perpetually underpaid and intoxicated there are several pawn shops that seem to do quite well, all over town, including here:
The Boulevard is home to one of three overnight gas stations, this one has a car wash, the other two sit across from each other at the intersection of Truman and White Streets. I read a thread on the Adventure Rider forum about a Georgia kid who rode to Key West and backon his sports bike and he prudently filled his tank in Florida City because he didn't know if he could find gas in the Keys...Dude! This is the US you know! And this proves it!
You might meet a cop here doing a business check at some unearthly hour, buying coffee or a soda. Not this one though, Officer Cardona is Puerto Rican and he prefers his cafe con leche to an Americano.
I know because he's on my shift and he has to ask my "permission" to take his lunch at Sandys Cafe. He he. The rule of thumb is don't piss off your dispatcher, but John works too hard to care about rules of thumb.
Closer to the police station we get to see the other car dealership ( which is to say not Niles GM/Nissan), and if you don't know where the station is we'll often say "next to Duncan Ford."
Shining like a beacon in the night. And that's it, one quick look at the Key West that tries to emulate Main Street USA. Like it or not. Which is my cue for a gratuitous picture of the Bonneville, across the street from Sears at the Blue Lagoon Motel, of which more later.
Magnifique!
I forget sometimes how obsessed with alligators outsiders can be when it comes to Florida.There are a few things people associate with Florida, with varying degrees of revulsion. They are: 1) Hurricanes. 2)Humidity. 3) Bugs. 4)Alligators. Well you can get a pretty good slice of all four at Big Pine Keys' Blue Hole. The Blue Hole isn't blue, the one in Belize is because its out in the Caribbean Sea, this local hole is actually the product of some rock mining and it would be hard to expect a quarry to produce water of a hue comparable to the Western Caribbean; so it doesn't even try:
Green Hole would be more like it, if one lived in a less charitable, less visitor oriented world. But part of the expectation for the keys is blue, turquoise, azure waters, and fresh water holes must conform, in name at least.
The Blue Hole gets a mention in every guide book, not because it's buggy and humid but because it has alligators, and fearsome animals they are too.
The sad fact is that like sharks, alligators are much more at risk from humans than vice-versa. A notorious court case concluded last year with two young men going to the slammer for torturing and killing an alligator they plucked from this very spot. This dinosaur was just lying there, showing but one tiny sign of life, the nostrils opening and closing rapidly as it breathed.
There used to be a bunch of turtles sunning themselves on the logs, and whether they ended up as alligator lunch or turtle soup, a Conch delicacy, I don't know. Perhaps they were off enjoying a less threatening area of the hole that evening. Alligators are fresh water creatures and when the Blue hole flooded out in the hurricane season of 2005 the alligators had to be rounded up from neighboring islands and dumped back in their hole. They, unlike American crocodiles, don't do well in salt water. Unlike crocodiles, alligators are more aggressive and they don't back off when humans show up. Plus they run extremely fast on land. I am cautious around them as I find them less predictable than sharks. There are thousands of alligators in the Everglades and you can canoe among them on the Myakka River near Sarasota. That is a creepy experience I shan't repeat for a while.
Less dramatic are the white dots across the water in an inaccessible area of the Hole. They may be herons or ibis, depending on the shape of their beaks and the color of their legs, which just goes to show I will never make the annals of the Audubon Society though one day I may bestir myself to visit the Audubon House in Key West. What I learn there I shall promptly forget I'm sure.
The Blue Hole is, in my estimation a modest little attraction, though it is a peaceful spot to contemplate the glories of Nature. In this one is not helped by the abundance of fencing and the absolute dearth of benches. For some reason the short paved trail round half the hole has nowhere to sit to allow for contemplation.
Which means visitors tend to gravitate to the observation platform and one ends up contemplating Nature rather as though one were waiting for a bus in a municipal bus shelter which tends to spoil the effect:
Rather than invest in benches and the adornment of relaxing vistas with seats, the Wildlife Sanctuary has decided the Blue Hole needs a more complex parking arrangement than a simple pea rock parking area:
The Blue Hole has long been ADA compliant with a cement parking space and cement walkway to the observation deck for visitors in wheelchairs. Despite all this construction busyness the Blue Hole is what it is, a quiet spot just off the busy road. And even if forced to stand, one can take a moment to enjoy another splendid Keys sunset in the woods:
And, lest there were any doubt I paid my latest visit on my favorite form of carbon creating locomotion:
Parked rather sneakily at the back, unmarked, "entrance" to the Blue Hole. For locals who know, only, I fear. 
I have mixed feelings about people en masse, but it would be churlish to mention my phobia in light of the fact that sunset at Mallory Square is a crowd. That's the point of the gathering, to draw in tons of people to mill around in a small space at the waterfront. And then sell them things. Oh and to look at the sunset, though people will wear their hats:
Quite the Roman profile. 
The habit apparently got hijacked a bit in the flower power era when young travelers stopped by to sell their wares. A fond memory of a friend in California, a very proper attorney in Oakland, remembers wandering the Sunshine State in a van making a living trading trinkets. She gets a lost, misty look in her eyes when she tells the story of her hippy youth... And then there's the modern trader, doubtless checking the Citizen's Voice column. He's an old hand at sunsets apparently, and enthusiasm isn't his stock in trade.
It is quite lucrative working Mallory Square, for some of the performers and traders. So much so there is a committee that runs the sunset celebration and assigns the spaces with some kind of a lottery, I believe. The acts are quite a mixture, some funnier, some more serious, a few are very capable and there are those acrobats that have managed to buy themselves a home and send their kids through college based on their takings at Mallory Square.
People grunt all the time about how Key West isn't a family destination though you wouldn't know it from all the small persons littering the square:
There's lots to see at Mallory Square and it's not clear who comes to see what. The Coastguard swinging low in a helicopter to check the crowd out got lots of attention from the grounded tourists:
And for some tourists, local winged rodents merit attention when they are pecking the ground like their more famous fowl counterparts, the Key West chickens:
Everything is new, exciting and different in Key West.
Home sweet home, and be it ever so humble this is sunset just the way I like it:
And yes, the opening lines do come from the mouths of babes and innocents and have been recorded from the mouths of Key West tourists, so I hope the joke can be considered my contribution to the saturnalia of April Fool's Day.
My neighbors at the end of my street hitched their Jeep up to their RV the other day and took off north on the Overseas Highway. I've never spoken to them, but their comings and goings mark the season as sure as the swallows at Capistrano, and now that their canal front home is padlocked and shuttered I know the winter season is coming to an end and summer approaches.
Summer time in the Keys is the "other" season, not exactly a time of mellow fruitfulness to quote the poet, but a time of higher humidity, longer daylight, and calmer ocean waters, laid flat by an absence of wind, and overpowered by those magnificent Florida mountains known to outsiders as thunderheads. Florida this far south has only two seasons, broadly speaking, dry winters and wet summers. Summers are the time people go North to sweat in sweltering Mid Western brick homes in places where, I'm told temperatures easily top a hundred degrees on airless wet afternoons. Down here by contrast it rarely gets over 95, and the sun though hot and white is reflected by the waters which also produce a lot of the time, the tiniest of breezes. be they ever so small the summer winds are always welcome.
This is also the time of year I get home before the sun comes up, bathing my house in golden light, but those days I do stay awake past seven, after a long night at work, I am rewarded by the transformation of gray skies that hold the promise of nothing good, into crisp blues and whites and the deep golden yellow of the dawn.
I took this photo a while back at Geiger Key Bridge when I took a dawn deviation on my way home. It put me in mind of summer, with the flat waters, the fresh pre-sunshine air and the hum of swarms of mosquitoes. People will often, in the midst of a litany of things they dislike about Florida (Bless their hearts! Stay away!) include the fanciful notion that this is a climate without seasons. Like I need a snow season, a mud season, a green season and a stinking hot season. Some people do and the subtleties of the sub tropics are too slow and too indistinct for their eyes. Summer is obvious: less traffic on Highway One of course! Pretty soon the Bonneville and I will be rumbling back and forth almost unimpeded. Its not that cars are too fast in winter, its that oncoming traffic is too thick and frequently one has to pass a wedge of half a dozen cars lumped together on the highway, like a gaggle of slow moving geese, so one gives up and waits for summer to ease the congestion. Summer is the time for smooth moving traffic, another plus...This is a picture of Southard Street, home of the future gate, uncharacteristically untraffic'ed in mid winter:
It looks just a bit down at heel from across the street in New Town. Closer up:
And closer yet shows the abandonment and its cause, rising waters, followed by mold and exhaustion, flooding really does suck:
I never really appreciated stilt homes till Wilma left my home untouched. There was a move to build stilt homes in New Orleans' Lower Ninth District, but city planners objected saying they look ugly like "olives on sticks." Maybe but they stay dry, like this precariously balanced olive on Flagler Avenue, one of the few stilt homes in the City:
Not architecturally striking, but fear of flooding has been a powerful motivator for those that still remember Wilma's waters in the city.
Stoicism is a fine quality in hurricane season , but there are a few months yet before things heat up and I've got some riding to do, on those roads that at last should be emptying out as the weeks go by.
