Thanksgiving

Some Florida Thanksgiving humor:

 Thankful to live and work in the Lower Keys, where things are far from perfect...

 ....but with a good job and a decent home and mild weather and a few friends...

 ...you can live a moderately unconventional life and not take slack for it. Thankful not to have to deal with Christmas:

 Thankful to live where nutritious coconuts can be tossed out as garbage, not prized a s food:

Thankful Rusty has worked out so perfectly with minimal fuss.

Hawk Missile Site

I have written about this place before but I like coming back here. It is a place not suffering from gentrification or beaitification and I like photographing the gradual decay.

I was here six years ago with Cheyenne: Hawk Missile Site Link 

They have cleaned the area up a bit and closed off the open buildings over the past few years but it's still a  good spot to dog wander.

 And to take pictures of the old radar sites:

 Its where the city stores stuff not in immediate use:

 And it's where planes fly overhead after they take off from the airport.

And where the homeless hang out. This guy was chatting to Rusty who wasn't having any. Then my little dog got curious and started approaching the guy at the table. As he did he kept one eye on me as though to make sure I wasn't going to leave him in the lurch with this stranger.  It's a a rare occasion I see him being cautious around a stranger. Maybe the pile of belongings freaked him out.

 Then it was off to do some poking around in the grass:

Hawk Missile site being put to good use.

Key West Homes

After all these years I still get pleasure from looking at the massive diversity of construction in this small town. 

As we gear up for the holiday and give thanks for this and that, it may time to give thanks you don't have to deal with these monstrously over priced cottages. Just because they cost half a million or more doesn't mean they are properly built or maintained, or even dare I mention it properly equipped.

It takes paint to fight the salt air and powerful sun.

In the old days they used wooden shutters and secured them for hurricanes. The wooden shutters still used today that open forward from a hinge at the top are called Bahama shutters. 

And in a town that has never seen frost the winter holiday season brings out illuminated fake icicles:

A sloping tin roof, broad overhangs and lots of vegetation add up to classic Key West:

Local commercial fishing boats have a driving position at the front of the boat like this:

Buttoned up until someone comes to live here:

And something somewhere is always for sale.

I noticed the Fantasy Fest beads below next to the ugly sign and I was reminded that Fantasy Fest may take a different turn next year. The current organizer has retired and made  a point of telling the paper she made a fortune in real estate since the 1970s and was not forced out of running Fantasy Fest by the deluge of negative press this year.

Lots of Fantasy Fest beads remind me of the week that's best forgotten. Hopefully whoever organizes the festival next year can clean it up a bit. That would be nice.

City Hall Nears Completion

City Hall on White Street is close to being finished and should be occupied by the end of the year.

It is a magnificent structure, a fully refurbished early 20th century school building turned into the offices for the city of Key West. Some residents had to complain of course, the cost close to $20 million bothered them which is pretty funny as the city is currently renting space at Havana Plaza to keep the city running. and that's not cheap. The fifty year old pre-computer city hall on Angela Street was wrecked by Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and has been turned into a parking lot with a proper fire station (and public restrooms!) on that street corner.

This place offers easy access from all corners of the city with no more clogging of the tourist centers of Old Town. It has tons of parking and it retains a connection to Key West's past. I am glad they turned Glynn Archer school into this. Including the masonic symbol cut into the gymnasium name plate. Odd but true:

More controversy was generated by the solar panels in the parking lot. The whiners argued they are ugly and violate the rules of building design for the historic district. I think it's about time the Keys went solar.

Besides I think the argument that the houses across United Street aren't spoiled by the solar panels.

Look and decide for yourself:

Conversely the huge old fashioned emergency generator, a giant lump, causes no comment at all. Nor do the huge cement poles for power lines and all the infrastructure we are used to seeing. Change freaks people out. 

I can't wait to see the interior of this building which was rebuilt from the ground up inside the original shell.

And the landscaping is already in use:

Fisherman's Cafe

I met JW a former dispatcher on my night shift at the Lazy Way Lane eatery opened by a friend of his family. We worked nights together for more than a year until he got a daytime job working at city hall, much better for his wife and child. Because JW grew up in Key West working days means he gets to spend time at family functions and keeps his eyes open as well. Night shift can be hard on a family man.

Fisherman's Cafe is where you go for Conch food, which is to say foods enjoyed by people who have been born and grown up in Key West and these foods are remembered as staples of the hard times in the past. Key West suffered badly during the Great Depression, a time when most of the city was unemployed, and when the city declared bankruptcy the Federal Government considered shutting the Keys down and evacuating them to save time and money.

Tourism turned that around when a Federal Administrator Julius Stone came to Key West and fired up the tourist industry that feeds the beast today. Yet when Conchs ("konks") reminisce about times they on't really remember they speak fondly of those simple foods that kept the city going. Mind you grits and cheese and fish are good stuff and were eaten even during the hard times of the 1960s when the Navy withdrew most of their sailors from Key West and  downtown went through another depression, saved this time by the arrival of gay guesthouse owners...

None of which mattered to JW or me. He had battered conch and I had hogfish he with spicy fisherman's fried and I with crunchy yucca fries. I love yucca, known locally as yuca, the Spanish spelling of the white starchy vegetable that tastes bland yet easily absorbs any passing flavor. 

I lied the food, especially the touches they add like avocado slices and a sprinkle of green onion along with the use of paper containers instead of the horrid Styrofoam which can't be recycled.

It was a good lunch and JW  got me up to speed with his job adventures and I shared mine such as they are,; who's been promoted and more importantly who hasn't, and so forth.

Rusty was perfect, curled up out of the traffic waiting for his walk. He really enjoys being involved and I like having him with me everywhere I go. He is not trouble at all.

An unassuming spot. I want to come back for the breakfast MENU. And now it's winter so sitting out is a pleasure. Which is just as well as there is no inside seating.

Monuments

 I collected some pictures of buildings I like. Above, my place of work on an evening of full moon. Below, Duval Street in monochrome:

This is the county office block  known as the Gato Building on Simonton Street. It's named for the Gato Family that built it as a cigar factory before they moved to Tampa when Key West got too expensive for their business...an old story still relevant.

The venerable fire station on Grinnell Street. It's really the Firehouse Museum and well worth a visit.

The new Seven Fish Restaurant Building. Deemed compatible with old town architecture by the guardians of classic Key West architecture.

 And the Seven Mile Bridge, not exactly a building but human construction nevertheless...