Cow Key Bridge Repairs

There is one road into Key West and at the moment it is in a somewhat chaotic state as they work to repair it. I happened to be walking by ona  gray rainy day after I left my car in the shop and I thought the dismal weather gave me an opportunity to express some inner feelings about this long drawn out but necessary interruption.

In Key West the confluence of South Roosevelt Boulevard with North Roosevelt Boulevard and US One creates a three way junction at the entrance to the island, thus it is known locally as "The Triangle." For many months he proposal by the state to repair the bridge over Cow Key Channel has provoked quite a bit of consternation. The bridge is about 40 years old and the Florida Department of Transportation said salt water had eroded the bridge enough that it needs extensive repairs. So far so good, and they even got the money to do it, about twenty five million in local currency.

The idea was to start work after the winter tourist season and finish as soon as possible in the Fall or winter of 2020/21...almost a  year's worth of work. In deference to local concerns the state also offered a bonus if the contractors finish early so there is some hope we may see an end to it all around November if we are lucky. That the work began during the lockdown of Highway One gave us one small boost in the middle of a sea of coronavirus bad news: maybe the bridge work would speed up.

As you can imagine the idea of being forced to negotiate a weird bendy route through big orange barrels makes many, perhaps most flatland Florida drivers tremble and the smooth flow of travel across the bridge is decidedly interrupted by drivers fearful of the complexities of managing a steering wheel under adverse circumstances.

I think the job is being managed rather well and traffic flow is as smooth as it can be. They reverse the two lanes depending on the time of day so inbound commuters have two straight lanes in the morning while outbound commuters have two wiggly lanes in the afternoon. I have seen some slow lines but things could be a lot worse. College Road in the left in the picture above is now only accessible to traffic heading towards Key West but if you want to turn left onto the road you have to go to the other end and turn left onto it opposite the Stock Island CVS where a new temporary traffic light has been installed. College Road west entrance only turns toward Key West now:

My idea in purchasing my electric bike was to park on the approaches to the traffic jam and ride into work and arrive fresh and ready to answer phone calls. Breezing past stuck traffic seemed like a good idea and doing it without arriving for a twelve hour shift sweating and wet through seemed even better. So far I needn't have worried. 

While it has been a little inconvenient the undoubted need for repairs has made the annoyance quite easy to bear and I have to say that I'm glad our fragile infrastructure is getting seen to as watching bridges collapse is a profoundly unsettling thing, far more unsettling than dealing with this for a few more months.

Little Hamaca

My electric bike is in the shop. I conscientiously did my rounds with anti rust spray and a some air for the tires and the next day the damned rear was flat as a pancake. I got the bike used so clearly it was time for new tires and tubes and I dropped it off at Wecycle on Stock Island. They took the order by phone to avoid contact and I left it there to get new rubber. Easy peasy. 

I bought the bike, a Pedego Classic Cruiser for $600 used to deploy as a tool to get around traffic jams at the Cow Key Bridge for this summer of repairs and lane closures on the only road into the city. Instead coronavirus and sensible alternating lane closures are handling the traffic quite well much to my surprise. There are occasional back ups at extra busy times but so far the road work hasn't impacted my driving at all. Bear in mind I commute in at 5:30 am and out at 6:15 pm so I'm not a peak commuter. Nevertheless I may soon sell the electric bike. It's not a bad machine but it does 17 mph which any way you look at it is slow, it's very heavy and though it can easily be pedalled it's not nimble like a proper bike so it's not an incentive for exercise. Besides all that I live in a boring suburb with no scenic incentive to bike in the first place. I'd rather drive a bit and walk with Rusty and my camera. I certainly don't want to drape it over the back of the campervan as one more thing to take care of and worry about.

After dropping off the bike Rusty and camera and I went to spend some time together at Little Hamaca City park. We used to come here a lot when we lived in town right after I got back from my three months in the hospital. It was convenient to let him walk off leash away from traffic so I could focus on controlling my legs. He was very patient as I stumbled around learning to walk again and hung on to the leash to make it look like I had him under control on the streets. 

Here at Little Hamaca he could wander at will if we picked a time when no one was around which normally there aren't. My slippers weren't ideal and bending over to pick up his dog eggs wasn't easy but a successful pick up was a sign that I was getting better. Nowadays everything like that is easy. I feel lucky.

Little Hamaca is divided into two parts, the trails amongst the mangroves and the industrial area where the city stores signs and building materials and all that odd stuff so necessary for the functioning of a modern urban agglomeration. Makes for great pictures some days...

There used to be a paintball field at the end of the road but that got pulled down which seems a shame as nowadays it is but an open field and Rusty for whatever reason isn't interested in walking there.

As the place was turned into a missle launch site to defend Key West against Cuba in 1962, I know it sounds like I've lost my head but it really is true, there are berms built on all sides to protect the missile launches from explosive blasts. My next test is to walk to the top of a berm and see how I do coming down. a gravel slope...Rusty runs up and down like its not there. 

A quiet corner of Key West, social distance, peace and quiet.

Florida Mountains

Photographer Clyde Butcher  describes Florida clouds as this state's mountains.  It is a description that I understand as I spend summers admiring these piled up heaps of humidity and rain and thunder and drama...this is how you  see mountains over what are definitely flatlands. 

I have accumulated an embarrassing number of cloud pictures over the past ten days with all the humidity we have been enjoying lately. Thunderstorms, winds and heavy rain have produced extraordinary sunsets and sunrises and piles of black and white clouds overhead. 

I can't help myself. I take pictures of them against my own physical will and I find myself snapping away like a mad tourist in front of  a national monument.

I love seeing the light reflecting off the puffy white surfaces of these snowy clouds. In the evening and in the morning you get a golden tint. 

I hope you enjoy looking at these pictures as much as I do, if not there will be more pictures tomorrow of something else so waste no more time here today. I will keep photographing these things and they will show up from time to time because I really like trying to reproduce the awe they create in my head.

I am no mountaineer but I love reading about people clambering at high altitudes. So I look up and wonder what it must be like up there. I've looked down on enough clouds from aircraft to know they aren't real but from down here they look  like solid and snow covered slopes, the places mountaineers send back reports. Mark Horrell is engagingly self effacing on the subject.

For timid sea level creatures like myself the clouds of summer are a welcome change from the crisp blue skies of the dry winter months. We can dream of mountaineering derring-do as we look at the pinnacles and crests far above us.

I got soaked getting this photo of the orange flower. Rusty and I trudged back to the car a mile away with my camera and phone wrapped in a plastic bag which I carry for another purpose and arrived back at the car like two drowned rats. The blessings of Florida summers multiply as getting soaked can hardly lead to hypothermia down here.

I told you there were lots, too many to count. I am embarrassed.

Saturday

A few pictures from around town. Southard Street mostly, things that caught my eye as I followed Rusty.

This pile of leaves marked for me a return to normal, no more drifting leaves covering the signs of a lived in city.  I was surprised what an effect that had on me, all the unswept leaves make Key West feel like a zombie apocalypse site.

Rusty at home. He has his bed, two couches, our bed  rugs and carpets all air conditioned but sometimes a hard tile floor appeals the most to the former street dog. Being photographed just annoys him but I do it anyway.

Holding One's Breath

There is, one has to admit a sense of life on pause at the moment, certainly from where I stand. Nationally we seem to be lurching towards a new future whose parameters are not at all clear which leads any sensible person to wonder what might be best, what options could be available, whither the United States? 

Key West faces its own challenges with a tourist drive economy struggling to balance the demands of an apparently insatiable virus against the needs of a population that thrives on tourism. Florida today reported 1900 new cases of coronavirus in the state but I'm not even sure what that means. Is it thanks to new extensive testing? Is it a result of more contacts between incautious people no matter what the testing regimen? Who knows.

I look abroad and I see an extraordinary phenomenon, where people all around the world are adopting the Black Lives Matter slogan making it their own. I feel as though we are somehow failing ourselves by not having that same belief in the value of our own merits. I wonder why we insist on allowing our leaders to ship production abroad when the Made in USA label, on whatever thing for thought it might be, gathers so much credibility. Hong Kong has been protesting for months and not a peep, lots of sympathy but not a peep. The US starts a protest and the whole world joins in. We should amaze ourselves instead of tearing each other up.

I watched the defund the police movement take root and I think as a slogan it is not very smart as it plays into the hands of agitators, but as an idea I doubt it will gain any traction. If as proponents suggest police should be police and social services should be boosted to take care of the indigent and mentally ill I'm sure law enforcement everywhere will cheer them on. But to reverse half a century of dumping social problems on police who have been asked to hold the line on creeping poverty and social isolation, mental illness and juvenile tantrums will take coordinated effort and lots of money.  We've recently seen how tax increases play among the very wealthy whose hands are out for any government bailout. They don't leave much hope for the least among us.

This week I voted on a contract proposed by the teamster for city employees where we extend for a year with no raises and no change. I trust it will pass because it's not a year to expect a city facing what Key West faces to start forking out money like the fat years past. I wake up every day glad to have a job and to live where I do, but the future here as much as anywhere else is lined with uncertainty.

Next week heavy rain is forecast as the latest in a series of storms and tropical "activity" sweeps past Florida.  You know everyone is more or less vocal around here about hurricane season which we started this month. September is the peak of the season and unlike 205 and 2017 which were good years economically 2020 would be a setback year if the keys get a fat strike. The idea of going through the grinder that Hurricane Irma put us through three years ago is unbearable. I look at my photos on this page, piles of garbage, wrecked homes, torn up streets and dislocated humans and animals and as irrational as it is I would like to plead the case for a break please.

Key West as a long history of boom and bust, appalling failures, destruction and rebirth. I have no doubt this unique city will restore itself no matter what because in the end Key West has what no other place offers. You can drive to the tropics without having to go abroad is the short explanation. And that in a. country where fear of the unknown is promoted as a virtue makes Key West priceless.

We are not raising an explorer generation though there are always an eccentric few youngsters ready to take a back pack and disappear, so what we need to puzzle out is how Key West will remain fresh and vibrant for the next phase of life before rising sea levels wipe everything out... Oh yes climate change is still there lurking, delayed perhaps by an industrially inactive 2020 and interestingly the city has taken note of that.

The city commission is putting out to bid a request for development of Duval Street to make this rather dreary main drag less of a drag. I noticed one of the proposal in addition to offering ways of spiffing the street up suggested their bid would concern itself with sea level rise mitigation. That should be interesting.

Proponents of pedestrian priority on Duval are making themselves heard of course but with an election this year the three candidates for Mayor are circling the cruise ship dilemma first. A return to normal or a focus on smaller more gentrified ships? None at all is not an apparent option but the debate should be interesting as summer moves forward.

I took a couple of pictures of the exterior of Charlie Mac's on Southard Street as a memento mori but I have no doubt something new will replace it in short order and this place will slip into oblivion just as have so many other apparent institution in a town that is an expert in renewal.  

I have no idea what the national future holds and I suppose we can hope for enough steps forward to calm the national waters. I am certain though that with minor tweaks and a few changes Key West will barrel on as always, the dream city surrounded by turquoise waters and astonishing sunsets and sunrises. Thats what makes this place so fascinating.