Cruising The Waterfront

These delightful open spaces will be gone soon so I am trying to enjoy them as much as I can with Rusty before they are overrun with concrete and landscaping. And on this visit there was one of those plug ugly seagoing things called cruise ships but which actually look like Soviet apartment complexes.

 I was intrigued to see this long distance cyclist pedaling hard out of the dead end at the waterfront. No idea where he came from or why. Perhaps he spent the night on the cement?

 Then I spotted my buddy Curt  helping to tie up the big block of a ship.

 There he is reaching for the line:

 It was a lovely day and I was enjoying it properly.

Nor was I alone in my pleasure. Rusty trotted up to him and let him run his hands through his soft thick fur. It never ceases to amaze me how my formerly stray  dog is so eager to be friendly to strangers.

 I hope the new park will draw visitors to the floating museum that is the Coast Guard Cutter Ingham.

 Mangrove islands across the harbor.

 The seaplane flying to the Dry Tortugas:

 I like to let Rusty wander in this open space but not all dogs are that lucky:

 And because it is winter squads of loud squawking cyclists burst through the serenity of the morning.

 The museum has a long history:

 Rusty was checking out the area under construction. I can already see the pattern of order to come out of the chaos in the swerving line of cement on the ground:

This used to be a parking area:

Above they are tearing up what you see below as part of the first phase of development of the land that used to be part of the Navy Base:

 

Driving back up Fleming I saw Curt cycling oblivious to my presence. I was in a hurry and couldn't stop for a chat when I saw him pull off into Fausto's before presumably heading off to his second job selling food to tourists. He has been consistently working those jobs for the past two decades while living on his boat anchored beyond Wisteria Island. It's quite the record for consistency in this town.

Perspectives

You get the feeling sometimes that Key West is just too crowded. Sitting in traffic that seems true enough. I would like people to drive efficiently, but telephones crowd out the driver's impulse to pay attention and training for drivers is in short supply so traffic moves at a snail's pace frequently.

Naturally I have to think about this from a broader perspective because I like to travel by car and I have to say I have enjoyed monumental traffic jams in many many places that weren't Key West. Let's be honest traffic problems in the Lower Keys are frustrating but not that terrible compared to places that have real traffic issues. 

I overheard a tourist, a young woman on Whitehead Street telling her companions how great life in New York City where you can do anything you want, lots more opportunities ...I don't think she was comparing the Big Apple to Key West  of course but she's right. If you live in New York you have lots of opportunities to stand in line and see things the rest of the world can only envy. But sometimes when I'm in Old Town I feel as crowded on Duval Street as I might in Manhattan. 

Walking Cheyenne in Brooklyn felt  much like a village of course, sunny and leafy...just like...

...Key West today. 

And yet Key West for all that it is little draws in art and talent and the outside world not just because its a nice place to be in Winter but because people here appreciate the offerings. Voltaire Books closed but the Freemason's building now has an outpost of a Coral Gables institution, Books and Books.

616 Eaton last year:

616 Eaton Street won't end up looking like this picture below, as the owners have planned massive compound behind the rebuilt Conch house in front. In the land of wholesale reconstruction of everything I guess one over sized mansion isn't a big deal but the neighbors have been fighting this  as hard as they can. The idea is for a large modern building to be thrown up behind the pretty house in front and thus create a multi family retreat a couple of blocks off Duval. Even the sellers are feeling remorse according to the paper and want the sale rescinded to prevent the horror from being built. They claimed the buyers fooled them by not telling the truth about the planned mega-building. Lawsuits and to spare.

Further up the street a traditional Key West mansion decorated in the restrained traditional style that looks so good:

We are moving through a holiday season whose drive to sell as much as possible fails to overwhelm me as I don't watch television and I dislike frenzied gift giving so I look around for the signs of the season that appeal to me. Naturally mixing up the Christmas tree with a non-Nordic palm frond suits my sense of humor.

If you want a  frost-free retreat at the end of the road this delightful little house is on sale for $1,675,000. You could rock on the porch and ponder the mysteries of life in the Keys.

Luckily he doesn't care for conspicuous consumption so the cost of housing doesn't bother him and he expects no gifts. The perfect Christmas companion.

End Of The Year

I am not much given to year in review thoughts because I don't really see time cut up into chunks the way convention requires. Life would be impossible if we didn't have ways to measure time in daily life but I don't see any difference between January First and today. Different month, different year etc...but at a practical level no change. To wish someone a good 2017 seems ludicrous to me but I do it anyway because convention says we should.

So when I look back on 2016 all I can really remember is the mad election campaign we lived through and what may be the start of a major shift in the ways the world works.  I am sure in a few years we will look back and wonder why we didn't prepare for this or that outcome but right now the future seems extremely foggy to me. There are many people prophesying Armageddon because Donald Trump won the election though I doubt the institutions of this country will collapse under the weight of his considerable ego. However that may be I have admit I thought his slogan "Make America Great" wasn't that bright. The America I inhabit is doing okay thanks, and it's pretty great already. I guess I missed the bit about how bad it is for many other people in the snow belt Up North.

 I was wandering around the pump house on West Summerland Key, Rusty was chasing demons in the long grass and the bushes and I was prompted to consider what the people who built this structure for the new water pipeline to Key West were thinking in 1942. I expect some of them were hopeful for a better future and some of them had cause to be downright gloomy about a world so utterly at war. Some must have been confused by the new alliance with the Russian communists and some  must have wondered how long they had to live with so many deaths all around. So I figure no matter how odd things seem to be we are still better off: reason for optimism.

 I don't count my vote for Hillary Clinton as my finest hour. I did what I felt I had to do and I did it because I want things to stay the same for a bit longer, stay calm, stay in the rut of what we have accepted as normal. I look back on my vote with regret, perhaps it was an act of cowardice or of pragmatism, I'm not sure, but I did not want the revolt Donald Trump was promising. Now that we see his cabinet choices and his unending stream of invective against anyone who disagrees with him I wonder if I may be over thinking my vote. Trump's revolution is being led by Goldman Sachs, the vampire squid on the face of American business. Not that different from the repugnant bankers in the Clinton camp.

So Trump seems less and less a revolutionary and more and more an incompetent politician. He is a useful reminder of what it takes to run for public office in this country. You can expect to be heckled and insulted, your motives will be questioned and your integrity may be compromised by the requirements of the job. Trump is the embodiment of why we need a professional politician class in this country. Being President is not a job for thin skinned sissies with a Twitter account. Or is it?

 The Republican Party has spent decades telling us we need to have a government that runs the country like it was a business. Well we got that leader finally and everyone is writhing just a little bit. I wish Trump had shown himself to be a true revolutionary and had he done so I would have really regretted my vote, as it is he is falling short and I doubt his millionaire sidekicks give  a toss about the miners of West Virginia or the steelworkers of Pennsylvania or the auto workers in Michigan. Had he been the embodiment of Teddy Roosevelt he would have cast off Republican dogma and chosen a cabinet of technocrats, people with real life skills, scientists, businessmen and diplomats, not a bunch of second rate opportunists. We are told that business executives want to hire the smartest and the best and if that were being done here Trump's cabinet would reflect life skills not a bunch of warmed over second raters. This won't be a revolution it looks much more like a kleptocracy. So, the thieves run the place for four years and then we hire a different bunch. Plus ca change...

 In Key West 2016 had its own turning point. This was the year I think that we are going to have to start coming to terms with the notion that climate change is real and its happening and that the city of Key West is closed to working stiffs. I have an idea how climate change will affect low lying coastal communities now. Flooding will happen with greater frequency and greater severity but not all at once. High high tides will keep creeping up and waters will then retreat. We will slowly get used to them. Storms may get stronger and not all the time. Droughts will dry land and kill crops and people will go looking for better places to live. A little at a time and always worse. 

Streets are flooding with high tides, callers to 911 report a  smell of sewage but its just the ocean. The city commission has made noises about mitigating sea level rise but it's hard to imagine what Key West can do when the governor of the state won't allow state employees to use the term climate change. Fear of change is a terrible thing.

This was also the year I noticed a massive change in the commuting patterns on Highway One. I ride home at six in the morning and nowadays I see a string of headlights all the way home to Mile Marker 23. The working population has been squeezed out of  the city so effectively the commute to Big Pine and points in between has become the new normal. A lot of people like to live in Key West to avoid car use and commuting (something that has not bothered me as I like to ride my motorcycle) but now the cost of renting in the city is exorbitant and living out in the suburbs gives a better quality of life. A stilt house offers parking, low crime, boating and peace and quiet not to mention the possibility of a garden and even access to a canal with a dock...All for less money than a ratty apartment with window air conditioning and noisy neighbors in Key West.

2016 was also the year when Fantasy Fest outdid itself in terms of pointlessness and lack of taste or sophistication or humor. The organizer of the annual display of tastelessness has retired which gives the city a chance to refashion the event into something other than a display of genitalia and drunkenness. I'd like to see a return to costumes, local political satire and an emphasis on carnival not bacchanal. Fat chance, the artists can't afford to live here anymore...

The sun continues to shine, temperatures never dip much below  70 and we haven't seen 50 degrees in years. Yes I know local weather isn't representative of climate change but warm winters seem to be the norm now. It is weird and the occasional chilly day with prolonged low humidity and strong fresh winds would be a pleasant change from summer.

And 2016 saw a new dog in my life. Rusty the street fighter has adapted perfectly to life at home. He and I fit as though meant to be together.

But that doesn't alter the fact that Cheyenne broke my heart when she laid down and died on February 12th. She too came from a terrible life, and like Rusty, defied the commonplace reason for not adopting dogs in that they must be abandoned because they have character flaws.  Its not the dogs that are flawed, but as usual it's the humans.

http://thisisthedog.com/

Solares Hill

It's a pretty picture but not exactly Solares Hill. The highest point in Key west is a few blocks away but the height difference isn't worth arguing over between there and here. 

As often as I rant about nasty plastic hardware store signage warning of dogs and against trespassing I have to keep reminding myself some people have better ways of sign posting their homes. A case in point. I like the clip especially as it looks like some kind of mail drop off.  Very practical.

On the left wheels to cross America, on the right wheels to cross Key West:

The weird faces are still showing in a few places in Key West. Rusty found one:

A quiet summer's afternoon in December working away at a job to make Key west more livable. I think he was building a wall.

When I started this blog I wanted to show daily life in Key West with street scenes to give an idea of what you might find here. I was motivated to because I wanted to find other people around the world doing the same thing. There are lots of places I'd like to armchair travel to but it's not easy to locate pictures of places flung around our varied globe. Me? I'm still at it.

I think we should start a campaign to teach people to raise their bicycle seats for comfort and increased efficiency. However the recent election has taught us, if nothing else, that self interest doesn't motivate people much. Image and fashion and peer pressure seem to be much more important.

Bicycle as work truck. That's a leaf blower in the trunk.

Life in Key West.