Veteran Dawn

I was moved to get up for a dawn walk last week and I knew exactly where I wanted to go.It wasn't a particularly colorful sky by the time I parked the car at Veterans Park but it had been a long time since I'd seen a sunrise on a morning off work, so it looked good enough to be going on with.Veterans Park enjoys quite a lot of visitors of course in winter but also in summer when the shallow coastal waters are warm enough to wade in. There are plenty of waterside tables and barbecue grills making it a fine destination for a picnic.Your dog might like it too. Cheyenne did but she isn't very discriminating at all... she likes rooting around everywhere I take her. I hear from people who don't like the beaches in the Keys which isn't surprising. These are rocky islands and the "sand" you see is in reality finely ground up rock with a completely different consistency. The real sand found on hotel beaches in Key West is imported from the Bahamas by barge.The dark colored stripes on the beach are successive waves of sea grass washed up and left to rot in the sun. It is not an appealing mixture to people who want long sandy beaches, such as those found on the mainland of Florida. However I am not that fond of beach vacations so these modest efforts do well enough for me. Then let us not forget that Highway One is never far from sight:That car headed north was about to enter the famous Seven Mile (11 km) bridge to Marathon. Veterans Park is not much more than a dip at the side of the roadway:However even though the sound of traffic is never very far away the waterfront Tikis offer a pleasant view to the south: And the washed up seaweed is an object of fascination for wading birds like these sandpipers:

It was lovely and peaceful standing at the water's edge with no one in sight, just me and the birds and a big yellow dog worrying the dumpster.I have no idea what got into her head but she started running down the beach, not going in the water as she has never been taught to swim.

I just stood there with Nature doing it's thing all around me.

I don't think I should like snow and ice and all that seasonal stuff. I would hate to be standing around Up North envying birds migrating south in the Fall.Veterans Park is very civilized with splendid clean bathrooms and a special cement Tiki:The straw Tikis aren't entirely accessible seeing as how they built on sand:

Veterans park is small and tucked in the shadow of the Seven Mile Bridge but it is barely 15 minutes north of my house and it is one of my favorite stops. I suppose it is the last stop before one gets on the bridge so it is really the turn around point when I come this way.

And there out on the water south of the bridge one can see the spoil islands in the morning mist:

And the long line of power poles marching north alongside the bridge.

But by then, the sun was coming up...

...and as it broke free of the clouds I decided it was time to go home.

West Summerland Key

I used to come out here to walk and look at the water and there was no sign anyone else bothered to visit this break in the mangroves. Now we have improvements to the area, and the blight of signage is everywhere. I was rather wondering where the French and Vietnamese editions of this sign were located, but entry is forbidden so I turned away.

If like me you get stuck trying to remember what things are called there is a helpful sign for that too. However if you are caught with an undersized fish you will go to court and pay a very large fine. That sort of thing is taken seriously around here. We shit in our coastal waters thanks to not having a sewer system but we hate it when people don't obey size limits as it ruins the reef by reducing the wildlife that hasn't been kiled by our toilet pollution. Please don't be surprised there is no lifeguard here, but I suppose people can be stupid and think someone else will always be there to save them from themselves.The big tube is where you put your excess fishing line to avoid killing sea birds and turtles and stuff. I live in the keys and I do not fish. Go figure, it's like living in Pennsylvania and not being Amish. I like the views if that makes up for my inability to cast a lure:On the north side of West Summerland right before... well never mind exactly where, but there is a place somewhere around here where a curious hook of land juts out into the water creating a basin and a promontory where you can sit out in the sun and feel like you are at sea. And when you look north you can see the bridge between No Name Key and Big Pine Key that crosses Bogie Channel. No Name Pub is up there to the left:I don't chase fish but I do like to swim. Other people dive: Cheyenne was fishing too, looking for carcasses still lying around from the great freeze die off last month:

Behind the propane tank that probably fell off the deck of a boat one can see the new Bahia Honda Bridge.

Big Spanish Channel is deep, forty feet and as vast as an ocean. Especially when seen from Labrador height:One of the things I like about walking the Keys is how much it reminds me of being out sailing. In remote places the first sign of land frequently looks like this in the picture below. I included the rather sophisticated bubba stick for perspective. An island out in the ocean first appears as a shimmering line of disconnected dots that slowly merge to form continuous land and then become trees as you get closer:Like I said, dead fish everywhere:

We were out at the end of the promontory:

Sea level rise will put an end to this (as it will to all Keys living, hopefully after I'm dead) so I am determined to enjoy it while I can. My dog feels the same way:

If you forget to bring your Kermit chair, Nature has provided rocks for you and seaweed for your dog.

On cold winter days I don't envy other people out in their skiffs. On hot summer afternoons I'm out on mine.

And there I was- thinking about setting up a hot dog stand...

Imagine, Cheyenne and I had this idyllic spot to ourselves. It's there waiting for me to return and I'll bet when we do we will be alone again.

Some people manage to stumble across the parking lot but going for a walk is an odd thing for most visitors. I've seen a few cars parked here but their occupants at most wander disconsolately around the lot and then bugger off back to the Highway One Rat Race. Bad for them, good for me. By the way, West Summerland Key is located between Big Pine Key and Bahia Honda Key. It is east of the larger and better known Summerland Key and why it got it's name no one knows. Have a nice day.

Bankers Are Ball Players

It is as though Dear Leader is in a race with Republicans to prove who owes the stronger allegiance to our corporate overlords. Dear Leader compared bankers' bonuses to footballers' paychecks to prove that heading up Goldman Sachs is just another form of popular, beer swilling entertainment. Don't get mad at banksters, they're just regular guys like jocks earning tens of millions a year. They're all just like you and me. Well, they aren't actually, they are rich and you and I aren't. That's a big difference.

We told them the wealth would 'trickle down'!

And if Republicans get their way the difference will be even more crystal clear. It has been announced that Medicare and Social Security are collectivist programs (think Communism) and need to be abolished. Jolly good, once they get rid of unions the whole globalization scam will be complete. Factory jobs are long gone to Indonesia and China via Mexico. Union scale can't exist if unions aren't there to maintain a pretense of middle class aspirations and doctors and lawyers and people won't have any clients if we can't afford to hire them. This is definitely going to be a brave new world. And remember how our homes would be our old age economic security blankets? One in five mortgages are underwater and northern cities are turning into ghost towns. So much for wealth trickling down.

Ronald Reagan started this dive to the bottom and it's been gathering speed for years. They sent jobs to Mexico on the grounds shareholders would make larger profits if workers were paid less. Then Mexicans got too greedy and factories went to the Far East where they work cheaper (thanks to the Communist government, our friend) and lo and behold the stock market in which we were all share holders, and were going to be investing our Social Security went south. Bill Clinton started down the path to abolishing welfare so that now when we need it most with millions out of work, there are no programs. They govern us with fear and it's working.

So what's the next step? Well there isn't much left is there. The Supreme Court has opened the doors to full fledged corporate purchase of elections, jobs are evaporating even as the economy "recovers" and now we are told we have to balance state budgets on the backs of workers with union contracts.

I find it odd, not that the rich want to shift the burden of paying for their profligacy on the people, but that the people accept this imposition willingly. There has been talk of Greece getting the big austerity make over and did you see what happened? Greeks massed on the streets, said "No thanks!" quite peacefully and suddenly a bail out package appeared. Here in the US we first paid to save the banksters who thanked us by awarding themselves huge "contractual" bonuses. They rejected wholesale any idea of a return to stringent government oversight and regulation, and when Dear Leader sounded like he might mean it they rapped him over the knuckles to bring him back into line. Hence the equation: banksters equal footballers.

I cannot help but think that were we the people taxed unfairly by the British those hundreds of years ago we'd have doffed our caps, tugged our forelocks and dutifully said "Thankee, sir," and "God Bless King George" and taken our medicine like obedient sheep. But of course nowadays no one remembers their collective past, and without history you can't make a coherent narrative for the present. Form a single line when they come for your union card, your Social Security benefits and your Medicare card. And please, don't embarrass yourself by stepping out of line.

400 Julia

The skies have been far too gray lately, some pale winter sunshine is preceded and followed by cloudy rippled skies resembling nothing quite so much as a gray woolly blanket spread across the Keys.It is brought to my notice by indignant messages that temperatures hovering around 70 degrees, (21 C) are not properly to be considered winter at all, even though that is how low they go after a cold front has blown the humidity away. My suffering is as nothing when faced with people who are living with the deepest snowfalls in short term memory. Which may, or may not, be the case but which nevertheless ignores the obvious fact I don't like snow or cold or gray skies. Still it is Key west and the architecture remains the same impenetrable eccentric design whether the sun is out or not.The 400 block lies, as usual between Whitehead Street and Duval Street. I started at the Whitehead (western) end and strolled east toward Duval.For some reason the 400 block of Julia is blessed or cursed with tall skinny buildings that look oddly ambitious in a town which usually keeps it's architecture lower to the ground, or at least in proportion.I saw a cat, but Cheyenne didn't so the cat remained undisturbed. This is not a high energy street judging by the languid cat.This is more like it, a huge tree, a small house and bright colors.The passionate attachment to large vehicles never seems quite so silly as it does in Key West. A Nissan Versa would allow the driver to get out without stepping onto the porch, for instance.

One is tempted to go the Animal Farm route and chant "four wheels good; two wheels better!" but many people in the Southernmost City have figured that out already.Happily this block of Julia has some few residents with a desire to leave their mark with personal decorating choices:Santa Claus is confused no doubt, by the general lack of winter-like conditions:I expect it's just as well I don't live anywhere near these people as Christmas is not my favorite time of year and celebrating the season in February would make me unhappy. instead I look out across the rooftops from the street and marvel at the variety of the landscape, the broad sky and the wretched television satellite dishes. A blot on the landscape rotting the brain.And let's not forget my claim that 400 Julia is a block filled with tall thin buildings:Looking west toward Bahama Village on a sunny winter afternoon:

We must be closing in on Upper Duval, the 1100 block to be precise, as people are suddenly in evidence. People and their dogs. The pug was shrinking into the roadway in order to ambush Cheyenne:

There was no drama, we swirled past the crowd and there we were, on Key West's main drag:

We are told occupancy is higher in Key West than any other Florida City. Tourists are paying less for their rooms and bargains we are told are out there. But recession or no, people do want their southernmost vacations, which is good for us, even if it means Cheyenne and I have to negotiate crowds of people in Old Town. At least it's not Detroit.