Night Time

Just because the lockdown is over doesn't mean I can't enjoy empty streets in the early hours. With Rusty.

Not necessarily alone but the occasional bicycle at five in the morning will catch me by surprise as I follow Rusty down the sidewalk.

In the overhead illumination I saw an underwater scene by Rick Worth made real on the wall of the Waterfront Brewery:

Buddy Owen's Fish Wagon known as BO's for short, has lived a lifetime on Caroline, a shack of a place, by now a symbol of the gritty Key West sought by visitors seeking authenticity in a  conformist world.

I amuse myself by observing punctuation in signs, especially when they don't have any. Fresh fish: please wear a mask. I guess humans appear  to be exempt?

I read about the great mask debate in other places but the city of key West has required masks inside businesses and social distancing outside. If you don't agree please don't visit. It's a community standard adopted by the city and  majority of residents for everyone's benefit.

The Facebook epidemiologists promoting masks as tools of oppression are the epitome of the need to be cruel that permeates social media. I have given up using Facebook except for family connections and to check the state of the Highway with the handy Sheriff alerts. I like the calm rational approach to life's little problems and the Internet disagrees with my approach.

I have to say there are days when I look back at the road block with enormous ostalgia. The Sheriff tooka  strong stance and proved that the lockdown worked to keep the virus out but that period also saw police incidents drop to near zero. Now that the city has reopened not only are we catching up on abandoned cars and long standing parking violations but drinking, passing out in public, arguments and drunk driving and crashing are all back as though nothing happened.

As crimes go they aren't the sort of brutish nasty violence or cruelty seen in big cities and large populations but on the nuisance level we are firmly headed back to the bad old days of inconsiderate bad neighbors and thoughtless drivers messing things up a bit. I have to say it was expected but the reality is a disappointing reminder of how little we learn in periods of reflection. From a serene low key commute I have seen some hair raising driving as visitors attempt to break all records getting to and from the fabled city of their vacation dreams. And I should note I am not a slow driver as my wife will attest through her own irritation. Yellow lines and dangerous passing zones tell me one thing and tell the day trippers they are a challenge to be overcome. The other morning a white truck was being winched out of the mangroves along a straight clear stretch of highway. How it ended up down there rolled over I cannot for the life of me imagine.

Rusty is a reminder that good things persist through it all, as he waits patiently for me to stop mumbling and fiddling with my apparatus.

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.