This week was to have been a trip to England (with Josh and Lisa who are there now) or Panama with Wayne and Chuck (who are at home on Summerland Key now) but who would have taken Cheyenne? In the end my wife's Spring Break coincided with my long weekend and herself decided a road trip was in order. We left Saturday about lunch time and passed the Lower Keys toll booth in action at the southern end of the Bahia Honda Bridge.
The FHP loves to sit in the median and pick off unsuspecting speeders coming off the four lane bridge heading towards Key West. Wen locals slow visitors blow and get a fat ticket. Marathon was having a seafood festival which barely slowed us at all, despite the crowds of adult kids crossing the street in neat lines.
We nearly got screwed around Mile Marker 102 in Key largo when St Patrick got the highway closed, so we dived into the side streets and joined the back of the parade...
...a small town crowd and a small town parade blocking all traffic... 
...except those turning a sharp right back onto the Overseas Highway, with no other traffic to share the northbound lanes on the 18 Mile Stretch:
It was like a hurricane evacuation in reverse:
It must have been Hell for the crowds heading to the Keys for the break. For us it was the fastest transit of the Stretch ever. 
Homestead was crowded with traffic and we stopped for lunch at our favorite Mexican hole in the wall. 
Los Nopalitos on East Mowry off Krome Avenue is now El Rinconcito ("The Little Corner" and much spiffed up, with fresh paint and modern toilets and a crisp fresh menu. 
We tested the tacos and tostadas and a burrito and it was all excellent.
The old owner had a series of steaming vats with hot food ready to be poured over rice but this place has crisp fresh ingredients and the wait was just a bit longer, and worth it. We got change from a $20 for all the food. 
From Homestead we took off up Krome Avenue, trapped in lines of cars which forced Yours Truly to drop the high speed posture and reckon gently with the big farm pickups and the little compacts bulging with farm workers dawdling at ten under or below the speed limit. I toyed with the camera for a while. 
Krome Avenue is a thoroughfare supposed to be widened to four lanes , but despite the slow traffic and abundance of slow traffic lights I like it just the way it is. 
There are fields with agricultural crops, rows of palm tree plantations for construction that has all but dried up and tons of nurseries and businesses selling ornaments for gardens, most of it in Spanish.
It is a weird mixture of the mundane and agricultural and the whimsical and picturesque.
My fantasy is to buy a huge plot of land, build a wall around it and landscape a huge refuge for all the dogs the pound doesn't think will find homes. I figure I could live quite securely compound patrolled by a dozen grateful ex-strays. And I wouldn't need to be nice to my neighbors.
Tamiami Trail, the original road from Tampa to Miami was lovely as ever Saturday afternoon, sunshine and motorcycles and me not the least envious, loaded as my car was with my family.
The weekends are a good time to drive out from the city, park at the edge of the highway and fish. That's a great program for a lot of people apparently.
The Miccosukee Tribal Police patrol the highway which has a 55 mph limit in Dade County and 60 miles per hour in Collier County and cuts across the Indian Reservation for much of it's 90 mile length. Beware the brown and white police cars... 
Indian Villages line the highway in small fenced compounds.
The Everglades are long and flat and green down here. 
Eventually we arrived in the community of Estero, a nondescript bunch of shops between Naples to the south and Fort Myers (not Meyers, please note!) to the north. My wife's 3G iPhone had crapped out and she wanted a new one. I dropped off the wife and phone in the faux Mediterranean village and took off for a refreshing dog walk. 
There was some abandoned development across Highway 41 so we took off walking, Cheyenne and I. 
The sun was thinking about setting and I was thinking to myself as Cheyenne dashed back and forth, nose to the ground. 
It's an odd thing but very noticeable to me, how little I fit in around these kinds of places. I am a hopeless consumer, I have no fashion sense and no ability to fit in with people whose lives seem to consist of flitting from store to store loading up with the latest gadgets and useless "products." Not only that, they aggravate me en masse and I am pretty sure that's my short coming. I like the Keys because these expectations don't seem to exist among the many and varied social strata that live there, particularly in the Lower Keys and key West. 
I am not that eccentric I don't believe so in a town where men dress as women and women date women I am able to fit in quite nicely even though I speak funny and I have no taste for sports or golf or manly things. Every visit to these consumer hell holes reminds me of the wisdom of my choice of place to live. That and the fact that this is Tea Bag Christian Right Wing Republican Hell. 
I feel like a rube watching the constant flow of traffic on Highway 41, and Cheyenne seemed to share my bemusement.
The sun went down a blaze of modest glory and night descended as I fervently hoped my wife had her new phone in hand. Motel 6 in North Fort Myers beckoned. 
She had to fight the manager, who must have sensed her lack of suitability as a future customer, but she got her way, as always, and soon enough we three were sawing logs ready for more driving and sight seeing in the Fabulous Sunshine State. 
Cheyenne and i come this way quite frequently as it is convenient when my route takes me shopping at the Winn Dixie supermarket. I pass this little 125cc Chinese motorcycle and it intrigues me. as do most small motorcycles. 
I was stopped recently by a ranger in the woods for having Cheyenne off leash. He was apologetic but mentioned the fact that she might frighten the protected Key Deer. In this picture she is on a leash because she's on the street and I fear for her traffic sense. The Key Deer interested her not one jot, indeed the deer came trotting up to inspect her...
...but my dog as usual followed her own nose and wandered away with a disconsolate wild deer trailing along behind. So much for threatening the protected species.
This rather exotic Moorish construction is in fact part trailer and part wall, painted suitably garishly, like my footwear.
This lovely little house in the meadow is smaller even than my own home I suspect.
It was another lovely day on County Road in Big Pine; clouds, sunshine and no one around.
These Crocs were made for walking.
Usually Cheyenne walks peacefully past wildly barking dogs trapped in their yards and houses. This little pink monster got a rise out of her as we strolled by minding our own business. It was running back and forth leaping around and yipping in its pink boiler suit. I was glad to leave it behind.
Besides I think Cheyenne looks sexy in black stockings, even if they are mad of rich, smelly mud.
The Overseas Highway continues to be packed with cars rolling into town and back out too which makes moving between islands a slow and ponderous affair. To get out into nature finally is a just reward for being around people so much.
I don't know what I'd do if I lived someplace where the skies are gray, the trees leafless and the curbs on the streets covered in slushy wet snow. I guess I'd put up with it, as one does.
How someone got this trash into the woods behind a barrier I don't know. Either they took the barrier down, easily done with a wrench or humped their household trash on their backs, but in any event here it is making the wildlife refuge look extra pretty:
This is how it is meant to look:
And so we took off on the paved road to new adventures.
To spend a couple of hours following my dog...
...looking out at the water...
...with the winds honking and the waves all ruffled up there is by contrast a certain serenity on the beach. Or, in the woods pausing to wait for the boss to catch up...
My own waterfront garden:
Too bad work beckons.