Jim took me on a fabulous tour of Boca Chica which is the largest military facility in the Lower Keys. They train huge numbers of fighter pilots there with the most up to date facilities and it was a tremendous privilege to get to ride the Bonneville around the base. Things being the way they are photos aren't allowed, but I retain fond memories of Bombfarm Road, Old Highway One running through the middle of the base, the much lusted after bowling alley (the only one in the Keys!) and of course the astonishing main runway, a place whose size makes Key West "International" look very rural indeed. Thanks to Jim and his very flash V-Star for an excellent ride. ----------------------------------------------------
The City of Key West has decided it is going to cut down some palm trees in the cemetery. This is a situation reminiscent of the debate over the Australian pines, the casuarina trees at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. In this case the city public works department first started out by saying the trees get in the way of service trucks maintaining the cemetery. That didn't go over so well. 
I'm not sure which trees exactly are slated for destruction, perhaps all of the non natives, because the debate about their worthyness has returned to that intractable desire to maintain forests wherever they may be of native plantings only. And despite every tourist's ardent desire, coconut palms, among others, are not natives. Just as at Fort Zachary where casuarinas were the issue, supporters of palm trees argue their beauty outweighs their non native status:
Unlike Fort Zachary's pines which were spared after years of arduous debate, it looks as though the palms are going to be cut down. Perhaps it's their fate, but there is to be a discussion about this on Wednesday in the city commission and perhaps they will reveal which trees exactly are slated for destruction :
As I made clear in my essay on the cemetery, I like the palms, but these days what do I know?
I'm not sure which trees exactly are slated for destruction, perhaps all of the non natives, because the debate about their worthyness has returned to that intractable desire to maintain forests wherever they may be of native plantings only. And despite every tourist's ardent desire, coconut palms, among others, are not natives. Just as at Fort Zachary where casuarinas were the issue, supporters of palm trees argue their beauty outweighs their non native status:Unlike Fort Zachary's pines which were spared after years of arduous debate, it looks as though the palms are going to be cut down. Perhaps it's their fate, but there is to be a discussion about this on Wednesday in the city commission and perhaps they will reveal which trees exactly are slated for destruction :As I made clear in my essay on the cemetery, I like the palms, but these days what do I know? -------------------------------------------------------------
It's a long way from hurricane season yet (June 30th to November 30th in the South Atlantic Basin) but one can't help but look forward to that time of year when the meteorological uncertainties will join with all the economic problems we face this year...Perhaps I was thinking about storm season as we just got done renegotiating our hurricane insurance, $1100 this year over $2400 last year thanks to a different insurance agent. The State of Florida faced a revolt by the citizenry when insurance companies sent rates skyrocketing after the disastrous years of 2004 and 2005 and in an effort to keep rates bearable created a state run agency which says its not taking in enough in premiums to cover major losses, but oh well, its a political decision, not actuarial...
There is a house in the Lower Keys built after Hurricane Wilma flooded the islands, that developed a personal response to hurricane threats. It seems like a nice idea but horribly expensive.
It's a bit hard to photograph as the greenery is abundant and the front gate not very welcoming, and I am not one to go trespassing for the sake of a picture. The owner of this newly built home decided the vehicle was worth saving in the event there might be another flood. So the garage was built up in the air on the same level as the house:
I've pondered this idea a bit and though it isn't practical for me, lacking as I do the lot size or the money to build it, I wonder who exactly it is practical for. After all for a regular vehicle, even a Bonneville (gasp!) it makes more economic sense to replace the wheels than to pay to build an elevated garage with all the costs involved.
Parking one's car 15 feet above ground level (4.5meters) may have more to do with sentiment than hard headed economic sense. Me? I try to rent a ground level storage locker when a hurricane threatens for a modest $200 a month and put my machines there for good or ill...Good, so far.
There is a house in the Lower Keys built after Hurricane Wilma flooded the islands, that developed a personal response to hurricane threats. It seems like a nice idea but horribly expensive.It's a bit hard to photograph as the greenery is abundant and the front gate not very welcoming, and I am not one to go trespassing for the sake of a picture. The owner of this newly built home decided the vehicle was worth saving in the event there might be another flood. So the garage was built up in the air on the same level as the house:I've pondered this idea a bit and though it isn't practical for me, lacking as I do the lot size or the money to build it, I wonder who exactly it is practical for. After all for a regular vehicle, even a Bonneville (gasp!) it makes more economic sense to replace the wheels than to pay to build an elevated garage with all the costs involved.Parking one's car 15 feet above ground level (4.5meters) may have more to do with sentiment than hard headed economic sense. Me? I try to rent a ground level storage locker when a hurricane threatens for a modest $200 a month and put my machines there for good or ill...Good, so far. ----------------------------------------------
Riding through Summerland Key one afternoon recently I spotted a stand of fish floats:
Riding through Summerland Key one afternoon recently I spotted a stand of fish floats:
There is a canal alongside Highway One in this neighborhood that accommodates more of the commercial type boats and less of the recreational:
I'm not sure if this fisherman is tired of the lifestyle or unable to make a decent living but he has turned to selling the tools of his trade as ornaments:
It struck me as sad. ----------------------------------------------------
But across the Overseas Highway, chicken done right is still going gangbusters:
I read a comment a while back that someone actually tried my recommendation and liked the fried chicken. I was quite surprised. This one is at Mile Marker 25, at the Mobil gas station ($2.11 for a gallon of regular).
Further up the street I saw another sign of home grown cottage industry:
But across the Overseas Highway, chicken done right is still going gangbusters:I read a comment a while back that someone actually tried my recommendation and liked the fried chicken. I was quite surprised. This one is at Mile Marker 25, at the Mobil gas station ($2.11 for a gallon of regular). -------------------------------------------------
Further south on the Highway Cudjoe Key seems to be going through some changes of it's own. The Yamaha outboard dealer came and went, all signs now taken down:
So much for getting my zincs and spark plugs here... Hurricane season is also a reminder that pretty soon the waters will be warm enough for swimming so I want my skiff ready to launch in a couple of months. Boyz N Their Toyz was all boarded up, boats on trailers for sale, everything despondent and abandoned:
Well I guess they hadn't been open that long and in this economic climate it's the longer established businesses that tend to hold on (sez I rationalising magnificently). However this company has been around for a while:
I'd like to think it's just the land up for sale but it doesn't look that way. And the space between those two businesses is also available:
Come on down the weather's lovely!
So much for getting my zincs and spark plugs here... Hurricane season is also a reminder that pretty soon the waters will be warm enough for swimming so I want my skiff ready to launch in a couple of months. Boyz N Their Toyz was all boarded up, boats on trailers for sale, everything despondent and abandoned:Well I guess they hadn't been open that long and in this economic climate it's the longer established businesses that tend to hold on (sez I rationalising magnificently). However this company has been around for a while:I'd like to think it's just the land up for sale but it doesn't look that way. And the space between those two businesses is also available:Come on down the weather's lovely!----------------------------------------------------
Whatever else is going on the dog needs to be walked:
The good life, at least for the dog.
The good life, at least for the dog.
Peter 
On the whole the plot was daffy but plausible enough. Neither the "device" nor the traitor who sold it played much of a role in the plot which was really a vehicle to explore friendship and the 
Driving home in the Nissan before dawn Thursday I had to pull over to fumble with the unfamiliar heater controls in the car. I accidentally fired up the air conditioner and I couldn't remember how to turn that off and replace it with necessary heat. The last time we used it was last December in North Carolina, but my wife was in charge of heat on the road trip and it took me a moment to figure out how to warm up the car (push the knob to the red. Doh!). The outside temperature gauge read 46 degrees Fahrenheit which is less than 8 degrees in new money. That is cold when you are used to 80 degrees/27C. 
The good news, when I awoke six hours later and crawled out from under a heap of every blanket we own, was that there was sunshine. That same cloudless sky that allowed all the warmth to drift up into the stratosphere was making for a glorious, bright winter day. One pair of socks was not enough so I pulled another pair on top of that and contemplated heading out in the brisk north wind. The outside temperature gauge under the house read 58 degrees (14C) and it didn't even feel that warm. Nevertheless I wheeled the bicycle out and decided I had to make an effort. Besides, sitting at the computer reading about wonky economics and unhappy people worldwide wasn't doing my mood any good. I rode north to the pool.
Even in winter, when the water temperature is 70 degrees, there are some fruitcakes that come out and sit on the rock hard "beach" and take swims in the little salt tidal inlet that constitutes the "park." Aside from a trash can and and a gravel open space "parking lot" there are no amenities here which suits me (and lots of others) just fine. I have to confess I am losing my faith in the will of our leaders to do anything radical about our economic woes and the continued news of bankers and their poxy proxies continuing to line their pockets at our expense fills me with rage and a bicycle ride is a fine antidote to the wilful inability of our new president to follow through and bring a new economic attitude to our nation's capital. I shouldn't be surprised, he got donations from the same skanky investors who always pay to get their candidates into office, the ones who enjoyed a 150 million dollar inaugural party. The pool was looking delightfully unattended in the brisk afternoon sun:
I'm figuring that as time goes by and we print money to fund a stimulus that will do nothing more than patch the gaping holes of an economy in endless decline we will all have to find our own amusements, after we have gone through the tedious business of completing all the chores we will need to do to stay alive. In that respect I plan to take advantage of living on the water and enjoying the views and hell, perhaps even learning how to fish and fillet. It's all in the attitude I guess, so I will enjoy it all.
It's hard to maintain a grumbly attitude on a day like this, especially knowing that decent people in British Columbia are getting snow and fog and general nasty dampness. Plus we have a new head of the CIA who is decidedly opposed to torture and now with Associate Justice Ginsburg revealing, as it were, a very nasty cancer, perhaps the President will show us his ability to appoint a new attitude on the Supreme Court. There's no doubt his economic advisers want more of the same wasteful spending of our money, and it irks me mightily to see that. But the sun is out: 
Perhaps a gigantic financial meltdown really is the only way to get re-started, though I cannot begin to imagine the pain we shall be forced to endure, not only here but across the world where people have a lot less than us to start with. Perhaps on second thoughts they, who have less of an entitlement attitude will do better than we shall. Perhaps, on third thoughts, not: especially when their meager rations get cut even more to feed our political demand for this ridiculous ethanol.
Ah yes, Thursday was a glorious day in the Keys. My wife said she loved me before she left for work, I'm not even missing the Triumph as it's so bloody cold and my job for now seems secure even as the city mandates no overtime and tries to figure a way to enforce such a rule when public safety is at stake. Who knows, perhaps I'm wrong and President Obama will carefully and subtly put a collar on the financial shenanigans and for once my gloomy prognostications about politicians in general and some in particular won't be borne out. The anti mosquito canals filled with water in the thunderstorm we had earlier in the week. No sign of the mosquito eating fish though:
I had left overs for lunch, and burned not a drop of ethanol to get these pictures. I hope their immoral bonuses choke them, I'm having a "no dollar day" off work.
Carsten Lane is become a bitter disappointment to me. First it used to have a messed up name and it was impossible to tell if it was supposed to be Carsten, or in the plural Carstens because the signs at William and Margaret Streets couldn't agree. Nowadays they seem to agree on the singular. Very boring:
We still have it listed in our computer aided dispatch as Carstens, long may it stay in confusion. Worse than that is the fact they have cleaned up the back of the old Harris School and now the lane is wide open to the northwest and any air of dark and forest-like mystery has been lost to efficiency:
I mentioned the Harris School in a previous essay (30 November 2008) and it seems no one wants to buy the building, nor the huge chunk of land it sits on so here it is, all cleared and ready for unbridled development. Meanwhile Carsten(s) Lane is no longer a shady jungle of growth, overpowered by the building that used to be occupied by the MARC House.Now its just a one sided alley, but at least it's only the middle piece. The opening off William Street still retains some of that closed in look I am so fond of:
And the overgrown bit still curves wildly as it always has:
Of course there is still a chance that you can rent a house, rent a bicycle and enjoy looking out without missing a thing:
Then there are the attempts at beautification which looks really nice, all symmetrical and tidy and stuff and in the middle of it there is one of those bizarre signs. I wonder why anyone imagines that some dolt who lets their dog crap all over a flowerbed is going to be put off by a vivid little sign:
Besides the sign spoils the effect, but there we are. These signs are all over the place because too many people who walk their dogs, and there are tons of them in Key West, don't pick up after them. I swore after my last dog died I wasn't picking up after anybody's dog ever again, I had bagged tons of the stuff over the years. Twelve years of that is enough and I don't envy people like this lady shown below walking a large, doubtless productive, animal, though I'm sure she was amply armed with plastic bags:
There are better maintained homes on Carstens Lane too,
And there are the castles in the air, with all their different living levels,
And there are projects jealously guarded:
Margaret Street leads away past the ravaged Harris school block which is wide open on that side too:
But taken at a slightly different angle things really don't look so bad, especially if there is a Bonneville in the foreground:
It was a gray afternoon, overcast and promising rain, which never materialized, so I looked up from where I was standing contemplating change and how annoying it is:
Very apocalyptic I'm sure but it's just a photographic illusion. 
There used to a Harley Davidson dealer on Truman Avenue called Hornes, but the old man got tired and decided it was time to retire. MamaJoe's, an old fashioned H-D repair shop in Marathon closed last year as well. Aside from the myriad scooter shops around Key West there are two motorcycle dealers, the Honda shop on Southard Street run by a Conch known for his extremely eccentric business style, and the more professional Yamaha shop on North Roosevelt which is strictly a Yamaha only shop. Boots Scoots, an independent repair shop gave it a try on Fourth Street but the owner got ill apparently and had to close. Bones cycles is now a scooter rental shop on North Roosevelt. Jiri at Stock Island Cycles on Laurel Avenue keeps on keeping on:
He's a busy man, now that he runs the shop by himself after his former partner dropped by the wayside and Jiri the entrepreneur takes care of everything. He hired his own assistant, a shadowy figure working on a scooter on one of the lifts:
Jiri chats with customers, takes appointments...and wrenches on bikes as well:
Like any self respecting old fashioned motorcycle shop Jiri's place is partly a social gathering spot, partly a repair place and partly also a showroom to look at different motorcycles on this variety starved island, even if they aren't for sale:
Jiri (pronounced: hee-ree) grew up in communist run Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the US in 1996 and ending up on Stock island doing what he knows best: fixing motorcycles. His hobby is racing and he has his own bike that he trailers up to Homestead for track days. He also gets to test ride customer bikes of course and he has a variety:
Jiri remembers going to watch motorcycle races at the Grand Prix circuit at Brno, before the Berlin wall came down, and he, along with his buddies, would check out the huge touring motorcycles ridden east from West Germany, and they would gawp, all envious as only small boys can be, and never imagined that he could ever ride, never mind own a machine like those sophisticated BMW's. "Now I fix them!" he grinned, surrounded by Western motorcycling decadence and enjoying every minute of it.
Jiri likes Japanese motorcycles for their reliability, but he works on anything he can order parts for and he has dealers in South Florida happy to ship him parts, including Pure Triumph in Fort Lauderdale. 
Pick up service is possible though I coordinate with my wife when I drop off the Trumpet, as she works half a mile away and she lets me borrow her Vespa if the bonneville is getting a tune up... Wandering the rows of tired and needy old motorbikes is always an experience at Island Cycles. I saw another of those typically Cuban rolling memorials: 
And typically southernmost-proud bumper stickers:
Locating Island Cycles (305 292 5444) is a bit of a trick, but the best way is to take the Highway out of Key West and at the flashing yellow lights turn south, past the Coral Hammock development, then take the first left towards Murray Marine. Jiri is next to the defunct propeller shop on Laurel Avenue . In the distance one can see Highway One running alongside the trees that line the Key West Golf Course:
Having Jiri's shop makes Key West feel somehow less remote when it comes to riding a motorcycle every day. Technical back up is no bad thing at all for a daily rider.