"Oh man!" the public works employee groaned as I leveled my camera at the man sleeping upright on the steps. "Don't take his picture!" I'm trying to, I replied emphatically, as my dog jerked the leash and the camera wobbled and refused to focus in the pre-dawn half light. His intoxication, his incapacity, is emblematic of the giant party that just closed out the old year in Key West.
There is a school of thought that speaks loudly in favor of of a new kind of tourism in Key West. Supporters of tourism of the wealthy say the city would be much nicer if rich people came to visit, making this public display of incontinence another piece of Key West's quirky history. Me? I was working New Year's Eve with Officers Young and Betz playing Bounce the Dispatcher as they stopped traffic all over town constantly all night on their vigorous DUI patrol. The rest of the city was boozing it up under a full moon, the last blue moon for the next 30 months:
I staggered out of the Police Station at ten minutes to six in the morning, handing over the controls to Rachel, abandoning the care of the city to day shift. I had a dog to walk. Cheyenne was a little bleary eyed, over walked I think these past few days. She had refused to come out of the car during the night when I went downstairs to visit her on my breaks and I figured she needed a pick-me-up to get her going. The smells of Duval on the morning after were just the ticket. For some reason this trash can was empty, an ironic sight on the city's main drag that was itself resembling nothing quite so much as a landfill:
Cheyenne got to work sniffing the detritus and I got to work photographing what was left of the party. To my amazement I literally knocked into the City Manager, bright eyed, bushy tailed and perfectly groomed, marching down the street organizing the public works crews. Jim Scholl came to the city from the Navy and he has a very different style from his predecessor. Navy ship-shape came to mind as he grinned, telling me how Lower Duval was well on it's way back to human habitability. I had m y work cut out to record the part of the party no one else wants to look at. Cheyenne was volunteering to join the public works crews. 
I was surprised to see the new Matheessen's store just closing at 6am. This used to be the falafel shop on Duval that I rather liked. Now we have yet more Conch fritters on offer.
"We seceded where others failed" is the motto of the Conch Republic, whose flag can also apparently be used as a rather attractive, if misplaced, door curtain.
(Legible image courtesy of Bruce).
There is a school of thought that speaks loudly in favor of of a new kind of tourism in Key West. Supporters of tourism of the wealthy say the city would be much nicer if rich people came to visit, making this public display of incontinence another piece of Key West's quirky history. Me? I was working New Year's Eve with Officers Young and Betz playing Bounce the Dispatcher as they stopped traffic all over town constantly all night on their vigorous DUI patrol. The rest of the city was boozing it up under a full moon, the last blue moon for the next 30 months:
I staggered out of the Police Station at ten minutes to six in the morning, handing over the controls to Rachel, abandoning the care of the city to day shift. I had a dog to walk. Cheyenne was a little bleary eyed, over walked I think these past few days. She had refused to come out of the car during the night when I went downstairs to visit her on my breaks and I figured she needed a pick-me-up to get her going. The smells of Duval on the morning after were just the ticket. For some reason this trash can was empty, an ironic sight on the city's main drag that was itself resembling nothing quite so much as a landfill:Cheyenne got to work sniffing the detritus and I got to work photographing what was left of the party. To my amazement I literally knocked into the City Manager, bright eyed, bushy tailed and perfectly groomed, marching down the street organizing the public works crews. Jim Scholl came to the city from the Navy and he has a very different style from his predecessor. Navy ship-shape came to mind as he grinned, telling me how Lower Duval was well on it's way back to human habitability. I had m y work cut out to record the part of the party no one else wants to look at. Cheyenne was volunteering to join the public works crews. I was surprised to see the new Matheessen's store just closing at 6am. This used to be the falafel shop on Duval that I rather liked. Now we have yet more Conch fritters on offer.
"We seceded where others failed" is the motto of the Conch Republic, whose flag can also apparently be used as a rather attractive, if misplaced, door curtain.(Legible image courtesy of Bruce).A lonely bottle pointing the way: 
Ho ho ho , God Bless Us Everyone. Very Dickensian don't you think? Except for the palm tree some spoil sport will feel obliged to point out:
Even at this hour the bicycle traffic continues unabated through the remains of the war zone:
One more gruesome sports bar didn't stay open for a month. This is apparently some sort of chain restaurant, but the space is open once again if you have an arm and a leg available to pay for the monthly rent.
Lonely Street is the place you fend off with beer and vodka when all else fails. Or you can pass out at the Heartbreak Hotel just out of sight of the picture.
Ho ho ho , God Bless Us Everyone. Very Dickensian don't you think? Except for the palm tree some spoil sport will feel obliged to point out:Even at this hour the bicycle traffic continues unabated through the remains of the war zone:One more gruesome sports bar didn't stay open for a month. This is apparently some sort of chain restaurant, but the space is open once again if you have an arm and a leg available to pay for the monthly rent.
Lonely Street is the place you fend off with beer and vodka when all else fails. Or you can pass out at the Heartbreak Hotel just out of sight of the picture.
At first glance one could make the argument that upscale tourism would be nice, but frankly I wouldn't like it. When places get boring they lose their charm. If you don't believe me check out Royal Palm Beach or Naples (Florida, I mean). And besides the merchants down here don't really want this lot to change. Public Works, those amazing tireless people, will restore everything before the hang overs are done and commerce will continue and no one will remember to thank them. 
There was an article in the Citizen, a pean of praise for City Commissioner Mark Rossi who spent $450,000 years ago to buy Ricks Bar and now owns the block upon which a warren of bars exists, along with a strip club called, alluringly enough, The Red Garter, where you can pay very little to see a pair of Eastern European breasts if the mood takes you. The article mentioned that the commissioner is still steamed about a noise ordinance proposed by the developer of Truman Annex all those years ago that would have required a different style of entertainment at Ricks's Bar. The ordinance obviously never made it, and Key West's path to a noisy, beery, cheap trinket renaissance was cast. Plastic cups anyone? 
Who says it never snows in Key West? Looks like a proper snow drift to me:
Everyone went home but they left the lights on. Expense is clearly no object and the concept of conservation hasn't yet penetrated a community where only seven percent of the waste stream is recycled:
It is not enough for one location to imitate the Big Apple by dropping a ball at midnight of the Old Year. In Key West the owner of schooner wharf, a lissome blonde dresses as a pirate-ess and drops from a sailboat mast. At Sloppy Joe's a Conch ("konk") shell drops and here they put an Asiatic wo-man in the red slipper and drop her. Take your pick- a real woman, a fake gastropod, or a real cross dresser, Key West would never be so wondrous were it to follow in the path of the gruesome, dull rich of the upper class suburbs.
Trust an anal compulsive like me to notice some dork left the lights on the bike.
The Bahamian arch denotes Petronia Street, scene of the Goombay Street Fair in October.How undignified to leave a cup on the seat of a stranger's scooter. Certainly no cup of kindness here:
And then a block away Key West's serenity reasserts itself. 
"Coexist!" the bumper sticker demands of it's readers. Not impossible to do even in so small a place as Key West. we are only talking here about the visitors and their money on Duval, and the residents, living their quiet lives elsewhere. Not a plastic cup to be seen.
The water droplets are a result of me washing the bike by the way. One gives the bottle a squeeze and off the oil goes down the hose to the sprocket and the oil (I use fresh, basic, cheap engine oil for maximum penetration) slides onto both sides of the sprocket teeth. Dead simple, inexpensive and completely effective:
I squeeze the bottle as often as I remember though it is recommended at every fuel fill up and after riding in rain. I do it as often as I feel like, too often probably, but my chain at 35,000 miles is like new:
To check a chain grip the links at the sprocket and if you can pull it back far enough to see daylight it is time for a change, which costs about $200 for chain and sprockets. I find modern o-ring chains to be nothing like the dreadful old chains we used to use when I was a kid that chewed themselves up in five or seven thousand miles and seemed like they needed constant attention:
I have toyed with mounting a Quiet Power Drive belt conversion for the Bonneville but at a thousand dollars it seems rather expensive. My chain is very low maintenance especially now that it is worn in and I rarely have to adjust it. I wash it in kerosene with a stiff brush every 1500 miles ( or after riding extensively on gravel) and only adjust the tension when the motorcycle snatches in low gear around town. A half turn on the adjusters fixes that. It seems like it might take me 250,000 miles (400,000 kms) to spend a thousand bucks on chain and sprocket replacement at this rate!
My factory mirrors still carry the evidence of my fall last June but corrosion doesn't seem bad at all considering. they show the road clearly behind me and I have felt no desire to change them. I'd prefer them if they came powder coated in black for corrosion resistance but i won't waste money buying fancy aftermarket mirrors when these work so well. Another bone of contention among Triumph polishers is the bluing of the exhaust pipes and these young riders want double walled exhaust pipes. Modern lean running engines tend to blue more than the old days but so what? Bluing is the sign of a bike that's used. Anyway most people replace the factory mufflers saying they are too quiet (they are!) but in these modern times quiet pipes make you an unobtrusive neighbor and an unobtrusive speeder on our crowded roads. Quiet pipes get you there faster. Blue pipes make no difference where it counts- on the road. Notice there is some corrosion developing on the engine case around the mounting nut. I find that inevitable down here and when it gets too ghastly I will replace the covers with powder coated black ones, mad for the Bonneville "Black" model.
Behind the pipe you can barely see the oil radiator which cools the engine oil, again because these modern engines run lean and hot. In temperatures under 60 degrees (15C) I find it keeps the engine too cool and I sometimes think on these cold winter nights I should cover it with some tin foil. I just tend to warm the engine up at length on cold cold starts. If I don't a weird buzzer goes off if the engine is too cold. Perhaps the oil remains too thick or something. I just pull over and wait for it to warm up.
Speaking of corrosion these rust marks are the only sign on the muffler of my spill last June, the saddlebag took the brunt of the fall on that side in the rear. The handlebar clamp has developed some weird striations. I've thought about getting it powder coated black but I am not motivated enough. I also managed to lose a bolt cover for the Parabellum mount and now have a bare Allen bolt head staring back at me. Lucky I'm not the fussy type or these details would keep me crazy. I worry more about keeping up with the maintenance and every 12,000 miles the Bonneville goes to the Triumph dealer for a proper going over. No expense spared where it counts!
I've forgotten where I got this neat little package but I seem to recall it cost $20 which is what I keep in it along with the bike's registration in a Ziploc bag. The other side of the license plate holder is a side stand plate for use on soft ground which I show pulled half out in this picture . I use it rarely but it's nice to have. A very handy little upgrade if I say so myself. 
The Bonneville is not fully equipped in term of instruments. I got all sorts of grief about not having a tach when I added an aftermarket model. Then when I threw the bike down the road that went west with the windshield. Perhaps I will give it another shot sometime but for now I am blowing it off, in line with the rest of the economically restrained shopping we are not doing. I do have a Formotion clock and temperature gauge. I like to know the temperature because, like sailors with wind speeds, we motorcyclists tend to exaggerate if we don't really know. The clock is necessary because, despite popular belief, "island time" in the Keys is a figment of the imagination of the unemployed, the snowbirds and vacationers.
I like that nothing here is battery Dependant which makes me a freak in the electronic age, but with a trip mileometer and some common sense I don't need a reserve light, a fuel gauge or a a GPS/Ipod/Blue Tooth outlet thanks. This is not a mobile office, it's a motorbike. Commuting with Cheyenne I find I am listening to altogether too much NPR, and now Karl Cassel has retired I have to get used to a new newsreader. Life is just full of change. 
Another criticism of the Bonneville is that it only has one front disc. That doesn't bother me but when i was kid a and hard core riders wanted two discs they bought another fork leg, reversed it and mounted it on the other side to get twin front discs. I am not a hard core rider like riepe's Mac Pac load of BMW people. They have to ride hard to prove they aren't panty waist BMW people. I am secure in my single disc manhood. This next addition should be controversial.
Giovanni told me about a new Tucano Urbano shop in Terni when I was in Italy two years ago. He was intrigued by a little doo-hickey that you slip over the shifter and it will prevent your Italian patent leather penny loafers from getting nasty motorcycle scuff marks...It works too, though in North America where manhood versus all the gear is the debate i don't think there is any market for a compromise tool like this: 
It works quite well with pink crocs but I don't usually ride in those and when I took the picture it was cold enough (59 degrees/14C) I needed socks and long pants.
Who was it warned me the plants might tip the Earthboxes over? The eggplant ("aubergine" to some English speakers) is doing it's best:
There's a tomato plant and a Cuban oregano lurking underneath the exploding zucchini:
In addition to a couple of potted tomatoes we also threw a couple more into hanging planters which i strung up from the top of the water cistern/deck:
I am considering getting a couple more topsy Turvies next time we are at Target in Miami because I think we could usefully grow bell peppers in them too.
They just hang there impervious to iguanas and grow, conveniently facing south:
The Earthboxes have worked a treat and they really do produce some strong growth. The only thing I don't like about them is that when it rains I still have to water them, but they go several days without watering even with monster plants like these. It's easy to fill their tanks and then just let them water themselves.
We put a selection of lettuce in an Earthbox as well, and these are four plants overflowing even though we have been peeling leaves off for dinner regularly. We bought our plants form the guy who sells them at the Big Pine Flea Market. His plants seem suited to Florida conditions and they do a lot better than the generic stuff that is available at Home Depot. 
The other lettuce plants in the wooden planter I built last year are doing well. I've been spraying Iguana Rid madly and it seems to have worked. I started spraying early and though i did see a few mouthfuls bitten out apparently the capsaicin mixture works well because they have learned to believe these lettuce are not tasty for lizards...do far so good.
My trees continue to grow, mango, sugar apple, avocado, pomegranate (Thanks Robert and Dolly) and a tangerine and key lime.
It seems to be going a lot better this year than last. We seem to be figuring stuff out better so perhaps we aren't too old to learn. My coconuts are producing as usual and there are so many nuts lying around on the ground they are sprouting:
I've thought about doing a Johnny Appleseed and hauling these nuts around and planting them at random. 
So, before you think this is the Garden of Eden let me remind people under snow that in summer things don't grow that well and that is a whole new chapter we will be working on. Last summer we went fallow but I hope this year with the help of Earthboxes to produce something year round. 
I can't wait for my wife to get back. When she gets home I get to commute on the Bonneville again. I miss it really badly but Cheyenne isn't settled enough to leave at home, crate or not crate and being a single parent sucks, let me tell you. I keep hosing the Triumph down to keep corrosion at bay but a ride would be nice.
And to close the year we have the perennial view across the salt ponds towards Highway One and the Niles Channel Bridge in the distance. Imagine sitting here in my deck with a glass of plonk and a book, and a Labrador at your side. Who needs snow?
