Leaving Key West

It wasn’t easy to leave Key West but I managed to tear myself away. Layne was in California with her girlfriends and I had almost two weeks to meet her in New Orleans to pick her up. I could have continued to sit in Ket West but I decided I had to move on up the road. So I did.

I left our last comfortable secure moochdock routine and took to the  Overseas Highway  at 4:30, passing familiar landmarks in the dark, pausing at the park in Tavernier to make tea and walk Rusty in the first golden light of day. I was sorry to leave, pushed by the inner voice telling me to explore. We will be back after Thanksgiving for a final round of friends before South America swallows us up. 

Homestead was illuminated by full sunlight when we stopped on the Main Street, an extension of Krome Avenue, and Rusty took his favorite walk; urban exploration. Homestead went through a period of expansion and bright commerce but downtown looks rather battered -aren’t we all?- by Covid I assume and uncertainty. 

iOverlander shows this levee as a spot to spend a free night alongside anglers and airboat tours. In the spirit of stopping to see everything I decided to check it out, a short distance west of Krome on Tamiami Trail. Turn off at the pump station and ride the gravel a quarter of a mile for splendid views of the river of grass. I made tea and Rusty sat around looking his usual princely self. 

Tamiami isn’t a special secret name. Barron Collier who paid to build the first road across the Everglades in the 1920s simply called it the Tampa to Miami road, numbered by the government as Highway 41. It passes through Miccosukee country and the tribal police are not fond of speeders as I found out to my chagrin twenty years ago at some ungodly hour of the night and wasn’t I surprised to get pulled over…

The first part of the 24 miles of Loop Road are in Dade county but they are also in the reservation and the homes above are standard Miccosukee style built up on flood proof (for now) mounds. After a few miles you enter Big Cypress Preserve part of Everglades National Park. You’ll notice the Feds have repaved  the road which is also in Monroe County though Key West has never bothered to put up County  markers here on the mainland. 

No alligators were molested  on this drive through their turf but the approach of the huge GANNET2 encouraged a few to spontaneously lurch off the grass into the water. Neither Rusty nor I dismounted in their presence. Just a respectful precaution you understand…

Loop Road is a series of smoothly traveled straight stretches joined by wide sweeping curves. Oncoming traffic can see each other from far enough away to figure out a passing spot. Patience is the name of the game on the 15 miles of gravel. 

I found I was not alone in enjoying the road through the woods. Personally I’m pretty sure you’d see as much sitting down in comfort in the air conditioning but an air of being on safari can bring it’s own pleasure. 

Some families have vacation homes on the cape or in Kennebunkport. Others share their inherited privacy with swamp critters…

Sweetwater Strand is the mother lode of alligator sightings. Enter Loop Road at the west end, at Monroe Station, for a much shorter drive to spot gators. 

And here they all are:

Alligators are dinosaurs and aside from being fearsome they don’t have much spare brain capacity to do anything that might be interesting to watch. They just sort of lie there immobile and unblinking. It’s worked for millions of years so why change the habits of eons past? 

The term “watching paint dry” comes to mind. They are much less dangerous than popular imagination  would have you believe. However if they should grab you or your dog it’s usually curtains so in my opinion the risk/reward assessment needs to be made very carefully. 

If you go to the shark valley observation trail you will see loads of them right at the edges of the paved trail and they are, or have been so far, entirely docile. 

I saw some youngsters swimming with masks in one of the strands next to the road. I waved and said nothing as I drove on by but better them than me. People tell me I am brave to travel to Latin America in a van. To me it is enjoyable and not at all scary where swimming with alligators seems neither sane nor pleasurable. 

Below you see an apartment sized pet. And yes some people do like to keep them as pets. And with so many stray dogs needing homes…

This sign post (looking south toward Sweetwater Strand) marks the boundary of Big Cypress Preserve and also the northernmost boundary of Monroe County, not that there is a sign to that effect. Collier County has inconsiderately abandoned the last four miles of the Loop Road to potholes and ruts, bad enough to cause a rental convertible to make a U-turn a short way in from Tamiami Trail.  

If larger vehicles like RVs lose their nerve there is a marked “last chance” turn out just past the toilets and picnic tables which are the only services to be found the length of  Loop Road, within sight of Highway 41. 

There once used to a gas station and restaurant in an old abandoned building called Monroe Station. I can’t find my pictures of the old structure so I found these on the web  with a link describing the  fascinating story of pioneer Florida motoring. An idiot with a camera and a desire to take night pictures accidentally burnt the building down in 2016 and now it’s a hunters’ parking lot. 

Check out the Abandoned Florida website for some great pictures and the full fascinating story of the Monroe Station so named as it was closest roadside service station to the northern tip of mainland Monroe County. 

https://www.abandonedfl.com/monroe-station/

Across the highway  is a typical Miccosukee village.  

Turn left to Naples and right to Miami. Rusty and I turned left heading for Dinner Island campground. 

Geiger Key

I read that the owner of Roostica and Hogfish restaurants sold Geiger Key Marina for fifteen million dollars.

I’m no businessman clearly but that seems like a great deal of money to pay off one sandwich at a time. I suppose the theory is when the restaurant love burns out someone else will come along and pay even more for this last slice of old Key West, the slogan appropriated by Schooner Wharf which is actually in Key West. This place actually does look like the funky tropics of decades ago. 

Like so much else in the Keys, I do like to visit this place and enjoy the views, and the blackened mahi-mahi was quite good but the idea of owning and coping with all this stuff seems overwhelming. You’d think 21 million would be enough to retire and enjoy something else. Power boat racing perhaps, but the former owner still serves food at his other two outlets, expressions of his ebullient personality.  

I discovered a new term to explain much of what I don’t understand about other people’s lives: relevance. I used to wonder why actors abased themselves by doing advertising. Relevance explains it. They feel the need to keep themselves in the public eye.  Politicians are the same when they join a band wagon. You’ve seen recently members of Congress sidelined for speaking their conscience. The ones that follow party orders get re-elected  and  stay relevant. I get a kick when I see Fury, the tourist behemoth,  still advertising their “ultimate adventure” on the waterfront. They’d better make it good if it’s the last thing you do…

To drop out, to live on a van with no fixed address kills all relevance. No longer living in Key West and photographing everyone’s favorite vacation destination makes me less relevant. I no longer work for the police. No good stories to tell, no status as a 911 operator.  Bliss.

There is the argument to be made that some people like their work so much they don’t want to quit and more power to them. Usually they make money out of proportion to the sweat equity of the job. People who stand at check out tills are there by necessity. People who own successful restaurants enjoy the relevance of contributing and being admired. I suppose that could be it. 

The irrelevance of not having roots confuses observers. We have been offered places to stay so we could get “out of the van for a bit.” I actually like the van. However next month we are renting a cottage for ten days in the Outer Banks, so…why? Because we can’t leave for Mexico till after the New Year and we needed to stay in the cold for a couple of weeks waiting for the family gathering and we figured if we have to stay put let’s be comfortable. The joy of van life is moving with the seasons. Sitting huddled inside in the cold is dreary. 

I’m writing this in a forest in north Florida, while my wife is in California with friends whose guest bathroom is bigger than the van. How long will you stay at Potts Preserve? she asked. I don’t know I said. It’s free, it’s quiet and it’s safe from hunters. I’ll know when it’s time to leave, there will be an itch, a desire to move on. It comes naturally. 

I find pleasure daily in the fact I have to please only myself. To me that is true freedom. I have enough to manage my life and no more. If someone dumped millions on me I wouldn’t know what to do. Money brings obligation my mother taught me, noblesse oblige, another way of saying to whom much is given, from them much  is expected. Bet you didn’t expect this atheist to quote the Gospel according to Saint Luke! (12:48). It’s a philosophy that seems to have been set adrift in our culture where poverty is viewed as a moral failing and wealth without obligation is a sign of God’s approval. 

I don’t know if abdicating one’s participation in normal life is a cop out or a morally acceptable choice. It feels acceptable to me as life continues pretty much unaffected by my absence, and will do so after I die no doubt!  I hope writing about travels other than Key West will provide some form of compensation or education to others but the journey is justified to me simply by virtue of being undertaken. To see, to learn, to feel. 

I suppose it’s fair to say I’d like to have more with which to do more good. However I noted how Mackenzie Scott is distributing to unsuspecting non profit agencies her share of the Amazon financial empire she married and divorced. A friend of mine shook his head mournfully saying a sudden infusion of money can screw up the delicate balance of tightly run small organizations. Yup, I thought to myself, it doesn’t matter what you do because good can be bad or thus perceived.  I’m not thick skinned enough to be in that kind of fire and notoriety and criticism go hand in hand. No YouTube for me.  

I’d better keep driving. 

Swimming

In the bad old days I never went swimming after the time change. I was strictly a warm water, daylight saving time swimmer only. Not any more. 

I swam in a lake in Colorado at eight thousand feet elevation this past summer. I am a bold old cold water swimmer now. The change happened last January on a Mexican beach in San Carlos. A man from Iowa convinced us swimming in cold water is good for you. I thought Ron was full of bollocks but the new retired me was game for any stupidity. Actually I have to admit that he was right. It was great fun getting used to the cold water. I was proud of myself. 

The Ramrod Pool is a lovely under developed spot to take a dip if you feel so inclined. The sides were squared away to make a deep water dock for a development that never happened. The county threw up a couple of signs and called it good. Locals use it after work to drink beer, swim and be noisy. Excellent therapy. 

We like serenity of the pool in the morning when everyone is at work and swimming isn’t on the agenda. It was for us. 

High high tides can flood the place a bit. The access road takes a dip creating a shallow ford. I drive it slowly to stop spreading salt water everywhere. We park, we swim, and we rinse using our solar shower. 

Rusty does not like water and he doesn’t swim. He sits in the shade and keeps an eye on us. I watch him. 

After Layne went to California to see her friends I drive out to the pool for a solo swim. And there I found the “King tides” had swamped the rocky surroundings of the pool. I turned back. Nothing daunted I was determined to swim so I went to the new Pine Channel Park on Big Pine Key. 

Years ago we swam here in another artificial cut out in the rock. It was a wilderness with occasional boats abandoned and tied up to the bushes. We swam anyway. Now it is all perfectly scrubbed trimmed and built out. 

In addition to the stoutly built lookout there is a toilet block with outside shower, no need to bring your own solar rinse machine.

SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK! Danger Will Robinson!  The water was lovely. 

The mile marker used to be in the middle of Big Pine on Highway One. It was roughly in front of the Salvation Army and the Tom Thumb gas station. It was an original from the Flagler Railroad. It just sat there marking 30 miles to Key West. Now it is preserved as a monument and any that see it won’t know it was real. Time passes. 

I fear the Ramrod Pool will get a makeover before long. It’s not that a proper park is a bad thing but like the refurbished mile marker with fresh paint and a new location the old pool is a connection to a past that is submerged by make overs. I value the rough edges and lack of amenity. Long may they last.