A Wake For Finnegan's

Walking past the former Irish pub on Grinnell Street I looked in and saw the Book Of...Guinness just lying there. It seemed like a Sign, except I don't believe in signs, especially as the last rumor I heard had my favorite pub coming back as a Cajun Restaurant. Great; trade in Colcannon for jambalaya. Guinness for Abita. I love New Orleans, but not when it displaces Finnegan's Wake.

 

The exterior of the venerable pub looks much the same except cleaner and freshly painted. The Irish greeting, "a thousand million welcomes" or some such over the top Celtic greeting still dangles in the breeze. I'm not sure if it's preseverence is encouraging or an annoyingly drawn out farewell.

Finnegan's needed a clean up and I like how it looks now but I miss the pub.

The old website is still up for a touch of nostalgia.

I'm hoping for the best...and expecting the worst.

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Loafing On Sugarloaf

I have 500 fresh miles on the P200E back from the shop and I am working diligently to get out from under the burden of running in the new engine. Thus it was I chose to abandon my dog early on Thursday afternoon and chose instead to duck off the tyranny of the Overseas Highway for a short diversion south at Sugarloaf Lodge.

The weather has been bright and sunny but cool this week, especially in the early morning before dawn as I wend my way home with a visor that fogs at traffic lights and hands that feel the crisp chill of 58  degree darkness. So I packed my heavy winter riding jacket on the front rack to wear home and save my teeth from chattering. I do enjoy the versatility of the old Vespa.

I took the south shore of Sugarloaf Key  and stopped at the bridge over the creek for pictures and a dude on a fishing skiff obliged by zipping by to break up the pastoral serenity. All pictures need a little action from time to time.

 American Shoal Lighthouse was just visible as a pin on the horizon.

I had spotted a couple of motorcycles or scooters in the distance ahead of me as I rode enjoying the light and the scenery. They went beyond the bridge, probably to the end of the road where there is a foot trail, into the mangroves,where Cheyenne and I took a Short Walk a  few years ago. The motorcycles, for they were low slung cruisers much loved by part time riders around here, burbled by and returned my happy smile with glares such as might be projected by their hard core brethren on Sons of Anarchy.

 It was good, pausing for a minute before getting back on the conveyor belt to work.  I just wished my dog was there.

Key West Cold

The clouds, the rain, the winds have moved on and Key West basks in winter sunshine. This is as winter should be, at least for those of us allergic to snow and sleet.

Park your bicycle with all your possessions aboard and take in some rays. Life is good at Higgs Beach.

I love these primary colors, the crisp 65 degree air, the sound of my Labrador snoring.

I am not a fan of lager beer, preferring slightly more robust beers that aren't acidic IPAs. But I do notice clever advertising. Longboard liquid aloha makes you want to like lager! It's also a reminder of what Key a West isn't.

The four lies about Key West: that it is tropical, that it is an island, that it is in the Caribbean and that life here is laid back. The reality is slightly different.

It's all advertising of course, chamber of commerce propaganda that shaves a little off reality here and there. The story reads better that way, however when this is reality, al fresco lunch in December, the alterations to reality don't seem to amount to much!

And better than Hawaii, here you can take road trips...

...fly to New York in half a day...or Bogotà if you prefer...

...or any of the European capitals over night.

Or you can just stay on the Rock...

...and take a nap. Old age has it's privileges.

 

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Renewing Key West

It is said by some residents of the city of Key West that from time to time they need to get off "the Rock." I live in the county but I enjoy making the trip to the mainland, better by motorcycle,but even by car I like taking advantage of the road that connects, otherwise one might as well live in Hawaii and enjoy a real island lifestyle. 

So after a week driving around in mainstream America one comes home to a fresh appreciation for the architecture of island life. Old Town, for all its lack of polish, retains a certain verve with its gingerbread decorations and relative solidity and permanence of its 19th century wooden structures.

The plainest of facades gets a lift from the old style Florida louvers on the windows.

The contrast is stark between the norm of suburban Florida where cookie cutter homes line the roads and this:

Or this:

Or this:

I was chatting with my boss earlier this week about why we enjoy living here. Jessica, a native Floridian half my age refuses to live elsewhere. That her boyfriend makes his living extracting oil from the frozen tundra is his problem. She, the Florida native, can't leave the Keys.

Odd that; I'm not a native anywhere much and I feel the same way. It just takes a week among the cold leafless trees Up North to remind me of that same sentiment and put it uppermost in my mind.

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Vespa Commute

One thing about being forced to ride slowly is that I leave home earlier than usual, just so I don't have to push my scooter out of it's breaking in comfort zone...That in turn leads me to pull over from time to time when cars catch up to me in the faster sections. So here I am being polite all pulled over on the ample shoulder of Highway One and there springs to view a photograph. This is Saddlebunch Bridge  Number One, at Mile Marker 17:

 Luckily the views tend to justify the pictures, especially with a few alterations to the exposure levels. I am quite surprised how well I keep up with traffic in the 45 mph sections of the highway. Usually I pass the slow pokes even by just a few miles an hour, but now rolling along in line with them the little Vespa with all its limitations imposed by the running in period does a decent job of keeping up. 

Stopping for pictures also gives the engine a breather, here on the section of the highway around Mile Marker 10, Rockland Key where the road becomes four lanes and even the most timid can find it ion their hearts to pass the Hobbitt on his moped.

I am really enjoying the ease of use of the Vespa, which weighs in around 230 pounds and feels as light as a bicycle when rolling off the stand.

Riding through town where the top speed limit is 35 and usually is less than that, the P200 already has enough oomph to keep up with traffic. The biggest liability is the front drum brake which is, to put it politely, rather wooden, ie: it doesn't work worth a damn. The hardest thing for me is to remember that rather sobering fact and keep my distance. The rear brake, operated by a foot pedal will lock up the rear wheel by contrast. 1970s  brakes! A disc brake conversion for the front is available but the parts alone cost $800, though it is something I think about every time I squeeze the front brake lever.

For my first twelve hour shift after my vacation I decided Cuban coffee was in order so I stopped by Sandy's Cafe after my ride through downtown, practicing shifting in traffic. I ordered a colada, described thusly in Wikipedia;

Colada, is 4-6 shots of Cuban style espresso served in a Styrofoam cup along with small, plastic demitasses. It is a takeaway form, meant to be shared. This is customary of workplace breaks in Cuban communities.

My colleagues wanted no coffee when I got to work so I ended up drinking one whole cup of espresso, all to myself. 

I handled it like a man, I hope.

The World's Oddest Public Loo

I have wanted to photograph the loo at Higgs Beach in a  very long time. However every time I have tried I have ended up skulking around like someone loitering with intent to commit acts of gross indecency, and have thus found myself unable to show off the really unusual architecture of this modest structure.

Why anyone sat down and decided the best possible shape for a combined men's loo and a women's loo would be circular I cannot possibly say. However it was an inspired choice as the interior accommodations have required some inspired angular compromises.

Photos rapidly snapped in here end up looking more like cubist abstract  art with lines going off at angles apparently randomly.  Yet each rounded corner, each flat surface is used to maximum effect to best use the awkward spaces.

The sad fact is that Higgs Beach, a county park within the city, is a hang out for bums especially in winter when the snowbird residentially challenged show up to enjoy a frost-free winter, and the rest rooms have been known to end up functioning as showers and changing rooms and even parking places. The beach is patrolled by a Sheriff's Deputy most days so this place's proper function has been restored.

On the whole county staff do a decent job of keeping the place clean and usable, a Sisyphean task if ever there was one. 

I  went to the loo to use them but found they were unusually deserted partly I suspect because the whole area was fenced off for another of those tedious spandex sporting events that block portions of the city and highway periodically in winter as active people from Up North come down to show off their spandex covered bottoms in feats of endurance that in my opinion violate the ethics of a properly enervated tropical lifestyle.

 Anyway finding myself alone I got the camera out and took surreptitious photos right and left like Aldrich Ames on a busy day at work.

As you can see from my spy shots this bathroom is a positive warren of cubby holes and dead ends, the nearest thing you will find to a proper maze in Key West.

 Yes, I know it's just a public bathroom, of which there aren't enough anyway in Key West, but I love the weird rounded walls, the whirring of the giant extractor fan...

 ...the peculiar shade of battleship gray paint, left over it seems like from some military project.

 Skirt the bums, step decisively and check out the world's oddest public loo.

At last, pictures taken, a project on hold for at least six of the last seven years. And no one even noticed me. Thank God.

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