Riding Through Umbria

It has been a roller coaster of emotion for me, being in the place where I started out my life's journey and finding out that indeed, as the poet put it, "The past is another country; they do things differently there." Last eyar I made my first trip back to my roots in a quarter century. This time my sisters and friends were prepared for my return and I have spent a lot of time talking about te bad old days, what there was of good about them, and how glad I am to be bale to go back with a serene and open mind. I was depserately unhappy as a child growing up in a family that didn't much want me after my mother died, so my decision to disapper caused some to realise that I really meant it when I said I was out of there.

the good news is that all this good cheer means I may well choose to come back next year, perhaps fo a longer visit, which means I get to ride these mountain roads again, and that is pure pleasure. I have had some sunny weather and the green flowing hillsof Umbria are quite spectatcular and its unfortunate this computer ( which sucks by the way) doesn't allow picture download because the scenery is gorgeous and deserves to be seen. The roads are a mixed bag, some smooth as billiard tables and some, too many, as rutted as a Siberian track in the Spring melt. Public works do not get the attention they deserve in Italy, any more than they do elsewhere.

Riding a motorcycle in Italy is a whole other world. Unlike in the US where passing is viewed as an affront to one's machismo (among men and women drivers I might add) in Italy someone riding a powerful motorcycle gets a measure of deference which is sometimes embarrassing as I am not alwyas ready to ride the beast as hard as it will go. Sometimes a man riding a 170hp motorcycle wants to just tootle along an see the sights and that confuses passing motorists as they expect me to drive aggressively.

Then there are the occasions when I do just that and on this K1200R BMW I have discovered that when the dealer told me it goes from zero to sixty in less than two and a half seconds he wasn't exaggerating for effect On this motorcycle a slow moving truck is a blur in the mirrors and the BMW needs but fifty feet to pass a 35 foot truck. It's like flying while clutching a ballerina by the waist and being led through aerial pirouettes with no effort at all. I think about leaning and the BMW says "No problem!" and its done. I ough the brakes the motorcyle slows effortlessly and under perfect control. I go into a tight turn in the wrong gear and change down suddely and with a little sideways hope the BMW says "No Problem!" and off we go again, swooping in an endles spas-de-deux through the mountains. It is quite amazing.

I took a short cut down a stretch of freeway to find my wife's favorite pottery shop in Deruta to order some plates for her collection and I was wondering why th traffic was going so slowly. I thought i was around the limit of 80mph (130kph) possibly a little more. I glanced at the speedo to find to my horror I was cruisng smoothly at 200kph (125 miles per hour)...Of course the damage was done and when I got down to a proper 80 miles per hour I felt like i was ambling at a slow walk and the ride got suddenly very boring. I was just glad Irondad wasn't there to witness my reckless fecklessness, when I snuck up on the 200 kph mark another couple of times just to..make sure I really had hit the mark! I was getting a taste for it I fear.

Its te best of all worlds, I get to see my old home, I get to ride through one of the most romantic and bautiful and least known regions of italy and I speak the language too. Best of all I have the Florida Keys to come home to, where i will ride sedately at 65 in a 55mph zone and I wil enjoy the views and the water and the warmth and my very enjoyablelife. The best of all worlds, Umbrian by birth, Conch by choice.

Photos of course to follow, when I get home.

River of Grass

Can one get too much of the Everglades National Park? And no alligators either. This essay first appeared in December 2007. It needs saying because it's true: The Everglades generally disappoint. First time visitors expect to see huge looming warped cypress trees with Spanish Moss drooping in a ghostly semblance of Baron Samedi.There are a few spots like that, and some harbor Roseate Spoonbills: Instead the bulk of the Everglades are as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas put it so memorably and vividly, A River of Grass.There's a lookout platform just ten feet above the grass and it gives a tremendous view across the sawgrass to the clumps of hardwood trees known as hammocks. This is the Shark River Slough, 8 miles wide I'm told: And in the foreground one can see a puddle of water, proving the truth of the title of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's book, which I have adapted as the title of this diary entry.

The Everglades National Park, a slice of mainland Monroe County east of Homestead on the tail end of State Highway 9336, is a true South Florida Wilderness. There's nothing much there at all, especially since Hurricane Wilma paid a visit in 2005 and put paid to what little humans had managed to put down in the wilderness. Hurricane Wilma didn't do much to nature because the open spaces are basically floating on water anyway and animals that live there are pretty much used to coping with a semi-submersible habitat. I'm not one of those.Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I love the Everglades, whether I'm rolling down Tamiami Trail, or bouncing down the gravel of the Loop Road or taking the back roads through Seminole Country. It's a complete change from the rocks and water and narrow strips of land that comprise the Florida Keys. Also its totally quiet out in the grass, a place where just the wind whistles an accompaniment to the birds.I left home at 5am today and got home exactly 12 hours and 319 miles later. It started inauspiciously enough as the Highway was wet from earlier rain. Indeed it started to sprinkle around Mile Marker 90, an hour into the ride. I took cover for ten minutes under an overhang and forced myself to stay upright and awake as I had slept badly the night before and I was exhausted. Breakfast at Denny's in Key Largo at Mile Marker 99 woke me up with chorizo, eggs, tortillas and cafe con leche.After breakfast I had half a mind to turn back and tuck myself into bed by ten o'clock but streaks of blue to the north convinced me the low lying clouds would blow away and a glorious day would burst forth. Fortune favors the bold, and I was right; I spent the rest of the day in sunshine and temperatures hovering between 80 and 90 degrees. The road to Flamingo, 50 miles from Homestead passes through fields of agriculture that remind me of nothing so much as California's Salinas Valley.

Flamingo is the park headquarters located on the shore of Florida Bay, a shallow body of water that I'm told gets no deeper than 10 feet. I've sailed to Marathon from the eastern capes hereabouts and its only 30 miles south, more than 120 miles by road...This is the former lodge, an ugly 1950's style motel that used to house visitors at the waterfront. Until Wilma invaded and now the Park Service is contemplating what to do next. Hopefully something more in keeping architecturally with the everglades location. The headquarters building, equally ugly if a good deal more bizarre in design still operates with peeling paint and lots of hurricane induced rust. The views south towards Florida Bay are tremendousand there is an excellent exhibit about the life cycles of the bay inside the building. Looking inland from the observation deck one is forced to wonder who figured this sort of parade ground set the proper tone for "downtown" Flamingo! Pity the man with the mower.

Away from the reconstituted marina and the still functioning campground, I found a chunk of dirt road with the intriguing notice No RV's Low Overhang, so naturally I decided it was time to test the 500 pound Bonneville's off road capability. I though it went quite well, but after a mile or so the potholes were still holey and the vegetation was dense as ever and the road kept rolling merrily along. So I turned back, deciding whatever there was to see at the end would have to wait for another day. I expect it was a campground unsuitable for RVs, but the road was potholed enough it wasn't terribly suitable for Triumph Bonnevilles though the machine acquitted itself just fine. I got tired of bouncing is all, and I wondered what I'd do if I got a flat. It was hot and very quiet down there, all by myself.

.

Back on the main road I set my sights on the outside world, however to get there I had to overcome one more obstacle. And I should point out the Park Service does not offer supplemental oxygen to get over the top.I was tempted to coast downhill from here but I had taken my time in the morning and now it was time to pick up the pace back to civilization which was still there,not improved, I'm sorry to say, since I passed through Florida City in the morning.

All good fun comes to an end, with just another two hours down the Overseas Highway to home, but it won't be long before I'm back in range of the black spot, you are here. But not in summer, never in summer unless suicide by mosquito is on the agenda.

Melatonin

1) Put the little orange flavored pill under your tongue before going to bed the night before you fly.
2)Put the little orange flavored pill under your tongue before sleep on the plane.
3)Put the little orange flavored pill under your tongue the first night in the new time zone.
4) Rent the motorcycle as soon as you arrive at your destination and get riding.
Melatonin- how to overcome jet lag the easy way.

And with just ten days to go before I have to give up this remarkable motorcycle I
have some riding to do. Thats the good news. the bad news is that Italy is going
through a cloudy thundery rainy period this week and my desire to ride this 170 hp
1200R BMW is overwhelming my common sense.

Italy is horribly expensive notwithstanding the exchange rate that has dropped the Euro all
the way down to 1.55 to the dollar. And I haven't even had to add gas to the crotch rocket
yet at $9 to the gallon. The good news is, if I fall off the thing (and it is REALLY fast!)
medical care is free.

Giovanni looks tired and he is looking forward to a few days off, goofing with me.
His wife Rossana is tired too and dispirited by the cramped economy,
the lack of raises and the cost of maintaining and supplying the expanding needs of two teenaged
children. When I visit Terni, in Umbria, and see the reality of provincial Italian life I am reminded of the popular US stereotype of La Dolce Vita and Fellini films which doesn't translate into 21st century reality. It's great to visit though, with a fistful of dollars (even weak ones) and no obligations a all ( my wife's
present is secure already. I know which side my bread is buttered on). I probably shouldn't say it but it does make me more glad than ever that I found the common sense at a young age, to emigrate. That I landed up in the Keys wasjust icing on tha particular cake.

Gotta go find a real cappuccino and a jam filled pastry for breakfast, oh I miss eggs over easy,
and there's a tank full of horribly expensive gas to burn in them thar hills. And this computer sucks eggs. It has a mind of its own.
Aren't vacations great?

Further Moods of Highway One

This post I published originally in July last year, and as I am on vacation here is a repeat from the days I used to ride my Vespa 250 everywhere:

Its closing in on 5pm and that means its time for me to start thinking about pulling it all together for my commute into town. I collect my bag and my lunchbox, slip into my formal going-to-work shoes and head towards the Vespa, which is parked under the house.

I wear an open helmet with goggles, leather gloves and a broad smile as I putter down my street attempting civility at a sedate 25 miles per. Its always a hassle leaving the house, the quiet, the dappled sunlight, the comfort of the arm chair, the books, the radio, the whatever-I-want-to-do-next. The desire to stay is mitigated by the desire to ride, as ridiculous as that sounds.

So off he goes, Snoopy to the Rescue, all I lack is a scarf as my Vespa makes a nice substitute for a dog house. The riding position of the scooter requires a straight back which makes for good posture but its also very comfortable, unlike most motorcycles which usually demand contortions from your arms, and a bottom made of asbestos the seats are so uncomfortable. Burning ass syndrome. Why do we ride motorcycles? Because we like our self image I dare say...

And because we like to skirt complex traffic situations which do arise from time to time in our Florida Keys.

I don't know what backed up the traffic going into Big Pine that day but whatever it was I had the camera with me so I could stop and make some good use of the moment. I have also made some good use of time by poking around the back streets of Big Pine Key, and this at first glance doesn't look like such a bright idea.

Big Pine is so named because of its size, not because of the size of the trees that grow there. Big Pine is also synonymous with down-at-heel stores, landscaping designed and implemented by moles and homesteads apparently occupied by residents who remain firmly convinced despite all evidence to the contrary, that planting a car will grow a new automobile. Nevertheless when Highway One is jammed this is one place in the bottle neck (Matecumbe Keys is another) where you can ride the back roads to avoid the arterial blockages that occasionally hold up traffic in downtown Big Pine.

Its a matter of slipping past the trailers in their lots, darting round long dormant cars, finding the gap in concrete barricades put out with the express purpose of preventing the use of the street as thoroughfares, and eventually making your way to Winn Dixie shopping center. Once there you have outsmarted Highway One, and wasted a fair bit of time too, because the back roads really aren't faster if Highway One is moving at all.

Heading south, past my street, Highway One opens up into a series of long open straightaways, open vista bridges, sweeping curves and occasional businesses, frequently modeled on the Big Pine style of minimum landscaping and maximum neon and plastic.

So, on the ride in to Key West, its a matter of inserting oneself into the traffic flow as best one can and taking the road as it comes. Some days, in summer mostly, especially in the later, hurricane prone months, the traffic gets lighter and the road is a fast run to Stock Island, sometimes even less than 30 minutes followed by a straight shot to work with cooperating traffic lights. In winter the highway becomes an endless stream of snowbirds. God only knows what they are doing on the road during commute hours but they successfully manage to clog the highway and slow everything down, by a few minutes.

The rise of the bridge over Niles Channel gives me the best view of the surrounding waters, in the morning its an apocalyptic vision of a blood-red sun rising through the thunder heads. In the afternoon its the same sun, this time worn out by a day of shining, that blasts into my eyes as I weigh up the chances of passing as we hit the down slope and the dotted yellow lines. (The old Flagler Railway Bridge alongside, vintage 1911, is now a fishing pier).

After the descent into Summerland Village, a mish mash of small businesses including the keys best pizza (Slice of Paradise) and a good video store that keeps us going, we have another quick chance to pass slowpoke cars at the entrance to Cudjoe Key but after that its long straightaways, sweepers and hedges of mangroves broken by bridges, views of the water and then more mangroves, more bridges more water.

The 55mph stretch through the Saddlebunch Keys is always good for a quick cheap passing thrill. If I'm in the mood and there's an end in sight to the traffic I can slide up behind the last car in the line and zip past in one of several dotted yellow line sections with good sight lines.

I think it shocks people to see a "moped" passing them, where a "real" motorcycle would be just a fact of life. Passing with the Vespa does tend to take a bit of planning. I don't do it if the line of vehicles is endless, I see no point in just moving up a few dots in the string. If the cars are doing a real 60 mph in the 55mph zone I also tend to hold back. But if they are dawdling at 50mph, they're dead meat. My dead meat. I hold back, eye the gaps in the cars in front and as the last oncoming vehicle approaches I wind up my gearless 250. I surge up to 70, pass the offending dawdler and tuck myself out of sight on the right hand side of the lane, where I can see past the vehicles in front on the inside of the right hand corners.

And then we get in close to Key West, the four lane opens up and I'm in the fast lane immediately and they think i will be a hindrance on my moped... There's only six miles of four lane, from Big Coppitt and East Rockland, past the Navy base on Boca Chica, through Stock island blending into the urban island) sprawl of North Roosevelt Boulevard in the city.

By the time I'm stuck at the light at the baseball fields I'm 5 minutes from work, so at a red light I pull my sweaty helmet off, stow it with my gloves under my seat and cruise refreshed in to work.

Commuting was never meant to be like this, and for millions it isn't. But for me, even on a rainy day smothered in my rain suit, passing wobbly giant SUV's whose occupants are terrified of water it seems, this is too much like fun. On windy days with gusts of fresh damp air tugging at my sleeves it is supposed to be a nuisance commuting by two wheels. Not for me.

The Internet forums are full of words of caution about small wheeled scooters, words that should fill me with dread on the crusty, tattered surface of the highway with its holes and its bounce and its patches and its dips. My Vespa eats the miles like they were velvet and my back shows neary a complaint. Not even when I'm riding my wife's 150cc Vespa with its modest 10-inch wheels- and it hits 65mph easily!

Railroad To Pale

Another rebroadcast, my favorite story from our Balkan journey by rental car in the Summer of 2007:

This was not what I expected when we turned off the main road, and started driving confidently into the narrow valley off the main road from Gorazde. We were on our way to Sarajevo, but my mind was full of the civil war that had ended 12 years ago and I could clearly see a narrow winding strip of white on the map, a road that led to Pale, the former capital of the breakaway Republica Srpska,the homeland desired by the formerly genocidal Serbs.

Gorazde, seen above, was a Bosnian-Muslim outpost surrounded by Serbs in the civil war, but nowadays bolstered by European Union money it is a prosperous little town on a sunny July afternoon.

The road we were on was not following the dictates of the map and it was deteriorating rapidly into little more than a goat track. We climbed up the valley on a narrow twisting road. The sun made itself visible shining on the greenery high up the granite walls of the valley but down on the road we were deep in shadow.

We came to a steel bridge crossing the river, a fast flowing, boulder-strewn cut through the mountains. The bridge had seen some rough use and the metal plates were buckled in an abstract, interesting way. I plunged onto it lest we start thinking too hard and the heavily laden station wagon bounced as the wheels dropped into a cleft between the plates.

"Er, " Layne gurgled as the car lurched. I kept driving, it was too late now. We scrambled off the end of the bridge onto the roadway and I focused on the fact that other vehicles must use this structure too...

We passed a logging mill, wood piled up outside a classic stone and brick Balkan house with a pointy red tile roof and the road that wound close past the front door. A boy sat on a stack of fresh planks, a dog licked its paws and ignored us as we droned past. The trees closed in and the road waggled its way along the edge of the river. Until we reached the gate.

Somehow we had found some sort of power station, possibly a hydro-electric plant or something, nestled in the woods, guarded by a lonely man in a sentry booth. He let us turn around and when I asked : "Pale?" (In the local lingo pronounced "Pah- lay?") he replied in rapid fire Bosniak and I understood nothing except his hand pointing backwards.

It all came clear as we turned in the parking lot of the power station and headed back to the mill. There we noticed a little cardboard sign, hand written: "Pale Something" which I took to mean "Pale this Way" in cardboard English. We looked at each other and, saying nothing, I turned the wheel and our eager Ford Fusion scrambled up the bank onto the narrow dirt road.

At least, it looked like a road, at first; then we met this...

And then the penny dropped. This was a railroad line and apparently long disused by the trains but still in use as a road. Weird! Cool! We're on the road to Pale. Not waiting for my wife's radiating disapproval to slow us down I kept my foot on the gas and we rumbled into the tunnel.

The first one was a short one and that made it easier to get into the second one which also was short and we could see daylight seconds after starting into the gloom. The third tunnel was much longer, and darker and damper. It gave me shivers as we penetrated the darkness with tendrils of damp sliding down the walls, potholes large enough to reduce our speed to a slow walk and barely enough width to allow us to open a door and get out. that I figured would be a killer if we got a flat...

"What if we meet someone coming the other way?" my wife asked with a half giggle.

"Buggered if I know," I muttered, swinging wide to avoid a hole of particular dimensions. "Lets hope they know how to back." We kept on rumbling, the diesel engine growling in low gear.
"What's that?" she said, cocking her head.

"That, " I said with a sinking feeling , " is our opportunity to figure out who knows how best to back up."

Suddenly their headlights were upon us. A moped lurched out of the darkness and without waiting for me to engage reverse streamed past my door and buzzed out of sight towards the light. Like we weren't even there. Which would have been okay if there wasn't a compact car following close behind him.

I sighed and twisted in my seat and started backing.

I must have gone 50 yards and I'm proud to note without faltering. We pulled to one side and the graceless hulks inside the car flashed us a glare that said if looks could kill we would have been incinerated, and in a flash they were gone, my friendly wave frozen in mid air as though petrified.

And so we gave it a second shot, this time with complete success we popped out at the other end of a tunnel that curved in the middle and must have been 200 yards long, at least. maybe more. it felt longer, I will say that.

The road to Pale came out of the tunnel and coasted alongside the river for a distance, dappled sunlight playing on the trees overhead, the mountain looming over us and still cutting off the lowering sun, for it was close to 6 pm as we drove along the railbed.

"Does this seem like a good idea?" My wife asked after a couple of minutes of silence.
"Umm," I replied. The thought had been occurring to me that we might not be headed towards anything good. Pale had been home to the gruesome killers of Ratko Mladic, the "hero" of the Bosnian-Serb militias. These were the people famous for the slaughter of Srebrenica and the torture by sniper fire over Sarajevo. Pale was their headquarters where they planned the reduction of the Bosnian Muslim capital city. As we bounced along the railroad track with no end in sight ( another quick tunnel) I was mulling over the wisdom of following this trail to nowhere.

I imagined us arriving in some Carmen-like bandit camp high in the mountains and stepping out of our Austrian registered car with weak smiles on our faces and then being lost forever to the rest of humanity. Just two more mounds of dirt in a country littered still with mass graves. It was not a pleasant picture.

"Do you think we should turn back?" I asked.
"Only if you do," she temporized.
"Um, " I temporized.
This trail had probably been pressed into service during the war to connect Pale to the rest of the Serb-held Western Bosnia. Now it was probably just a short-cut across the mountains for a few hardcore people who really want the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina split into two, or three parts.

In any event we stopped, we took pictures, we turned around. I was ready to not keep going, we knew the rail bed went somewhere, and we didn't want to arrive in the dark, or get stuck in the dark and Pale was there somewhere ahead, on a proper paved road, I was pretty sure. This track led to Pale but through God knows who's back yard.

The relief in the Ford was palpable as we back'ed and forth'ed and got facing the way we'd come.
"I expect those guys who passed us called ahead and now the bandits are waiting for us."
"Long wait," I said. We passed the long tunnel, and two more and finally found the sawmill, dropped onto the pavement, crossed the funky bridge , went back down the valley, turned left on the main road away from Gorazde and took the long way round the mountain.

Pale was easily accessible by main road and a drab, down-at-heel town it was too, about as threatening as a page from a history book. 'The banality of evil' was all I could think as I checked the Soviet style apartment blocks and the hurrying hunched pedestrians on their way to nowhere. We drove through, not stopping, and went on our way to Sarajevo and a night in America at the Holiday Inn. We wanted service with a smile and a pretense that outside the door lay midwestern suburbia in all its unthreatening glory. We got a Lego building inhabited by surly Slavs instead. The good ole USA was still a long way away.

We were a little tired and stressed by the Balkans at this point.

How To Drink A Coconut

A few months ago Sears delivered me a new fridge and the deliverymen were a couple of seasoned Jamaicans who pushed and pulled the fridge up the stairs into the house on stilts I call home. I call it my tree house because the stilts put the windows on the leaf level of the abundant mature trees that grow around my home. The deliverymen were impressed by my nut collection. I saw greed in their eyes and offered them as many as they could take. They literally leaped at the offer and in addition to money they took bunches of coconuts home as a tip. I'm not sure which pleased them most.

I've seen people selling coconuts to Key West visitors, and they charge a pretty penny to give someone one of God's own coconuts with a straw stuck out the top. Here's a way to save a buck or two, and learn some self reliance as the housing market forces your food budget into the toilet (so to speak).

First, pop downstairs and pick up your machete, make sure its sharp and ready for work. Your curved Tibetan machete isn't much good for this kind of cutting as the point will hit the ground. To open coconuts you need the American traditional straight blade, and you might want to keep the blade sharp with a whetstone (the blue and white thing in the picture). Then collect your long handled tree trimmer, unless you fancy climbing the trees like people seen on National Geographic, and head for one of your very productive coconut trees. Remember coconuts are not native to the Keys, they were imported for food originally and now people grow them because they are what people expect to see in the (sub)tropics. They want coconuts, not scrubby thatch palms and the like, its what they expect to see on an exotic vacation. Palm trees are so called because the first European visitors to see them though they looked like human palms waving in the breeze. Very ethnocentric I'm sure. In the 19th century coconuts were farmed on plantations because they were the sheep of the plant world. From a coconut you could get oil, copra (the mat-like stuff that comes off from around the hard nut): And naturally the flesh of the nut itself:Here's where you start:

Put the nut on the ground bottom end to the side and start whacking the copra soft shell: Peel the outer skin off and then crack the hard inner nut. Hack a small hole in the hard shell and gently poke a hole with the tip of your machete:Put the opening to your mouth and drink. Repeat until the liquid gives you the runs.

I have tried catching it in a glass and adding rum and ice cubes but on the whole I like it best straight out of the nut. Then put the nut in your yard waste can and get it off to the dump as nuts go moldy and never seem to break down. Alternatively wait for a hurricane to blow by and let the flooding wash them all away. Dried copra makes an excellent barbeque fire, by the way, when the temperature drops below zero (70 fahrenheit).

Coconuts and fish may be a bland and tiresome diet but its what you eat when the cash runs out and you live in the fabulous Florida Keys. For all I know they do something similar in Minnesota too, but that would be another story.