It has been the most bizarre prolonged winter in 30 years, with the weather alternating starkly between bouts of clouds and driving rain followed by a spell of intense cold at night (50/10 which is cold for around here) and cold brightly sunny days with temperatures in the 65/17 range. The sunny days are intensely beautiful but...those blue skies come at a price.
I cannot bring myself to wear long pants but I do bundle up in a woolly jacket with a woolly hat provided courtesy of the knitting needles of Cousin Lyn in Chicago. It strikes me as absurd that I am getting cold weather care packages from Illinois to get me through this endless Keys winter.
Ironies abound this winter all across the land with snow melting and bringing an early spring to Alaska, and the late unlamented Olympic Games in British Columbia being forced to truck snow to the circus. A peculiar extravagance that seems horribly at odds with our unemployment and lack of economic prospects south of the 49th parallel.
And yet in the Keys we see some effects from the chaos Up North, there are lots of homes for sale, many of them likely on offer owing to foreclosures but homes have been traded like baseball cards in the Keys for the last couple of decades. Streets everywhere have been littered with For Sale signs, only nowadays I tend to see more houses, particularly outside Key West itself, showing signs of neglect with weedy yards and streaking damp spots on the walls.
Yet the tourist flow is absolutely amazing. Highway One frequently appears to be one long line of cars, SUVs, pick up trucks and motorcycles all heading into and out of the Keys. Sitting at the end of our side street can be an exercise in Zen patience turning left to go to Key West. While these long droning lines of traffic traveling well below the speed limit would try the patience of a saint, they are a testament to the resilience of the Key West tourist market. Hotel room prices have dropped since the crazy prices of the boom years but visitors are coming and filling them. People are shopping and taking tours, and while there have been layoffs I'm told there is none of the devastation apparent in many communities elsewhere.
Florida's State budget is in better shape than the real estate market might indicate. This is a state that relies on property taxes and sales taxes to fund public services and while incomes have dropped the shortfalls so far seem manageable. naturally this is a Republican dominated state so the burden of meeting the budget requirements will be borne by the poor and there is no chance gaping holes in the sales tax structure will be plugged. Nevertheless Governor Charlie Crist, a moderate Republican had actually planned to increase the state budget this year relying on expansion of Indian gaming, a proposal that was shot down by the part time legislature.
These are subjects for me to ponder as I wander the mangrove stands on the southern end of Big Pine Key. It always surprises me when I find trash lurking in the bushes, tons of it, the sign of a throw way society. And around here on the shores of an island stuck out next to a major shipping channel trash comes from all over the world to wash up in the Keys. This bottle looked like it came from the Netherlands, so I suspect "bleek" is Dutch for bleach, but who knows? Perhaps the trash washed off one of those big Dutch flagged cruise ships whose names all end in "Dam." Which is how I feel when I see the plastic littering the mangroves.
And what this is doing lying here being useless I'm sure I couldn't say: 
The open ocean is just a few feet away through the the trees which are impenetrable. This part of Big Pine Key is not an area known for it's sandy beaches.
Though further west I have found some rather nice isolated strands accessible by boat. Cheyenne and I wandered at random finding our way through the shrubs and bushes; it was a different sort of walk.
The dead trees made the scene look quite wintry. 
This was not, for all it's beauty, the Garden of Eden in it's pristine state. 
I wondered if a Koren long liner fishing boat was missing it's trash bags? 
Not all the trash has come a long way. I've ridden the Bonneville past this one: 
All this stuff comes from here. Tranquil and pristine isn't it?
Not everything on this deserted strand is human made. Horseshoe crabs have come to us down the milennia unchanged we are told. The tail is their tool to right themselves when the waves flip them. This shell was quite empty underneath.
A conch ("konk") shell. 
Back where we started, a dog, a trail, a bright sunny day.
Yes, I know we are on the brink of our own generation's Great Economic Depression, but for a little while it was just me, walking my dog on a classic Keys sort of beach.
A cyclist heading west from the cemetery with a huge hand warmer (or yoga mat more likely) on the handlebars. A day of 60/15 is cold in Key West, even in midwinter.
Ooh look! A palm tree!
People who walk their dogs are terrified of letting their animals sniff Cheyenne so they hurry away when they see us come bumbling along. I'd like to tell them dogs get along much better than their owners. Dogs are smart.
Elizabeth Street runs by on a lovely downhill glide all the way to Truman Avenue where cars and motorbikes are all backed up waiting for the light to change so they can spill onto Duval Street. 
Of course you would be cycling the wrong way on a one way street which could get you pulled over...perhaps you might plead your case for a stern verbal warning. I'd give it a try for the pleasure of the long free wheel down hill.
And here we have a church that puts me in mind of another island I have long wanted to visit. My wife and I considered a cruise ship ride to Bermuda from Charleston with a two night stopover (and rented scooters of course) on the island. But those were happier economic times and now I content myself with armchair travel. This church, one of the trillion in Key West has the square bell tower of a solid Church of England export built in a bright sunny land, the sort of thing I'd expect to see in Bermuda. Except it's on Petronia street.
A dude next door was frozen in one single posture saying hi to passers by. I returned the salute with a picture.
His home was as trim and neat as he was himself:
As you look through these pictures of various aspects of the historic little homes at the top of the hill you might be struck, as am I by the deep blue sky overhead. 
The sun shines, the banana trees grow and give us a splash of green between the white and the blue.
The unnecessarily tall pillbox on the skyline isn't a defensive measure, it's just a commercial building struggling for a view in a community that is so flat the best you can normally do is see a sea of roof lines. 
The homes have endured here for decades, some of them, for much longer some others. 
