Apalachicola, Florida

To end summer together my wife and I took off on a trip with Cheyenne and our Ford Fusion sedan. Its not a ride on the Bonneville, that comes later but this week off work was taking us to New Orleans. Via heavy traffic on I-75.

Apalachicola was our first planned stop, twelve hours and 600 miles from Key West. The city is located on Florida's "Big Bend" south of the state capital of Tallahassee and as isolated as an island. To get to Apalachicola forget interstates and plan to drive backroad Florida:

Federal Highway 98 connects the coastal communities around the Big Bend and there are lots of swamps, bays and bridges.



The views are reminiscent of home, if you happen to live in the Keys.



Highway 98 is a two lane road that winds right along the water. There are no pull outs, overlooks or parking areas. Weird.



There are homes between the road and the bay and lots of pine trees effectively blocking lots of views.



The barrier islands are inhabited and are also home to state parks so the re causeways joining them to the mainland.

The bridges are longer than most in the Keys, except perhaps the longest one of all...we had to get to Louisiana to find bridges longer than seven miles.

Apalchicola is an old town, once the biggest cotton exporting port in Dixie, until the Union blockade changed all tha during the Civil War.

It's a quiet place now, lacking the draw of Duval Street, serving a more genteel tourist trade.

With the state capital about 50 miles away i'm guessing there are quite a few commuters here supporting business spouses with steady pay and health insurance.

We took a modest motel room with a chain pharmacy and chain supermarket right next door, as it happens!

Brick buildings are Apalchicola which sits on the edge of the eponymous river, the source of it's 19th century wealth. In those days peninsula Florida was uninhabitable thanks to heat humidity and runaway slaves and rebellious Seminole Indians so northern Florida and Key West were the white people's lands.

Often people wonder why Florida has such a bizarre shape, apparently stealing coastline from Alabama and Georgia but Florida got it's shape from it's history.

Spain used to rule Florida from St Augustine, so when the US took over the shape of the future state was set by the colonial boundaries. That they make no geographic sense today makes no difference.

Spanish moss and classic graves at sunset gave the old cemetery the feel you would expect from this mold town.

Conch shells on a grave seemed an odd touch.



I love back alleys like this:

Especially when they are made from crushed shells. Apalchicola is the land of oysters nowadays, when cotton is no longer king.

Dinner time saw us heading easton a local's suggestion. I love being a tourist and not knowing anything for a change. When I walk around here with a camera I really am a visitor. What shit heads in Key West call "tourons" though I find locals in other cities to be perfectly agreeable to visitors.

We crossed the causeway back to Eastpoint four miles across the water. "You'll like the hut," our guide told us in a thick southern accent which gave the word 'hut' two syllables.

We have to try oysters my wife insisted and when our young server told us she doesn't like seafood (!) we went with the baked shellfish, which swam in butter and was covered in cheese so it went down just fine. Oysters really don't do it for me, especially when I realized that off the shell they are alive...and thanks, but their aphrodisiac qualities are not necessary for me. You have to give oysters some out-of-this-world powers because on taste alone who wants to eat a gob of salty fishy snot? Really.

Then we had fried mullet which was delicious, especially as we had no idea what we were getting. I could have used a craft beer, but this was a no alcohol joint which was a shame.

The next day we decided to see what all the fuss is about when it comes to Famous Florida Beaches so we took the dogbto see Saint George's Island.

The local had two dogs off leash so I released the lumbering tank and she made a beeline for a piece of dead something. Yum!

It was a nice beach, lined with dead seaweed, less pungent than keys seaweed but dead nonetheless.

If you come to Key West for this kind of beach prepare to be disappointed:

I'm not that into beaches and pretty soon I was bored. Cheyenne finished her dead thing and we took off due west through stilt homes and vacationing Texans.



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Night Walker

I went to see Savages by Oliver Stone at the Tropic Cinema, always violent and bloody and filled with political statements of course, and I was uncharacteristically early so I took a stroll in the twilight and came across the statue of ...Ceres? on top of the archway over the entrance to Kino Plaza.

Dusk transforms a place, as the safety and security of daylight retreats and the shadows march forward, out of the secret corners.

I think about how much effort we put into lighting up night like day, burning endless quantities of finite fuel to maintain the illusion of day. Fly over a sleeping city and ask yourself why do they do that? Not to shut down the complex and slow reacting power generators is one answer. We are locked into a system that requires wasting energy to keep going! Your grandchildren are going to ask what were you thinking and you won't have a clue why we burned dead dinosaurs to light up an uncaring night. I have no idea why either.

I have heard from some people who ride motorcycles tell me they don't ride at night. Fear of the dark has many tentacles, but they don't know what they are missing.

I don't like the woods at night. I have anchored by myself in remote coastal coves, I have camped in strange places traveling alone, but dump me on a trail in a deciduous forest alone at night and I will tell you anything you want to know, without holding back. I dislike the rustle of leaves and the sudden silences and the sensation of someone always at my back, stalking me. Riding a motorcycle at night- no problem!

Bars at not my thing. The straight man's pit above or the gay man's pit below. I dislike noise and extra loud music and the impossibility of conversation and thick crowds make me as anxious as the non existent boogeyman in the woods. Phobias manifest themselves any way they want.

Evan and Elle, some sort of clothing chain store is saying good bye to Key West. Well grounded stores are staying afloat but expensive fashion statements are going to the wall. I expect our economy will start to look rather less robust after the prolonged Presidential election farce is over and we are allowed a look behind the Quantative Easing curtain.

Not everyone is poor in our diminishing circle of wealth, certainly not in a retirement village like Key West so spending a cool one thousand dollars on a jellyfish lava lamp contraption at Glass Reunions might seem like a mere bagatelle. I'd rather get my Bonneville thoroughly serviced by my man Jiri.

And of course a burger is a working man's treat for himself and/or his family. And the latest addition to the quick food choices in Key West is enjoying the popularity of novelty. Here on Truman at Duval and this Fall they say in New Town on the Boulevard we see Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

In the darkened streets a more typical scene for which the Conch Republic is renowned.

Why someone chooses to live with a large Teddy bear disguised as Father Christmas I couldn't say. Houses are small enough you'd think loneliness might be assuaged by something more...manageable?

The City of Key West has a budget deficit of a million bucks in a fifty million dollar budget. Happily instead of dipping into ample reserves the city sensibly is looking to increase revenues. That sort of common sense defies the mania for more cuts everywhere but happily this isn't Detroit or Stockton and I hope dinging tourists more for parking tickets will keep property owners happy and the budget balanced.

Cities across the globe are cutting budgets by not paving roads and by turning off street lights. Key West by comparison is doing quite nicely so far. Long may the riots against The impending fiscal darkness continue in Madrid, and Athens and Paris and not here. The Weimar boogeyman is almost as scary as the one I keep hearing when i'm alone in the darkened woods of my imagination.

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Not Dawn Fish Chasing

I've heard it said that anglers are supposed to be up at the crack of dawn to indulge their passion for fish killing.


Not everyone apparently feels the compulsion to arise with the sun.


But then slowly the boats start to appear.


Very slowly some of them, duffing around the launch ramp.


A camp ground packed with sleeping fish killers.


Early birds catch the worm, they say.


If they don't catch the worm they at least zoom like they are ready to make up for lost time.


You can't chase fish without last minute supplies, beer chips and ice are critical supplies.


Launching is stressful with everyone standing around ready to see the launch vehicle...launched.


And then it's off to see the fish.


Remember: one lifejacket per person.


And carry something really interesting in the bilge of the boat.


And try not to bash into other keen anglers out on the water.


Follow the yellow brick road.


And homeward wends the weary angler, loaded with fish while the sleepyheads go out to pick up the left overs.


Why chase fish when you could so easily be riding a motorcycle?





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