Old Bahia Honda

Rusty and I come here all the time of course and my one day off work last week we stopped by here for more than two hours, mt break from overtime and his break from being at home. I like taking pictures here as this is a place of many moods so this is what I culled from this latest visit.  Hurricane Irmal on September 10th 2017 trashed this place. They are close to completing repairs and the gumbo limbo trees are mostly back while shoreline mangroves are now only fit for use as tree sculptures as you will see. 

I started out trying to take pictures that look like photos that could have been made when the bridge was built in 1911.

After Rusty got bored looking for iguanas in the undergrowth we moved on together.

Dog: barely seen.

A green slope that could have been in...Michigan maybe? I am not easily forgetting my vacation...

After our walk through the limestone outcrops, past the old pump station demolished by Irma and starting to head back to walk the shoreline in the other direction I saw a crab which kept scuttling thus preventing me from getting down to his level. I had to content myself with playing god, or a drone, hovering from above:

And then we rambled for a good long while finding all sorts of treasures:

Tropical Storm Laura, as it then was, threw up a bunch of seaweed along the shore which makes for some bright colors:

But also happily creates an ideal Rusty playground.

Too soft to support humans the seaweed platform gives Rusty no trouble at all:

And then finally we walked the section furthest from the bridge, a gravel beach littered with dead trees made artistic and gaunt by the aforementioned Hurricane Irma. In the distance we see the youth camp wrecked by 140 mile per hour winds.

And then back to the car and a twenty minute drive home:

Waiting For Daybreak

I learned last week that Cuban Coffee Queen has opened a third location. In addition to this very picturesque original location they have a coffee shop at Key Lime Square where Lobos sandwich shop used to be. Now it seems the empire expands with a coffee outlet at Clinton Square Mall next to the Custom House.

I prefer walking past this one as I frequently park in the city lot nearby. Because Key West ius small and there is no room the recycling center is right there too, wedged between Cuban Coffee Queen and Waterfront Brewery.  I find it oddly reassuring that these sorts of basic life functions are still operating in the heart of tourist Key West.

All happening under close pigeon observation.Maybe I am paying them more attention but I get the feeling there are more pigeons in Key West this year. 

My brain if probably fried by all these virus precautions and weather alarums and organizing my life around constant states of change (...where is my mask? for instance always that problem) because I saw this street sign and the mural in back put me in mind of motorcycles (big fish) hunting down the little fish (scooters). You probably had to be there.

Somehow I was quick enough to spot and focus on an aeroplane passing overhead with some foreground.  I post it here for no reason other than to show it can be done. Or rather to make the point even I can get it done.  

Lattice artwork at the entrance to the Waterfront Brewery. There was an odd story reported in the papers recently in which a state official suggested gently that bars, currently closed by state edict, roll up hot dog stands to make them eating establishments so they could re-open. I keep thinking the coronavirus can't make things any weirder and then up it goes, the scale gets tipped again by some brazen act of public weirdness. It seems that if bars can make a brave pretence at being restaurants they can re-open and help spread the virus some more. You could possibly get the idea we are going to be stuck with masks and Covid 19 and people dying for quite a while longer...

The message in town is pretty clear. Makss indoors and out when you aren't at home. 

And as a relief from the human made madness a picture of a pretty boat floating on calm water. This is what it should all be about.

 

Duval Street Unmasked

Well, how about that? St Paul's is still there on the corner of Eaton Street. I was in town with an hour to spare before an evening shift so I took my camera and my mask and went downtown to see what's what around five o'clock of an afternoon.

Rowdy visitors having fun in a  golf cart which leads one to wonder primly if they know this a real town they are driving squirrely in? 

A street encounter an a meandering conversation:

You can't wear a mask and eat at the same time:

The tarot reader who used to be here has bene replaced at last. I think it was about six years ago the dude got shot when he was visiting his family in Trinidad. That was a surprise. His booth has been empty for a while.

Not much business for street musicians, even violin players:

The main bars are still closed by state order, in this case the Bull is firmly sealed:

The mayor's race is finished but the signs linger on. Mayor Johnston blamed by Mark Rossi for bar closures, covid, mask rules and a slow economy beat him 60%  to 20%. I guess that settled that despite the lingering sign.

Lucy's Retired Surfer bar is gone leaving an opening for some other optimist:

Masks? 

More cruising not shopping:

Not too many people...

...and a high proportion of illiterates at that.

We don't seem to be in a hurry to get rid of this damned virus. I hope the vaccine comes our way soon, Not too soon for me. Well, it was nice being on Duval for a little while but I don't want to be around them until they wise up or I am made immune.  That may be a long time away. Sigh

An Ex-Parrot

I am gifted with a  peculiarly puerile sense of humor which, combined with my fine sense of irony tends to make it possible for me to enjoy social distancing and quarantine as gifts from the gods. My wife enjoys some British television but after a quarter of a century I know pretty much that the television and more particularly the radio shows that I listen to on BBC Sounds do nothing for her so when I am driving alone I find my meditation in laughter, private and personal. Which is by way of saying I still find Monty Python not only nostalgic but funny. So when I decided I was no longer going to ride a motorcycle I found myself thinking about the parrot sketch. I am an ex-motorcyclist. 

Less than two weeks after I took the photograph above on the levee at Lake Okeechobee I was knocked off the scooter and we both ended up on HIghway somewhat wrecked. That was two years ago today, and I am now selling off the replacement for the machine above which was destroyed and I have no plans to ride in the near future. After half a century riding all over the world I should feel some nostalgia I suppose but oddly enough I have  a mind that not only enjoys puerile humor, but also looks forward and not ack, mostly.

There are several reasons why I have chosen to stop riding. The easy explanation is that an accident requiring four operations, 80 stitches and three months in the hospital and a four thousand dollar copay for a half million dollar bill might be the cause but it goes deeper than that. I got lots of help from friends and employers, my wife half killed herself managing everything and my dog didn't get to see me for a month. I fear were I to fall off again no matter the cause or the fault I might be the object of some rather justified compassion fatigue. Furthermore I don't miss the frequent maintenance schedule of a motorcycle which seems to be a constant round of tire changes, oil changes and assorted fiddly touch up and repair jobs. My van has an oil change schedule of once every ten thousand miles.  

The joy of riding has left me. The Keys are not a motorcycling paradise anyway but traffic has worsened considerably now the Highway is wide open again and every day I witness what can only be described as bad driving. Racing tailgating and reckless passing are objects of curiosity when you are in a  car and can pull onto the shoulder with ease but I don't want to be hit again by a distracted driver. Broken bones hurt quite a lot, quite aside from the acute disruption to daily life, and having lived though an extended stay in the hospital I have no completed that life experience and came away with lots of valuable lessons. No need to go for a repeat. Of course the irony will be manifest if I find myself crushed in my car...

I have always been a traveler and I remain one. This blog hardly reflects that side of my personality as I started this page in the middle of the longest stationary period of my life. However now the pensions are earned and old age is upon me the idea is to get up and go. This time I will go in a big bad van, a vehicle even the distracted notice...but more importantly I can travel with wife and dog and the comforts of home. This has developed a great deal of appeal to me as the van will allow for extended travel with no need to go home, I hope, to recharge my batteries. The ability to travel like that is the big appeal of not riding.

I could see a time in the future when I might ride again, given the physical ability to stay safely upright on two wheels. Were I to live in a region of interesting riding roads with not much traffic it could happen. How I might find myself in a such a place I can't imagine. I expect Key West and salt water to be in my retirement future but my life has rarely been a linear progression from one sensible thing to another. No need to start rationalizing that now. 

Perhaps, independent of the accident it's a matter of aging. The need for speed, such as it is with a 200cc scooter... may be replaced by a  more reflective way of travel. I know that I am very much looking forward to time being on my side, not having deadlines, not getting cold as I drive, not having to be somewhere because I am retired and my relationship to time has become a bit more elastic. To travel with my home is a way I hope to expand my horizons, not limit them to a very small space. And the interior of the van is very small indeed. Some people have larger clothes closets. A paradox then which I find intriguing especially as I enjoy traveling slowly in the tank that is the Golden Van. Yes I enjoy drifting along and pulling over to let others by. A marked change. My wife has noticed this tendency and she is happy so it must be good.

Retirement in Key West continuing to live where I live is possible financially speaking but I am not clear how or why I would do that. Instead of a van we could have a boat and go sailing overnight to various mangrove outcrops and so forth which would leave Rusty unhappy and me unsatisfied. I don't fish and I don't hang out in bars and I don't get an energy boost from managing committees or handling personalities and volunteers and that other classic busy work of retirement. There is a reason communities get a boost from retired people with valuable skills volunteering their knowledge but I ma not by temperament or training one of them. As much as I like Key West I have nothing to offer this place and I have still this persistent desire to see different places. I can't do it by motorcycle anymore. So I am an ex-motorcyclist. That chapter is closed for now. It is odd to acknowledge it.