For the second year in a row I am going back to Italy without my wife, for a short vacation. Last year my buddy Giovanni lined me up with this monster to ride, a K1200R a 170 horsepower shaft driven motorcycle that cruised comfortably at 120 mph (200 km/h) on the freeway. He tells me this year the BMW dealer in Terni may have the 1300, the new version with 173 hp. I felt last year's ride with three times the horsepower of my Bonneville was more than adequate. I had it up to 125 mph (200km/h) on the freeway so I worry what madness might overtake me if I am going to be riding the K1300R this year:
I photographed the K1200R on Monte Peglia between Todi and Orvieto on a solo ride. Because my wife can't come this year I am going for just ten days, flying from Miami today and arriving in Rome tomorrow morning. By tomorrow afternoon I should be sitting down to a family dinner with my sister celebrating the birthday of her three-year-old grandson. Such is the mind boggling speed of modern jet travel. Here today, gone before tomorrow. In my youth I was happy to share my dog with my Benelli Tornado 650 twin, a modest 50 horsepower superbike of the day, built to challenge the Triumph 650 sportsbike:
Over the past three years I have come to enjoy returning to my roots, a place where I wasn't at all happy growing up and whence I never returned in 25 years of emigration. Our family home, all 50 rooms of it, has stood brooding for eight hundred years in the village where I grew up, more history than I really wanted to deal with then, or now. My 700 square foot stilt home on Ramrod Key is old because it was built in 1987:
Morruzze has seen very little excitement over the centuries, just seasons of growing and harvesting. Our home was taken over by the German army in World War Two as the allies advanced up the Italian peninsula. My grandfather went into hiding and helped allied airmen and resistance fighters to escape the round-ups, so they posted a plaque on the wall of his house in gratitude to celebrate his bravery. Since then the village has been as quiet a spot as you could wish. It always seemed to me to be a good place to run away from.
I spent my summers in my hat playing in the dirt with my buddy Diego and riding mopeds with Giovanni, which is what I still do when get together, here avoiding a downpour on the road to Spoleto. Giovanni is a good deal grayer and the mopeds have become a good deal bigger since then:
I'm ready for a vacation, be it ever so short, and I'm ready to ride some twisty roads with whatever BMW Giovanni has managed to line up for me. My family history? I'll try not to let it interfere with my riding pleasure.
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And when I get home I should have the Bonneville ready to go. Pure Triumph in Fort Lauderdale tell me the bike has been checked and seems to track okay with it's new handlebars. They are waiting for a new brake lever as i wanted to replace the one I scratched and gouged in the fall. I'll keep it for spare against the next fall which could well break a lever no doubt. I'm impressed- the bike has been with them less than two weeks. My new Parabellum windshield also just arrived in a discreet brown box. I'll be cooking with gas when I get back!
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The blog should continue uninterrupted thanks to the miracle of modern technology and daily essays lined up ready to go. Spelling and grammar may be a bit shaky as I shan't have much opportunity to make corrections for the essays I have been feverishly writing prior to my departure. If I get near a computer I shall do my best to post some pictures, but if I do they surely will not be of Key West, always in my mind but, until July 1st a long way away.
When I wrote about Leon Street recently I noted that someone like me who likes to commute enjoys trying to find different routes to work. As my ride to work has to be down Highway One the variations on the daily theme come into play in Key West. The fast and obvious route to the police station from the triangle is down North Roosevelt, but approaching from South Roosevelt along the scenic route along Smathers Beach puts me on White Street. One of my preferred turns is onto Duncan Street, no least because I like the green wall pictured above.
A walk along Duncan Street looking east of a summer's afternoon lengthens the shadows most delightfully:
And as I arrive at work around ten minutes before six post meridian, this is the view I generally get to see, long shadows and chiaroscuro contrasts:
I like noticing that in Key West mundane bike racks get well used:
One would like to think the volume of bicycles in a residential neighborhood might reduce dependence on off-street parking. Fat chance:
Duncan is narrow and short and it packs lots to see in the blocks just off White Street. Well, lots to see if you have modest ambitions like me. A tall dude walking a small dog:
A vine covered cottage:
A mansion (Key West sized mansion) for sale:
And of course, another example of outdoor living:
I found this sign somewhat amusing in light of the vehicles crowding it out:
I found no signs of Art at work but before I turned the camera off I found some wild decorations on a car port:
And Nature adds it's own artistic effect to the little street:
Call it neighborhood pride but someone added a flower bed to the base. 
It is a whole bunch of developments imaginatively called:
And happily decay and decadence is already penetrating the manicured perfection of the place:
They drove out Houseboat Row so this place could get built and overlook Cow Key Channel without being bothered by little people living on boats.In that, they were only partly successful:
The complex has bunches of high rise buildings grouped around a central traffic circle (roundabout):
There's the Grand Key Hotel equipped they say with a nice pool and bar open to locals at no hassle:
Las Salinas consists of more-or-less affordable apartments: 
And the newer Seaside Court apartments lining the entrance off South Roosevelt Boulevard:
These are not designated affordable, not in the least. They were charging something like 1.4 million dollars when land speculation was at it's height a few years ago and these units are not terribly spacious. Imagine paying that much for an apartment you use but a few weeks of the year...
But they are within spitting distance of saltwater:
I had planned to do a little exploring especially as I like to know the lay of the land when I'm at work sending officers out to these places in the middle of the night. But peeking through the gates gave me the idea that short of a few Stepford Wives there wouldn't be much to see:
I should have liked to have seen whatever it was that caused these spectacular skid marks...
I was quite cheered up to see an actual person walking an actual dog in this place:
If anyone has a notion to buy into this community there is a real estate office ready to serve on the premises:
There is also a deli in the little business complex next to the traffic circle:
In looking at the building and then the sign advertising it's presence I find it to be a perfect irony that the symbol they use, a houseboat, had to be destroyed to make way for this clump of buildings:
Houseboat Row is gone: long live the memory of houseboat row!
Fifteen miles per hour was too slow to escape this manicured place.
That being the case I would turn north off Flagler at the white wall shown above which marks Leon Street. The white compound was built at this location after Hurricane Wilma flooded the area in 2005. This house is located across Flagler from this landmark:
It's actually a shrine, not a kennel for a bad dog. And this would be as good a spot as any for the obligatory Key West cyclist photo, in this case one who appears to have mislaid his diminutive passenger:
Leon Street is a bit of a pain to negotiate between Flagler and Catherine as every single cross street has a stop sign...
...forcing me to proceed in a herky jerky fashion.
I have tried out alternative streets but they none of them seem any more direct than this the most direct street. Besides Leon has lots of greenery to make it pretty:
This house has always appeared mysterious and desirable to me, hidden behind it's trees and its high fence:
This house is much more straight forward and more traditionally Florida in style:
And here we have what appears to be a home closed for the summer:
And the usual crop of brightly colored flowers, some I recognize, others I can't name:
Those last are oleanders, poisonous to eat but used frequently in Italy in median strips on the freeways. I know it's necessary as everything has a finite lifespan but I hate seeing trees get cut down:
I'd rather see trees trying to provide inadequate cover for a McMansion like these spindly palms:
The community garden is visible from Leon Street at May Sands School:
This is a place where urban gardeners come to make things grow:
Stuff grows everywhere in the Keys given a little bit of soil:
There are some squat apartment buildings as well on this picturesque thoroughfare:
Before Leon dead ends into the parking lot at Horace O'Bryant Middle school, which forces me to go around three sides of a square to get to the police station on the other side.
Because the House of Brats is a formidable obstacle, even when the youngsters aren't in residence:
North Roosevelt Boulevard is a far quicker, far more direct route, though not so interesting.