Decrepitude - The Sugarloaf Bat Tower

I've stared at this picture quite a bit. I know exactly what this picture looks like in color. But here it is in monochrome, black and white as we ordinary mortals say, and the old wreck of a bat tower looks like anything but a long since abandoned home for mosquito-eating bats. It could be a rocket or some industrial smoke stack spewing misty white poisonous gas. Or it could be a wooden tower built as a bat home almost a hundred years ago.

I love these clouds that are starting to creep up over the Keys. They aren't poisonous gas at all. As they build in rainy season, the summer, they get thick and heavy and dark and threatening. They create drama in our little island world. They burst open and drop tons of cold gray water all over us.

Taking that sense of forboding to ground level I saw an abandoned U-Haul van at the top of a slope. Bear in mind that this being the Keys the slope was not steep and the top of the slope might have been maybe eight feet above sea level, to be generous. I squatted and tried zooming to get the claustrophobic effect I was looking for, but as that didn't work I pulled the picture back and with the help of the monochrome I got the tunnel effect I wanted.

Turning back to the tower the dried mud, made moist by rain or a high high tide especially in summer, caught my eye. This stuff is typical of the Lower Keys, clay-like it dries to a crust with nasty looking scabs of dried mud floating on the surface. In monochrome it looks lunar, and I left the landings of the rocket ship in the background to give it perspective.

One reason I have resisted the iPhone for so long has been the tinting of pictures that comes out of so many cameras. It's so popular it looks like a default setting to me. I tried it here as a transition from the colorless pictures above to the full color pictures below. Besides the washed out look fits with the sense of decay I found in the black white pictures that precede it. To use this filter on sunny holiday snaps seems odd to me but I see it all the time.

Cheyenne starring in her own movie-again. Perhaps this time it's an Ingmar Bergman... Slow, laconic and in black and white.

These are the real life pictures I also took on my Labrador's walk.

I have visited the lace from time to time so there are other posts in my blog about its history. (Link).

The osprey nest on top is of course getting bigger, while the wood below gets more and more decrepit.

There is still no sign this thing exists as you travel the Overseas Highway. Just look for the sky diving sign west of Sugarloaf Lodge.

 

 

 

Time is slowly running out for this unloved home for bats.

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Old Town Grocer

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It seems a fire has wrecked this place, 4/11/2015.  I am distraught, though I doubt hardly a smidgen compared to the owners whose enterprise was full of promise.

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What possessed this nice young couple (she is out of the frame) to open a small store on Whitehead Street I don't know, but I'm very glad they did.

It's an unassuming store front with a large menu board with sandwiches and Cuban coffee on offer. Inside it is much larger than you'd expect, "a work in progress" we were told that is grounded in quality foods and flavors judging by what's on the shelves.

We hit the specials for lunch, and I got shepherds pie, apparently very popular and I can see why. They use the original receipe with ground beef (lamb is not an American favorite) with peas carrots and toasted mash potatoes on top. There's nothing fancy here or any appeal to hip young tastes. It's honest grub well done.

The gumbo had plenty of properly cooked shrimp, okra that was miraculously textured and not slimy, hot and spicy but again done right. This isn't a flashy dish trying to convince you burning heat is hip and therefore good. It was just well spiced and full of flavor. It came with a side of rice which we didn't need. We got more good overall than we needed but it was too good to waste any of it.

They sell beer and wine, of the latter I could shop here and be happy, Guinness, Blue Moon, Yuengling, a variety of all sorts of decent beers. You can't drink inside with your meal - we ate informally at the couch across from the counter- it was cool and pleasant. Outside it was trying to be summer.

Old Town Grocer - what a find! The movie we went to see was selected by my wife and it turned out to be an Argentine film of rare writing and exquisite fun. A series of short films not connected appeared on the screen in quick succession. Each one told a wild story of human stupidity, or madness or rage; each one left a last impression.

Wild Tales, well worth a view.

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Key West Artisan Market

We had planned a Sunday afternoon in town to see a movie and it happened that I spotted the Artesian Market on Eaton Street on our way to lunch. There was no parking of course but we improvised for our two scooters and my wife went on the prowl with me trailing behind.

This used to be Cates Auto dealership which closed and got taken over by an expanded Restaurant Store, a building filled with kitchen toys and serious stuff, not to mention fresh bread and it turns out the most delicious mozzarella: more on that in a minute. The dealership used to park cars under this roof which is now a handy place to shop as the noon time sun was quite warm.

Shop, yes or get your hair braided or something.

My wife wanted her aching neck to get some attention but the line was too long.

I got a pound of honey made in the Keys and for sale at the Salt store on Fleming at Margaret streets.

The Juice Guy sold us a bottle of coconut lime juice that was excellent, and he was having a good time doing it.

Season your nuts anyone? My wife lives to cook and is always looking for new and interesting flavors. These are sold locally when she needs to re-supply.

We had lunch plans but the pasta cooked fresh in front of everybody had me entranced. It looked delicious.

We were leery of taking mozzarella to lunch and then to a movie before riding home on our Vespas unrefrigerated but he told us not to worry. So we didn't and the stuff was luscious.

Made right here by curdling the milk, the cheese was buttery and not all salty with just the right soft texture. This is the mozzarella you can buy at the restaurant store.

The Crepe place on Petronia had a food truck. More lunch options.

And like any Farmer's Market Up North there were the basics as well. This market takes place on the first Sunday of the month and will wrap up for the summer after next month. There is another market on Thursdays so the principle of fresh local food is alive and well even in this most isolated of non- agricultural communities. Annie's Organics still delivers through the Keys from Homestead which is two hours away and is a thriving agricultural town south of Miami. Maybe not so entirely isolated then.

We stopped by Garbo's in a futile attempt to introduce my wife to Key West's most famous and elusive food truck. They were closed of course so we ride up the street to lunch at Old Town Grocery, a new place on Whitehead Street, of which more tomorrow.

One last picture taken on Caroline Street of my old Vespa next to a modern scooter decorated with...cloth. Hmm.

 

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Key West Snippets

A gentle hour long walk with my dog early Easter Sunday morning. Me and my phone camera.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Big Pine Ramble, En Français

Because I work at night my wife the teacher hands off chores to me that I can carry out during office hours before I saddle up and go to work. It's a terrible burden but my Vespa needs the mileage to put the break in period behind me. I have been cruising between 50 and 55 miles per hour with bursts to 60 so I can keep up with most traffic in the Overseas Highway.

Chores done I went for a ride in the Big Pine back country, five miles north to Port Pine Heights, a housing community that failed to fill out as planned. These impressive gates open on mostly empty overgrown lots.

Nevertheless five miles up Key Deer Boulevard from the highway sewers are being planned just like everywhere else. This 200 million dollar project is designed to get everyone flushing their toilets into modern sewage treatment plants. Some people grumble at the cost and would prefer to keep flushing into nearshore waters...The usual environmental shortsightedness that characterizes higher thinking across the Keys.

I was pursuing a geocache when I came across a colorful van in the parking lot at the Jack Watson Trailhead. I went to see what was up.

They were French and seemed floored by my ability to chat in their mother tongue with them. I asked a few polite questions, got monosyllables in reply and gave up the effort, not without securing a photo for my trouble. I'd like to have known more. Oh well.

I didn't find the geocache but I enjoyed playing with my camera. I'm getting more handy with the iPhone, not without some tantrums and irritation, but overall it works well.

As usual I'm no botanist but I enjoyed the macro function of the phone camera.

Have a good Easter Sunday. May your snowbirds go home tomorrow. It's warm enough to swim now, just about.

 

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