Going To Mainland

Last weekend saw me doing a lot of driving, and in the ordinary course of things I wouldn't mind so much because I like road trips. Most people who live in the Keys seem to do so to escape time on the road but of course I have to do my own weird thing so I find I enjoy commuting on two wheels on a relatively easy road...and for me taking a trip to mainland Florida is no big deal. However my wife and I spent Saturday and Sunday in Fort Myers on business which was tiring. Monday I had a bicycle to deliver Up North. 

Mandy came to the Keys from the Midwest armed only with a bicycle, a dog carrier and a dog and I figured to get her going north again it would be better if she bypassed the whole Miami-Ft Lauderdale urban agglomeration. -What better way to do that than in an air conditioned car with her dog and her bicycle and trailer behind? This was a mitzvah in my wife's people's  language. Jews come in al stripes of religious severity and for some a mitzvah is a commandment from he who cannot be named, others say it is sort of religious requirement and for the less strict Reform shower like my wife a mitzvah can be interpreted as the right thing to do. I was a wide-eyed traveler and got lots of help years ago. Now I'm old I have to do the same thing for other young travelers behind me, so I did. But that meant traveling in traffic on Monday and Tuesday. Right after my working weekend in Fort Myers. Ouf!

We stopped for the dog run at the Pompano Beach rest area off the Turnpike and both Mandy and Mingus were quite taken by the fenced-in area. I was amazed to see some brilliant architect had put a short cut path through the flowerbed accepting the reality that most people want to cut corners. Why can't more architects get this right? I see tons of flower beds and hedges that refuse to accept this reality and expect people to walk the "long way" round and consequently the flowerbeds get torn up by impatient feet.

Mingus was entirely content to wander and sniff the dog run. I missed Cheyenne who had elected not to face the heat and stay home. She had had enough driving with the trip to Ft Myers and my wife wanted her company. I quite like Mingus has a tendency to flop in your lap at the least provocation unlike my stand-offish Labrador. 

We had a grand dinner at Denise's place in Briny Breezes with chicken and wine and conversation. And did I mention the wine?

Denise was the first person I met  whom I still know when I made my epic journey across the US on a Vespa in 1981. She was working the summer of 1981 interviewing tourists about their spending habits for a survey and she saw me at Long Key State Park next to my scooter reading Hemingway. I had bought a collection of short stories and I was struggling to come to terms with his view of the world before I got to Key West. She took me in for a month after I visited Key West and retired defeated by the little fishing village in the middle of nowhere. I lived with her and her boyfriend who lives in California now and with whom I am still in touch also. It was a surprising month for me in Delray Beach a few miles from this corner of Florida where Denise now lives. I met a lot of people and ideas (ozone holes, gays are not weird, and recycling) that started the slow process of getting my closed provincial mind to open. So when I suggested Denise take Mandy in to help her kick off her ride back north she saw the cosmic connection to the past. Mandy and Mingus liked the expansive beach and strong sea breeze (briny breeze!) of the Florida mainland.

 Unlike Mandy I had a routine to get back to so I took off Tuesday morning stopping for very little, except a quick breakfast at a Panera in an unremarkable giant shopping mall. By lunchtime I was back in the Keys...and ready to be. 

I was lucky with accidents on the Turnpike. On the way up Mandy and I saw one with a huge line of trapped traffic behind it. On my solo way back south it was the turn of the other side of the barricade to experience hopeless delay, blockages and stupid people who reduce speed to a crawl to stare at mangled cars.

 Poor buggers I thought to myself as I watched the cars sit still in their suddenly created parking lot. No wonder most people hate commuting. People look at me like I'm mad when I suggest the Keys can be a great place to work. Of course you do need a decent job and they are rare as hen's teeth. I'm lucky to have one of them, but given that, it is a great place to work. Consider the weather is never too terribly miserable, with a worst some wind and rain, no snow, no frost, no truly freezing mornings to push you out of bed in your socks. Traffic generally is reasonable so commuting isn't terribly burdensome (I enjoy my commute!). Dress codes even for work are mild and as long as you have committed co-workers, which is rare, your workplace can be an ethical and fun place to be. I'm lucky in that respect too. Then, after a day or night at work fishing and swimming is right there in your back yard. Year round. And next year, maybe, I will have easy access to the mountain roads of Cuba to ride.

Back in the keys I spotted this relaxed touring couple whose dress code would give "serious" riders fits. Me? I like not having to hold other people's choices in judgement so I live and let live. I like not having to wear a helmet in Florida. Mostly I do, sometimes I don't. 

I couldn't help but think of Mandy on her wild ride, every day an adventure as I slipped back into my middle aged routine.

Back at work my CPR certification was up and I have to have it to keep my job. I hate tests and being tested and Officer Sims our trainer kept berating me for getting ahead of the class. Bloody type A personality. I took copious notes and studied them before the final exam which was closed book.

I passed. I'm good for two more years. I wonder where Mandy will be in two years, doing what? Ah youth.  

A Late Day

There are things I read on line that make me smile, like the people who moan about having to drive 30 miles to a motorcycle dealer, or being annoyed that one store doesn't have exactly what they want. If you live in the Keys, convenience is laughable unless you have Amazon Prime and don't mind ordering online. Local shopping is a hit or miss affair, especially when compared to the consumer-mad shoppers Up North with all the shopping imaginable in their own neighborhoods..

Around here one goes through a lot of pain to discover technicians, mechanics, construction people and electricians who can do the job and who will show up, and then you hold them tight, passing on information to only trusted friends so as not to overburden the precious skilled workers. There are work vans that drive around with the slogan: We Show Up it's that much of a big deal. 

My wife working in Marathon has opened up a whole new world of shops and businesses for us. She prefers the Publix in Marathon to the two grocery stores by that name in Key West. Why? Haven't a clue but she says they have better selection and fresher vegetables. Sunday night in Key West and Big Pine is not a time to be buying produce, that much I know. So when I needed tires for my car I went to 107th Street. This is Cheyenne enjoying a walk:

Island Tire gets my vote. He was quick efficient and decently priced, $120 a tire mounted and ready to go. He also told me to go get an alignment and I did at another Marathon shop for a hundred bucks. My car rides a lot better and no one forgot to put any of the nuts on the wheels. That has happened enough times I keep spares at home in case I happen to notice a shortfall. I quite like Marathon for Home Depot too where the parking is easier and boring stuff like that. Living at Mile Marker 23 puts us right in the middle of the two towns which helps but my wife being based in Marathon makles it quite convenient. 

 

Anyway I ended up taking the car for the alignment with Cheyenne in the back and after we dropped off the car, and then the wife at her classroom we got to drive home and i was about ready to pass out, but I got a second wind which ruined my sleep pattern for the day after 12 hours at work overnight so we went for  a walk that she really seems to like at this boat ramp. 

I am waiting for big summer clouds to appear because I think the black and white function on my iPhone should do some nice work. For now these pathetic things:

Cheyenne looking happy, I think.

 It didn't last, she stood over me staring so I had to get up and carry on walking.

 I could have lain in the grass a while longer. Bloody  dog.

She was looking for abandoned bait on the bridge where the anglers congregate but she found a yipping chihuahua instead.  Harley got the better of her and she made a u-turn and stumped back to the car.

Next time, I promised, no Harley and lots of crispy sun baked bait. She too was ready for bed by then. It was ten o'clock and I slept badly. Cheyenne snored on the floor next to me, taunting me.

Spring In The Keys

Dar lives in that part of the world where the Federal Police wear red,

and where people rejoice in the fact that they have seasons.

So much so she issued a challenge.

Now I don't want to be a dick, Asperger's notwithstanding which makes me sound like a dick frequently anyway, but Spring around here looks pretty much like this because it looks like this all the time.

I like perpetual summer. If I need a dose of cold or colored leaves I'll happily take a drive or better yet a ride, poke around and turn tail back to endless summer. The thing is that when you live in this sort of climate you get used to 80 plus degrees (27 Canadian degrees) so a cold front starts to chill when temperatures go below 70/20. That's seasonal in the Keys.

Cheyenne appreciates every little dip in temperature even though some winter days get hot and humid of course. This time of year she gets to be a dog vampire spending sunlit hours sleeping in the air conditioning.

Swimming has started in earnest now that water temperatures are consistently warm. We've been swimming in salt water for about six weeks, tentatively at first but now most days we take a dip in the canal behind the house. That's the real sign Spring has sprung.

And swimming will continue we hope till October/November when the second cold front of the season will indicate the arrival of Fall. And then we get to open the house up and turn off the air conditioning and Cheyenne gets to come and go without having to clamber through her dog door. As seasonable as I need it thanks.

Visitors

 The  USCG Barque Eagle paid Key West a port visit for Memorial Day.

 The history of this ship is  extraordinary not least because it was built in Germany in 1936 and named for the Nazi martyr Horst Wessell. After the war the US  figured it would make a useful reparation and nowadays all Coast Guard trainee officers have to serve on the ship climbing its eerily tall masts as part of their service. It seems they also have to hump boxes to keep the ship humming:

 It got  a fair bit of attention and I wish I'd had the time to take a tour. Retirement will make my life a lot more interesting I think, if it ever comes. That or living on the streets...

The ship gave us  a taste even from across Mallory Square, or perhaps especially from across Mallory Square, of what Key West's waterfront might have resembled a hundred and fifty years ago.

 Speaking of visitors my wife's cousin came to stay a few days from San Francisco. Daiyu grew up in Thailand where she keeps a beach house and which to my shame I have yet to visit (damn that retirement!). She has lived in Michigan and even Tallahassee but has made her home in San Francisco where she married into my wife's family. She is not fond of California, complaining of the cold and the fog, the expense and the crowding.  She quite likes the Keys, a place that struck her as peaceful, simple and inexpensive. It's all a matter of perspective.

I found Daiyu carefully opening a garbage bag in the trash can and inserting the clippings from her flower arrangements into the bag inside the can. What are you doing I asked? In San Francisco she said, they fine you if you don't bag everything properly. Oh not here I said. They're grateful if you even make a half hearted attempt at trying to recycle. Simplicity is in the eye of the householder. She cooked Thai food for a bunch of friends and we spent the evening drinking Grappa and admiring the thunderheads glowing in the dark over plates of green curried chicken and pad Thai and ginger rice pudding on the deck.

Then we went to No Name Pub because San Francisco friends told Daiyu it was not to be missed, all those dollar bills stapled to the walls. She liked the decor, she nibbled some wings and then she fell into a trance when a Key Deer put in an appearance in her life. It's not easy to spot but it's there in the picture:

 Sometimes it helps to get a clearer perspective on home when seen through the eyes of others.

Night Bight

I took  a lunch  break and cast around wondering where to go. There are days, and nights, when I'd like to have a little  mountain to climb, or a wood to  ride through under a full moon. Something different...Hell I can't even ride a loop around here as the roads all dead end into the water. You have to go out and then come back. So you have to be creative sometimes. I got un-creative and went down to the waterfront. It was breezy and cool at three in the morning and I got some nice dock walking in. How do you fancy this porch at the back of your floating second home: 

The  front end is pretty impressive too: 

Owners of power boats choose weird names for their toys. Worth overdoing? Really?

 In the midst of the opulence I was delighted to see a few towels hanging on the life lines. Of course it was a day charter boat, often called a "cattle boat" as they load up dozens of  swimmers and trawl them out to the reef. Like cattle I guess.

 It was a good spot to float away the drunks and the stress and the weirdos calling 911 all night.

 "It's imperative you get an ambulance here!" she screamed in my ear. Imperative? Really? Just ask nicely lady, I won't turn you down. I sent the ambulance. I always do no matter how crazy or imperious the callers are. Then I come out to the water and breathe in the ozone.

 Why power boaters illuminate the water under their boats I have no idea.

 But their extravagance makes for some pretty pictures.

 I mean it really is kind of stupid isn't it? Turning the ocean into a swimming pool...

Turtle Kraals and The Half Shell look much more enticing in the dark across the water than they do up close. They aren't terrible restaurants at all but they are kind of the cattle boat of waterfront eateries around here. At night they look more ...intriguing.

 And so, back down the dock to the Vespa and so to work.

By the way a bight in the world of water means an indentation in a coastline, which thus produces a secure anchorage. Hence Key West Bight (pronounced BITE). Now you know. Of course the city calls it the Historic Seaport or some other pretentious nonsense. It's just a bight.