By The Day's Early Light

For the first time in my life I am actively counting down the days till the end of the month which is going to be the day we switch back to standard time, known to some as winter time. Usually I really enjoy the dark mornings and the daylight later into the evening, but this year I am noticing my life is negatively affected by the early morning darkness. Check out a late morning walk on Whitehead, nice colors...

Cheyenne looks like she was stalking the wild roosters but she wasn't really. She only hunts prey that has been grilled fried or baked. Live animals are of no interest to her. The dark mornings have confused her too. She sleeps a lot more these days and early starts are no longer on the cards for a Labrador that is going on 15 years of age. She tends to restrict walks toe very other morning these days and after 45 minutes she's spent. But she makes the most of every moment she is outdoors.

It is now time to start looking forward to Fantasy Fest and the tourists and parties and money that will be flowing into the city. I don't think it's like it once was, because the down time when the city lies fallow seems shorter and shorter. Summer this year was as busy as winter and even into August there were crowds everywhere it felt like. Banner shave already gone up on Duval Street promising extra special viewing platforms for the Grand Parade (which I plan on watching this year. For once. Before I slink off to work). But the streets haven't yet caught up and we are enjoying a brief hiatus in the constant flow of humanity into town.

 Oops....there I go again...shadows and light.

At the Green Parrot the doors were closed and the bar was silent. You have to get there early to admire their outdoor artwork in peace...

 ...or to get the only free drink they offer:

 Southard Street was open to cannonballs, had I had one and fired it up the street at Duval no chickens would have been harmed. Or people either. I wouldn't shoot my Labrador.

The light reflecting on the front of Kojin the noodle shop on Southard Street. I ate there once and wondered where my money went. I eat Vietnamese food at Sister Noodle which is in a less fashionable part of town but I find to be of decent quality at good prices. Kojin gets lots of good reviews from people who know more about Vietnamese food than I do.

A used abandoned toilet in Key West is apparently viewed as a decorative motif for the restaurants near where it sits. 

Credit me with more than my share of initiative but I would probably move it to the dump before customers saw it. But there again it is a quiet time of the year. Perhaps not too many people will be around to be put off by it. 

Posted with Blogsy

Night Crawling Key West

The first time I saw Mallory Square it was a bit run down, nowadays the brick buildings are picturesque, not least as most of the town is made of wood. At  six in the morning on daylight savings time it's pitch dark in the Keys. 

If I can get Cheyenne to wake up in the dark she enjoys the walk as it's cooler obviously before the sun comes up and this is the hottest time of the year.

El Meson de Pepe looking oddly romantic in the dark.

Thus is a popular spot for the residentially challenged too though I cannot get used to the fact that despite all the facilities in Key West sleeping on the street seems preferable to these souls. No food = no interest from Cheyenne.

I was surprised to see no actiity at all at Sloppy Joe's. Most of the year they close at four (the latest a bar can stay open in Key West) and at this hour of the morning clean up is in full swing. At this time of year the bar is long since closed and the evidence of the night before is long since hosed away.

Indeed the sidewalk was mostly dry by the time we got there.

Rumor Lounge up Greene Street was looking cozy. Not my kind of place if filled with people but it looked quite attractive in the half light.

Finally a couple of pictures of Old City Hall on Greene Street, where city bodies meet, the city Commission on Tuesdays. I wonder if when New City Hall is done on White Street if this venerable structure  will serve any function at all, apart from housing the Chamber of Commerce.

November First, after the Fantasy Fest Grand Parade the clocks switch to winter time and dark mornings will become light, so we have to take advantage I suppose.

A New City Commission

They held elections in the city of Key West on Tuesday, and though not many people bothered to show up, things have changed. I saw quite a few of these signs on my way to work, misspelling and all, which I thought was quite goofy. McPherson was mayor of the city for a while and was making a comeback this time around. He did not comeback losing badly to well know local attorney and political newcomer Sam Kaufman. Kaufmangot 62% of the vote which amounts to 271 votes of the 436 votes cast in his district. District 2 was held by the retiring Mark Rossi, no loss, and covers North Roosevelt Boulevard from Garrison Bight almost to the Beachside including Stadium Trailer Park and Sigsbee. Weird shaped district of indifference but there are hopes Kaufman will be modern and open and bring some useful change. He noted dryly in the newspaper the race was not even close so  perhaps there is a hunger for change in the district. 

District Five runs from North Roosevelt at Fifth in a bizarre diagonal slice across the city mid town area to approximately Higgs Beach.  District Five was held by Teri Johnston who also came in promising change and she managed to shuffle the deck chairs moderately in a town mired in stasis but she decided to give up the struggle and is replaced by a fire cracker who has taken on runs for the mayor's job twice and in failing to win garnered a surprising number of votes. Margaret Romero who cites her past as an IBM executive promised the Keynoter she will not let the citizens down. That should be interesting. The 1000 voters in the district who showed up had an interesting choice between Romero and Mike Mongo another local activist with his own record of afflicting the comfortable. They seemed to appreciate the choices because Romero beat Mongo by just 65 votes. 

The best race of the lot was the ouster of the sole incumbent who decided to run for a second term. Fats Yaniz has been the most colorful member of the Commission, speaking his mind ignoring decorum and not always presenting himself in the most judicious light in public. We can draw a veil over his stint because he has been replaced by a recently retired Judge who apparently found retirement tedious. Judge Payne, now Commissioner Payne was elected to his New Town District 4 with 712 votes out of 1080 cast. Yaniz had a habit of tangling with the mayor even challenging the mayor to leave the commission chambers once to settle a dispute with their fists in the street. I kid you not. I think this wild west attitude will be replaced by a rather more pompous note, probably much to the relief of the always even tempered Mayor. Judge Payne dropped this brilliant line to the paper, as though it was a presidential race perhaps rather than a city commission race with a dismal 29.77 percent turnout:

"We never got negative, we just [focused on] the positive and that resonated with the people," Payne said Tuesday night.

There are real issues facing the Commission which has six members and three of them are new. Truman Waterfront needs to be planned after a decade of doing nothing, the three new Commissioners had better figure out some way to appoint people to the Historic Preservation shambles that actually care about preserving Old Town because there are a lot of people in Key West who are annoyed at several recent decisions. Luckily the Mayor got the new city hall approved and I say luckily because I really like the location on White Street and the former school which may well look splendid. 

I live in the county so I don't vote in the city and with the pathetic turn out for a critical election I am sorry because my one vote could have made a difference! From my perspective Key West needs a vision and I remain skeptical that this new wave of commissioners will provide that but I hope for the best. Pedestrian zones anyone? Bicycle paths? Effective recycling? Solar power? Anything new and modern and forward looking...?  

Driving The Lower Keys

I have no particular beef with cyclists, I ride a bicycle myself from time to time, though not compressed into spandex clothes. Not being smart does bother me and cyclists get run over all the time in Florida, more so in Key West than elsewhere. Considering how distracted drivers will be in their cages I think it is either very foolish or desperately optimistic to think that riding the white line on the shoulder is the best possible place to be on a Florida Highway, especially when the Sunshine State has placed a perfectly serviceable path at your service for your exclusive use. This guy gets a Darwin Award:

Enough of that, time to pause to enjoy the view while not running down a cyclist:

And there is the sewer work, continuing on, now between  Summerland and Big Pine Keys, not disrupting traffic  though the bike path is torn up.

I cannot help but think that twenty years ago the much wealthier Federal Government tried to persuade the Keys to do the sewering with less local cost and nothing came of it. The bonds to cover the cost now will amount to 200 million dollars and about seven thousand dollars a household for the hook up amortized over the years. It needed to be done then for maximum reef benefit. Better late than never.

Night Time On Fleming

My wife calls me the night crawler and she busted me on my lunch break at some ungodly hour enjoying the warm night air. I justify my wanderings by taking pictures.  My Bonneville at 86,000 miles, still the best motorcycle I have owned in 45 years of riding.

The post office at 400 Whitehead Street, the westernmost point:

The main Key West post office that serves everyone up to and including Bay Point, Mile Marker 15.

A cruiser motorcycle caught in my headlight.

And the usual assorted porches and front steps of the Old Town.

 

And then I went round the corner to Southard Street where I found some other views worth stopping for.

Fleming Street at one thirty in the morning.

Crocodile

The Key West Citizen posted a photograph of a juvenile (we're told) American Crocodile sunning itself off Smathers Beach.

The wild creature was seen (in the wild) off Dog Beach as well. I am not terribly fond of Dog Beach as Cheyenne doesn't swim and  therefore what's the point of us going? But for other dog owners this is a quiet corner dedicated to letting your dog prance around and swim. Not with a crocodile in the offing. Even if it's  a small one.

AS you might imagine a crocodile sighting has had the urban dwellers of Conchtown up in arms with lots of bravado and chest inflating. Talk of guns and posses and threatening to run the invader out of town on a rail etc...etc... You can imagine the nonsense they speak, people who like to think of themselves as debonair dwellers in the Tropics who have no facility with life as it is lived in the land of cockroaches, scorpions snakes and dinosaurs. 

Wildlife experts (scientists, please note) will tell you that crocodiles are docile shy creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone. Mostly they inhabit Florida Bay between the Upper Keys and mainland Florida but a few trundle down the Keys to be spotted lurking in the mangroves of Cow Key Channel from time to time. The only alligators in the Keys are to be found in the Blue Hole, a freshwater former quarry on Big Pine Key:

They are different creatures than the more familiar and widely seen alligators, they have narrow snouts and snaggle teeth (like anyone is noticing these minor differences at the critical time) but most importantly alligators live in fresh water and crocodiles live in salt water ( and crocodiles are few enough in number to be endangered).

I have a healthy respect for predators, be they snakes sharks of dinosaurs of either sort and I don't play with them or provoke them. But I respect their need to live and in the case of snakes bats and spiders I love how they clean up the insect and rodent life for us. There has only even been one recorded crocodile attack ever in Florida and two stupid people swam in a canal known to harbor crocodiles. They did it at dusk when the predators are out and they got their limbs scratched for their trouble. No sane sensible person has ever been attacked by alligators but idiots to get in their way and alligators will kill you by drowning you and stash your body underwater until you rot when you are easier to tear apart and eat. So if you don't like that sort of a fate don't provoke alligators. But people do and then the alligators are blamed for behaving as they should. 

And one other thing, from experience I can tell you that watching dinosaurs sunbathe is about as interesting as watching paint dry. If you've never seen one in the flesh you probably won't believe me but it's true. They just lie there.

Or you could watch Cheyenne in the alligator position:

Really. Come back in 15 minutes and nothing will have changed.