West Summerland Key

This parking area was closed for some considerable time as construction crews worked on infrastructure here. Recently re-opened it's become a bon fide park with all sorts of facilities, including fencing and benches, though the trash cans were always here.

I tried to take a panoramic shot from the furthest corner, to mixed success. The trail on the right is actually a continuation of the trail on the left and not a right-angled turn...

Rusty has become a lot more self confident on his walks. He spends  less time looking over his shoulder for predators and more time sniffing and enjoying his walks like a dog born to it, not a stray adapting to a settled life of security and love.

 It was hot out but Rusty wasn't too bothered.

The new walkway has replaced the rather sketchy trail I used to walk through the bushes and I suppose that's a good thing. It's  a pity though as, rather selfishly,I liked it more when no one knew it was open through here. Now we have an elevated foot freeway:

 With not much shade.

This island used to be called West Summerland Key which was a strange name as it is far east of Summerland Key. However there are a couple of scout camps on the island so they changed the name to Scout Key, which may be worthy but is very boring compared to the impenentrable riddle of it's original name. So I use the original name and rejoice in the fact that one of the Scout camps is called "Camp Wesumekee" ironically named for West Summerland Key which no longer exists!

Camp Wesumkee is an 11 acre oceanfront camp on Girl Scout Council owned property. It is a beautiful camp on the Atlantic Ocean for experienced campers and offers snorkeling, tidal pool observations, swimming (you must provide your own lifeguard), nature and marine study.

 And quite scenic views:

They've even gone to the length of protecting us from ourselves with heavy duty aluminum fencing cemented into the seawall: 

In Cheyenne's day it was rather less secure.  

I don't know that any angler ever fell in. Which was good as climbing out would be hard as the seawall is properly tall:

With Rusty I was rather glad he couldn't fall in even if he wanted to:

 But he got up to his own antics:

I took this picture of Cheyenne walking up the old stony trail to the Highway One parking area:

Now it's all paved like a proper bicycle access parking area, with a lawn even: 

There were people standing at the top of the hill enjoying the view so rather than bust them up I include these picture form previous forays of the old bridge connecting West Summerland Key to Bahia Honda Key. 

The Old Bridge to Bahia Honda State Park is collapsing in bits and pieces by the day:

Of course Cheyenne and I used to come here a lot and I never worried about here falling off the edge.

 

The old honey badger used to stump around here and clearly understood the danger. She chose her time and place to die and here wasn't it, though she looked contemplative back in March 2013.

I miss that dog but Rusty is doing great and I am bonding with him every day. He was perfectly behaved on this walk though I did put him on the leash around people and near steep edges.

A few views of the south side of West Summerland Key. Above the remains of the old water pipe installed in 1942 to supply water to the military first and civilians later:

 Tide was out.

We climbed the bank and took the short cut back to the car across US One. Rusty's speed and obedience made the crossing a piece of cake. 

Lunch At Schooner Wharf

The idea was to take Rusty into town and have lunch a in a dog-friendly environment.  As it turned out Rusty wasn't in the mood so I turned up dogless to meet Sheila at the dog-friendly lunch spot. Oh well.

Dog Bennett of This Week On The Island also showed up. He said this is his favorite table at Schooner Wharf; a good view towards the music and Michael McCloud, plenty of cooling breeze and a good spot to people watch on Lazy Way Lane outside the bar:

Sheila got a hamburger and I got fish tacos delivered in tortillas. A "fish taco wrap." Fair enough. It was actually quite good. Doug had a fresh air sandwich.

Our conversation was a little weird at first. We got on the subject of dead pets, what with Cheyenne dying recently and Dog having lost more than one dog and Sheila coping with a new cat after a recent bereavement....

The waitress showed up to take our orders and there we were looking into the distance each with misty eyes.

We switched subjects and I offered that raising height limits to improve the housing situation was a silly idea but Sheila disagreed, saying the plan would allow for worker accommodations on the new stories of buildings in New Town. Doug ruminated on the meaning of homelessness in Key West and how to differentiate between a  chosen lifestyle and working poverty.

It was very pleasant and the air was cool with the breeze. I wished I could have had a beer and a longer pause but I had appointments to keep.

The tourists kept an eye out on the tarpon swimming in the shade of the docks, I said my goodbyes with a promise of a longer more languid rematch soon, and off I went into the heat to do battle with website developers.

Schooner Wharf bills itself as the "last little piece of Old Key West," and perhaps that's true though I would argue it is not alone in the distinction. There are other spots that might qualify...

...but there is at least a schooner or two at the docks making the name real. A schooner is a two masted boat where the front mast is shorter than the back mast(s). That's as much as I want to say on a page not dedicated to sailing pursuits. If you are a purist and want greater precision there are sites for that sort of pedantry. I have done my share of sailing but this isn't the spot to get tangled in jargon.

I never cease to surprise myself. I quite liked Schooner wharf. I would never have guessed as I am bar-averse. Usually.

Dorn Road, Big Torch Key

I took these pictures last week on a cloudy gray day that threatened rain, and Rusty won't get out of the car if it's raining. A product possibly of too many nights as a stray in the rain.

Dorn Road is about five miles long zig zagging from Middle Torch Key to the very end of the road on the northern tip of Big Torch. It's among the longest side trips from Highway One as the total road is over seven miles long between Big Pine and Key West. Sugarloaf Boulevard to the end of the road is six miles long, a mile shorter than the road crossing Middle and Big Torch Keys combined.

On the half mile causeway that joins the two Torch Keys is a little spur pointing south. I wondered if Rusty would enjoy it.  It turns out he did very much. Enough to bore me rigid so started playing with the iPhone camera shooting clouds and water and mangroves, and of course my Carolina Dog..

He had fun, running and sniffing and checking stuff out. I waited for the rain...

I wouldn't know a Torchwood Tree if it reared up and bit me in the face, but apparently it is a hardwood that burns well, hence the name. The shrub also gave its name to three islands in these parts known as Little Middle and and Big Torch Keys.

Little Torch sits astride Highway One nearer to Big Pine Key and it's not that Little compared to Middle Torch. Also Little Torch is the most heavily populated. Big Torch has a few homes on it but it is largely devoid of humans and the last couple of houses on Dorn Road don't have electricity. When the light poles run out you know you are close to the end of the road.

 A coconut shell carefully placed on a mangrove branch.

 Why did the dog run down the street?

Because he had places to explore.

Key West Bight, At Night

I took a lunch break at eleven o'clock at night and as the wind was blowing I went down to the water.

In nautical terms a "bight" (pro: bite) is a safe indentation for anchoring along a coastline.

The bight was devoted to commercial fishing boats (from Key Westing, with a last entry in 2014).

Nowadays it's all glamor and leisure.

I have quoted this passage from Hemingway's "To Have And To Have Not" before but it is evocative:
 HE DID NOT take the bicycle but walked down the street. The moon was up now and the trees were dark against it, and he passed the frame houses with their narrow yards, light coming from the shuttered windows; the unpaved alleys, with their double rows of houses; Conch town, where all was starched, well-shuttered, virtue, failure, grits and boiled grunts, under-nourishment, prejudice, righteousness, interbreeding and the comforts of religion; the open doored, lighted Cuban bolito houses, shacks whose only romance was their names; The Red House, Chicha’s; the pressed stone church; its steeples sharp, ugly triangles against the moonlight; the big grounds and the long, black-domed bulk of the convent, handsome in the moonlight; a filling station and a sandwich place, bright-lighted beside a vacant lot where a miniature golf course had been taken out; past the brightly lit main street with the three drug stores, the music store, the five Jew stores, three poolrooms, two barbershops, five beer joints, three ice cream parlors, the five poor and the one good restaurant, two magazine and paper places, four second-hand joints (one of which made keys), a photographer’s, an office building with four dentists’ offices upstairs, the big dime store, a hotel on the corner with taxis opposite; and across, behind the hotel, to the street that led to jungle town, the big unpainted frame house with lights and the girls in the doorway, the mechanical piano going, and a sailor sitting in the street; and then on back,past the back of the brick courthouse with its clock luminous at half-past ten, past the whitewashed jail building shining in the moonlight, to the embowered entrance of the Lilac Time where motor cars filled the alley.

I have long contended that Hemingway's romantic picture of Key West from the 1930s ...

....sounds more romantic than it must have been in real life!

Moving away from the water I found myself walking past Clinton Square Market:

And so back to the water, the much more sanitized waterfront at the Westin Resort.

And from the days of poverty and romance:

Bier Boutique and Sidecars

Robert said let's have lunch, so I said let's, and I know he likes Beer Boutique so there we were.

It's a proper hole-in-the-wall with outside bench seating so I had thought to bring Rusty but he wasn't having any as the day had warmed up and he wanted to stay home. I took the Triumph and it was hot on the ride into town.

 Robert got a lettuce wrapped burger and I got a monster special contraption with ham and egg and liberally sprinkled with sriracha. I stabbed the egg with a knife so it wouldn't squirt and the end result was good to eat and I kept it all off my clothes. 

Robert likes the compostable containers which are, if not unique, then rare in Styrofoam laden Key West, the anti-eco city.

The Bier Boutique (LINK) was opened a couple of years ago on the site of a Cuban place (see below) by a couple of Midwestern transplants, Scott and Heather, and they make a point of packing in the craft beers to make a meal more interesting. They deliver and are closed on Monday, otherwise open for lunch and dinner till 8 pm. 

It used to be  Little Jon's a Cuban Coffee and sandwich shop which I quite liked. 

And they made sandwiches too:

But change comes as always and it isn't necessarily bad. I made the same point earlier this week in my review of the Firefly Restaurant. And then there are motorcycles, posted here because I saw them the same day and have nowhere else to post them. First a Ural sidecar combination which I want to like but which isn't dependable enough for the sort of mileage I ride. I think one day Rusty might like riding in a hack when he gets over his nerves at the sounds of motors. People who ride these machines hard spend a lot of time maintaining them and even more time modifying them to work and then rebuilding them as well. Much work for the riding.

 And oddly enough I also saw this machine the same day. It's a Vespa and a bit of  hybrid as the handlebars are off a modern P series Vespa but some of the other controls(lack of an automatic engine oiler sight glass) indicate it is an older European model. I am a bit nerdy about Vespas especially as I wait anxiously for mine to come back from the tuner in Bradenton. I wouldn't like a Vespa sidecar because even if the scooter is the 200cc version it will only pull about 45 miles per hour and it would be awkward to park in scooter parking...the worst of all worlds.

Burgers and sidecars, all bases covered for the day.