New owners of Triumph's
Classic Twins range of motorcycles are frequently warned that they will be waylaid in the street by true believers and fans of Bonnevilles from times past. It happens often enough to me that I have developed my own line of approach when I see someone peering at my machine parked in public. "You can't have that one, " I say, "it's mine!" Oh, they usually reply do they still make them? What year is this? Or variations on the theme.
The dude pictured above, with
my Bonneville, comes to Key West a few times a year and this latest visit my Bonneville caught his wandering eye. Not because he wants one, but because he
has one, a T100 "Popsicle" (tangerine and white) colored. Dave from Rochester, New York, actually shared my enthusiasm for the brand which was fun, he admitted in fact to letting his Triumph supersede his former attraction to...Harleys, of which he owns one. Brave man.
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Dave may have rated as my Citizen of the Day but each and every issue of the Key West Citizen features a photo and a caption for a person rated as the newspaper's Citizen of the Day. Usually the person featured has not much to say, other than they like the weather and the people and its so much better than living in Minnesota/Kansas/Illinois or wherever they came from last year.
A recent entry in the paper caught my eye, not least because this hardy dude has been around since before 1935 (when the railroad got trashed by a storm). And the caption's last sentence cracked me up:
Citizen of the Day, sheer frivolity compared to the important business of moving the fruit.
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A few shots from Key West and environs, just because I like looking at pictures of where I am lucky enough to live. First the mangroves on Cudjoe Key:
Then the hill leading up to the Hilltop Laundry on Elizabeth at Eaton Streets. Elizabeth Street has one of the few blocks you can freewheel a bicycle down, and that makes it worthwhile to visit, if for no other reason, on one's way to Schooner Wharf.
And then around the corner heading out of town on Eaton, a "main street" into Old Town. Not many visitors realise its got a heady 30mph speed limit to encourage traffic on its way. Which gives me time to fiddle with the camera as I go, trailing some slowpoke cruisers at 19 miles per hour.
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I use my skiff which I keep parked at the dock behind my house as a swim platform in the warmer summer months. I find little more relaxing than floating around Newfound Harbor watching the thunderheads build up in the bronze sunlight. Other people like to pit their wits against the fish, which makes for a picturesque activity I always think, as long as it's not me fishing:
Others prefer the more busy speed of a waterborne motorcycle, a sport I have never actually tried, but have a not-so-secret longing to just have a go. Here are a few madcap tourists grouped for a jet ski tour at the bottom of Simonton Street:
Personal watercraft aren't allowed in a lot of areas of the National Marine Sanctuary so they usually end up buzzing madly around Key West like wasps around a jam jar. I guess I haven't ever bothered to take a trip on a jet ski for that reason. I prefer exploration to mindless buzzing, I convince myself. Still, it looks like fun, burning gas at speed on the water.
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Highway One new and old.
Flagler's original 1912 bridges paved over with the narrow old 1938 roadway on top, and then the high speed modern highway connecting the islands today:
This is the descent, heading north, from the Channel Five bridge at Long Key.
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Lunch in dispatch, Diggy enjoying a Miami Subs salad:
And Noel making a face, not indigestion, over his plate at some ungodly hour of the night.
Spring break is a tough time for police officers on the streets, civilians who live in the city, and the forgotten dispatchers snatching a meal between calls. Both these kids' ages combined are less than mine, and I am glad to be working with them. These are not your average 23-year-old spring breakers.
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The weather has been a bit variable lately veering between sunshine, rain, wind and gray cloudy skies. Whatever the weather it looks good around these islands and after I had reason earlier this month to pay a visit to the dump at Mile Marker 23, I was moved to reflect on how much a couple of palm trees tart up the unlikeliest locations:
Further up the street someone dumped these vehicles here in the mangroves. It must have been a while ago, and here they sit rotting away. its just another of those mysteries, who and when and why. Probably getting rid of them properly would just have cost money, reason enough to abandon them I suppose. No palm trees here to alleviate the gradual deterioration.
Behind my house the sun was shining yesterday and it looked as pretty as a picture, so I took one:
And the moon is filling out these nights, waxing as they say when it grows, and even though it isn't full it still looks good reflecting off the salt ponds.
Its as good as a movie and Spring hasn't even officially sprung just yet.
Niles Is a common name in the Lower Keys, not least because the GM and Nissan dealer in Key West goes by that name. At Mile marker 26 there is a forty-foot tall span that crosses Niles Channel, and on the north side of Summerland key there is a hidden roadway that goes by the same name. Its quite tricky to find as one has to take Horace Road (really!) off Highway One and make a couple of ninety degree turns through a sleeping trailer park.
If you can tear your eyes off the sleeping woofer you can see Niles Channel Bridge in the background. I had been turned on to the possibility of some off road tracks by a young kid I met recently doing doughnuts in his truck when I was out exploring some other dirt tracks. Niles Road itself is the usual more or less straight line between mangroves:
I really like these roads, smooth and slightly curvy with few homes and a gentle breeze whistling through the branches. Sometimes I wish they went on further. Other times I wished that when I reached the end I was alone. But here, after a mile of paved road I found these two huddled with their pedalo boat, an unsuitable craft for windy salt waters:
Sometimes you just get a bad vibe and I don't know what these two were up to but whatever it was I didn't want to leave my motorcycle alone with them so I bagged my planned hike into the bushes where the paved road runs out and I turned back towards civilization, without turning the engine off. Civilization consists of a couple of unoccupied homes and a couple with signs of life. This one looked wrecked but when i stopped to shoot the "picturesque" trailer i observed the house had signs of movement behind the mosquito netting on the porch. So, again, I rolled away without giving anyone time to ask me to move on. It was getting to be a theme of Niles Road.
Then I spotted the dirt road turn off and finally found myself alone with Nature, on the peculiar marl particular to the dry season mangrove swamps:
So I worked my way through dry clay rutted by four wheeled vehicles, careful to keep my street Bonnie on the high side.
And it wasn't long before I hit moisture, deep water close in to shore as though it had been dug out by human hands, but in the process of being reclaimed by nature, as always:
And of course there is always human debris around in these places. Actually it was abundant and somewhat varied. First I found evidence of human ill treatment, a horseshoe crab used for sport. Its underside was pretty complete so it looked as though it had been plucked live and impaled, but perhaps I am reading more into than I should. Bored kids I suspected, for no reason other than I am extrapolating more than I should:
I tossed the baked little body back into the water where it sank slowly out of sight, a small Viking funeral. And if it was kids playing with the crab, then their elders and betters had been using this pristine spot as a dumping ground, ignoring the threat of a five hundred dollar fine as posted on signs along the roadway. A school bus roof? Priceless if not picturesque.
And more, so much more:
I even found a hillock a full six feet above sea level, and the altitude made me giddy scrambling up through the gravel, feathering the clutch, sliding the motorbike as I went:
I took the time to shoot a few more pictures of the Bonneville, and I confess I always like the look of the thing from the front, the aggressive tire and big round headlamp, very old fashioned I think. And in such surroundings too:
Further along I found an untouched trail, no signs of tire marks in a long time and the mud was smooth and flat, pierced by a few mangrove nematodes only:
And then back to the main road along the gravel trail:
And then back to the paved Niles Road, back towards the trailer park and sleeping dogs and busy fishermen and all the rest:
Highway One is overly busy during Spring Break with vehicles crowding the Overseas Highway in both directions at all hours, endless snakes of cars plodding to and from the bars of Key West. Luckily I had not far to go to get home and tend the sunburn brought on by my adventures. So little land so much fun. On a road bike no less.
Little Hamaca City Park is a touch of green in the middle of New Town, wedged between the airport and the Riviera Canal. The literature tells us this is the last stand of hardwood trees in the city and is the place where one might expect to see such exotics as raccoons and snakes and I don't know what. But Little Hamaca has a reputation for being a gay cruising spot, which I find frustrating as that reputation keeps people away. I used to walk my dog here frequently in the days when I was owned by a Labrador and I was never accosted by anyone for immoral purposes. For what that's worth. When I went out earlier this week to take some pictures I wasn't accosted either but I saw the inevitable residentially challenged citizen, in this case organizing his life in the parking lot:
The entrance to Little Hamaca lies off Flagler Avenue at the Doc-in-a-Box, better known as the Urgent Care Clinic. The park has gates that are supposed to be closed at night in an effort to keep undesirables out:
And a theoretical 15mph speed limit on Government Road, a long straightaway past the airport, and the disused ammunition dumps scattered near a few of the many old missile pads:
Government Road winds about a mile past picnic tables and turn-outs to the holy of holies, as was in period of the Missile crisis of 1962, the Hawk missile site built to fend off rabid Cuban communists, which is now a paint ball field sponsored by the city. Youngsters used to bother condo residents at Oceanwalk apartments by creeping around the mangroves in the salt ponds shooting each other with paint. Now they get to do it in a properly sanctioned space:
There's a parking space off Government road that gives access, to wheelchairs too, to the boardwalk and trails that wind through the hardwood hammock:
A gentle ambling pace will take less then ten minutes to stroll to the end of the boardwalk, past information laden sign posts:
And of course at least a little bit of trash here and there. This checkers soda cup was less than 50 feet from a garbage can, but tossed well beyond the railing making it irretrievable:
The boardwalk leads past swampy lowlands where mangroves thrive and if this is an enviroment that looks interesting enough to explore local kayak guides specialize in mangrove paddles and will be delighted to give you a tour of Cow Key Channel or the Lakes, west of Key West. These are just a taste of those mysterious plants that fascinate visitors:
Alongside the mangroves are grassy prairies with their own, homemade trails leading heaven knows where:
Far in the depths of these delightful woodlands one can never get too distant from civilization even though it can feel like being nowhere near a modern city. Its the depth perception game that the Florida Keys play so well. In the distance one can barely see the busyness of Oceanwalk apartments a mile away, but it's another world across the greenery and salt ponds and airport runway:
And back on the main trail there is a dark dappled tunnel of undergrowth connecting the boardwalks, where the going is hot and sticky on a relatively warm day. This part of the park is airless, far from the sea breezes of the coast:
Getting closer to the Riviera Canal one can spot this apparently human made channel cut into the rock. I've seen these elsewhere in the Keys and I've always wondered who, what, why, when? I'll never know, I guess:
It seems to serve no purpose other than simply existing. Anyway beyond these mysteries the boardwalk resumes and takes the eager walker to his or her destination, visible through the mangroves, the Riviera Canal and more civilization across the water.
The boardwalk ends in a rather neat little docking area provided by the city for any passing boater to tie up and perhaps take a walk in the park:
It's a rare thing in Key West to have a house on a canal, there are only two streets in the city that offer this sort of amenity, Riviera Drive which tends to be fairly upscale, and Hilton Haven which is less so. Riviera Canal connects with Cow Key Channel under the South Roosevelt Bridge while the other end exits at the Salt Run Bridge under the North Roosevelt bridge and both bridges prevent tall boats, including sailboats, from entering. The homeowners here see open space across the water as they get a direct view into Little Hamaca.
I also spotted a visitor to one neighbor's dock:
Did I mention these escaped pets are sources of controversy? People who try to grow Up North style gardens tend to get frustrated because iguanas like to eat their produce. Personally they don't bother me because I don't have anything worth eating in my yard. Tourists like 'em, and they take their presence as proof positive this place is exotic. Think of them as roosters with scales on the streets of Key West.
In fact the Pepto-Bismol building is Key West By The Sea, former officer housing for the Navy Base and built like the proverbial brick shit house I'm told, made of poured cement and capable of withstanding a hurricane if not a nuclear attack. And there it sits dominating the skyline of Key West's most secret park.