This is the Vespa GTS that inspired this blog:
Key West Diary started out June 13th 2007 as Key West Vespa, (hence the banner picture, taken the day before motorcycles and scooters were...banned from the Key West cemetery) a blog inspired by other riders full of the joys of their rides and as an antidote to the screaming, mutual rage and contempt that are exhibited on web forums (fora?) across the Internet. I had already learned as most of us do, that curiosity, self deprecation and irony are transmuted into anger and sarcasm on these open forums and I for one didn't want anything to do with them. So last year at about this time I started thinking about keeping a diary. One day, with no word to my wife or anyone else I took up the name Conchscooter, given to me by some unremembered Internet Forum, and started writing my own thoughts down, on the Internet rather than on paper because one does things electronically these days. I started it because it was dawning on me that for the first time in my life I was feeling settled, and such a feeling was a novelty for me so I wanted to record it. I sold the Vespa and bought the Triumph but the blog soldiered on needing a new name. This is not a Vespa:
Key West Diary started out June 13th 2007 as Key West Vespa, (hence the banner picture, taken the day before motorcycles and scooters were...banned from the Key West cemetery) a blog inspired by other riders full of the joys of their rides and as an antidote to the screaming, mutual rage and contempt that are exhibited on web forums (fora?) across the Internet. I had already learned as most of us do, that curiosity, self deprecation and irony are transmuted into anger and sarcasm on these open forums and I for one didn't want anything to do with them. So last year at about this time I started thinking about keeping a diary. One day, with no word to my wife or anyone else I took up the name Conchscooter, given to me by some unremembered Internet Forum, and started writing my own thoughts down, on the Internet rather than on paper because one does things electronically these days. I started it because it was dawning on me that for the first time in my life I was feeling settled, and such a feeling was a novelty for me so I wanted to record it. I sold the Vespa and bought the Triumph but the blog soldiered on needing a new name. This is not a Vespa:Writing about motorcycling seemed too limiting so pretty soon the blog wandered away from a strictly motorcycle format. With my history as a journalist this business of writing about oneself doesn't come easily to me, and I find it uncomfortable writing about my inner dialogue (like this), as though my life were a subject suitable for a stage drama, so I decided to create a blog that would represent what I go looking for when I wander the Internet seeking images and information about places. If I were wondering what the Keys were like what would I want to see on the Internet? I asked myself, and how would this search reflect my own life, as a proper diary should? Working a desk job that requires long periods of quiet time between moments of sheer bedlam allows me lots of time to write many entries and this blog has evolved into an almost daily affair- an affair I've managed to carry on without offending my wife by not ignoring her, nor offending my bosses by choosing to ignore them, and like a good dinner guest I avoid politics and religion. There needs to be one corner in all our lives that isn't there to wind us up and get us agitated. I chose a muted color background, no links to interrupt my musings (though I don't mind links in the comments as they are something others cannot live without it seems) and no advertising. And no "people vexatious to the spirit" as the Desiderata put it when I was a schoolboy. This is not a place for competitive assholes. They can write their own blogs or find one of those forums to express their rants. 
I enjoy riding my motorcycle and I have enjoyed riding ever since my mother bought me a Vespa when I was a 12 year old kid. Riding has combined my desire to travel for fun, with my need to travel for all the mundane reasons most people are locked into owning cars. The road just looks more interesting from the seat of a motorbike, especially when the road is winding through the Florida Keys.
College Road
And now we see gas prices continuing to rise relentlessly, a fact that comes as a surprise to many consumers who spend more time contemplating Brittney Spears' underwear than Peak Oil statistics. What I find surprising is that there are still large SUVs on the road with new tags, people are still out buying vehicles that manage just 15 miles to the gallon (6 kilometers to the liter). I'd say get out on two wheels and ride like hell but for people who aren't used to motorcycles the prospect is not appealing. Motorcycles engender fear and perhaps the fear is justified for people with no experience of riding. Historically societies have moved from foot power to two wheels and into four wheels as national prosperity increases. Its a lot to expect from people to ask them to suddenly accept that gas isn't going to get cheap in the future and they might start considering a future with less creature comforts. I enjoy the motorcycle, and my pleasure in relative simplicity, no cellphone, no radio, no Ipod, no coffee on the road, no nothing but the joy of the ride, couldn't come at a a better time in terms of the economy and the environment. I cannot claim that I ride for environmental reasons, I am just lucky that a means of transportation that gives me pleasure is also less burdensome overall on the environment. 
Highway One, Cudjoe Key
When we talk about riding a two wheeler the first subject that non riders bring up is fear. To balance fear of dismemberment with some good news we riders bring up the economics of riding as though a motorcycle might "save you money." I am of the school that suggests that true commuting economy comes in the form of a small car, a SmartCar, a Yaris an Aveo or the like, which make better economic sense than a motorcycle or even a belt-hungry and tire hungry scooter. My 70 mile per gallon Vespa 250 (25 kilometer/liter) needed new tires every 3500 miles and a new belt every 6,000 miles and I do over 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) a year. The Triumph is much less parts intensive but it only gets about 43 miles per gallon (16 km/l) - no better than a boring little box car... and motorcycle tires don't come cheap, and my rear tire needs replacement every 8,000 miles. And I'm outdoors when it rains, which freaks out people who drive cars. "What do you do when it rains?" -"Adopt the fetal position and cry."
Boca Chica Bridge
Boca Chica BridgeThe ride has to be the fun of the thing else it makes no sense. So I can see the dilemma of a middle aged North American confronting $5/gallon gas with a history of taking pleasure driving a large vehicle and meeting someone like me who is astonished that the idea of getting on the road on two wheels induces nothing more wholesome than a panic attack. Then comes the resentment- I enjoy my commute and whistle happily as I fill my tank for a dozen dollars while the fearful SUV drivers watch their gas tank suck down one hundred dollars of fuel that is rising in price with no explanation and no end in sight. Talk about road rage.
Boca Chica Road
There are activities that frighten me too, and though I'm not scared of motorcycles I am scared of heights, for instance. Luckily I don't have to commute down rock faces or skydive to work for surely I would get grumpy too...I hate the woods at night, as I live in dread of the nameless horror of all that creeps through the forest after dark, and when they shudder as they contemplate the fearsome risks I face comuting by Bonneville I try to picture myself forced, like Little Red Riding Hood to commute through a dark and nameless forest. Fear is fear, no matter what the cause. Fear this splendid machine? How is that possible!
I try to imagine what this blog might look like were I driving around the Keys in a car. It sounds a bit daft to be honest, though perhaps if the car were correct for the context there might be merit. A cute little SmartforTwo perhaps? My wife is toying with the purchase of a $17,000 Cabrio and has her order in for a blue on silver "Comfort" model (naturally. We are Americans!). I'm not sure she will go through with it though I am encouraging her to sell the Nissan and have two convertibles at her disposal, one good for 31 mpg and the other 40. I'm hoping the Bonneville will be good for another 90,000 miles or 6 years before it needs a rebuild:
So I here I am a year on, trying to be introspective and pull some thread of usefulness from my diary, a collection of photographs of pretty and not-so-pretty places around my life accompanied by some idle observations. From time to time I get a pang, wondering if I should use the platform to be a zealot for some cause be it political or environmental and the urge leaves me as quickly as it came. Irondad blogs to spread the message that training is a way for motorcyclists to save their own lives, a more worthy message its hard to imagine, invoking skills I don't possess. The Honolulu Blog seems designed to inveigle against mass transit ("I apply mascara as I drive to work.." Argh! The true source of motorcyclists' fear), a purpose that fascinates and confounds me. The Alaskan Blog in my list of links is a chronicle of self flagellation in the face of horrendous weather in the despair of Arctic despond. I read it in horrified fascination. Me? I am still foppishly tootling around, happy in my job, my home, my wife, my life. I apologize if this seems too amateurish, or decadent perhaps, in the face of imminent societal collapse, but my missionary zeal to urge strangers to improve their lives and by extension the world has seeped away. I must be becoming a laid back Islander, Mon. Here, have another pretty picture, the Highway of Life.
What a strange trip this life of mine has become.
Boca Chica Road There are activities that frighten me too, and though I'm not scared of motorcycles I am scared of heights, for instance. Luckily I don't have to commute down rock faces or skydive to work for surely I would get grumpy too...I hate the woods at night, as I live in dread of the nameless horror of all that creeps through the forest after dark, and when they shudder as they contemplate the fearsome risks I face comuting by Bonneville I try to picture myself forced, like Little Red Riding Hood to commute through a dark and nameless forest. Fear is fear, no matter what the cause. Fear this splendid machine? How is that possible!
I try to imagine what this blog might look like were I driving around the Keys in a car. It sounds a bit daft to be honest, though perhaps if the car were correct for the context there might be merit. A cute little SmartforTwo perhaps? My wife is toying with the purchase of a $17,000 Cabrio and has her order in for a blue on silver "Comfort" model (naturally. We are Americans!). I'm not sure she will go through with it though I am encouraging her to sell the Nissan and have two convertibles at her disposal, one good for 31 mpg and the other 40. I'm hoping the Bonneville will be good for another 90,000 miles or 6 years before it needs a rebuild:So I here I am a year on, trying to be introspective and pull some thread of usefulness from my diary, a collection of photographs of pretty and not-so-pretty places around my life accompanied by some idle observations. From time to time I get a pang, wondering if I should use the platform to be a zealot for some cause be it political or environmental and the urge leaves me as quickly as it came. Irondad blogs to spread the message that training is a way for motorcyclists to save their own lives, a more worthy message its hard to imagine, invoking skills I don't possess. The Honolulu Blog seems designed to inveigle against mass transit ("I apply mascara as I drive to work.." Argh! The true source of motorcyclists' fear), a purpose that fascinates and confounds me. The Alaskan Blog in my list of links is a chronicle of self flagellation in the face of horrendous weather in the despair of Arctic despond. I read it in horrified fascination. Me? I am still foppishly tootling around, happy in my job, my home, my wife, my life. I apologize if this seems too amateurish, or decadent perhaps, in the face of imminent societal collapse, but my missionary zeal to urge strangers to improve their lives and by extension the world has seeped away. I must be becoming a laid back Islander, Mon. Here, have another pretty picture, the Highway of Life.
My companion pronounced the restaurant "ghetto" which is a term I believe of disapproval. When young Diggy eats out he likes table service, not do it yourself which is the low cost theme at Keys Fisheries. But he did like the notion of using a pseudonym to order the food, sometimes a movie star's name , or a figure from history; the day we were there it was song titles:
The fries were declared "not as good as Burdines" by my junior food critic. Next time we'll try elsewhere, always searching for good eats in the Keys.
If I like it I skip to the end (non fiction is best for power reading) and when I am bored I put the book down and try another title, selected at random. I get to peruse tons of books like this and have learned to feel less desperate as time goes by about the number of books still left for me to read as I slide ever closer to oblivion. Even our modest library on woodsy Fleming Street, South Florida's first public library seems overly filled with unread tomes:
So there's this writer dude sitting in a hot tub with some friends and a bunch of strangers and he says he thinking about putting together a list of the best places to live but the only problem is he can't think of what the criteria should be. Much discussion apparently ensues among the occupants of the star lit tub (I remember this bit quite well, I think) and finally one of the nude bathers comes up with a truth that the writer grabs and runs with. The Third Space. That's the criteria for the best place to live.
The book with the crappy title introduced me to this grotesque notion of the Third Space alluded to above. The idea is that your First Space is your home, and your Second Space is your place of work, and these spaces can also be social centers to some extent. But the Third Space is where the social life of the community is on display and available. In other words if you think about places you might like to live you will find they offer vibrant and attractive Third Spaces. The dull, worn out communities don't.
...a place from which to watch the sunrise or even the sunset, far from the crowds at Mallory Square (which is too commercial and touristy to be a proper Third Space).
As is obvious in these pictures shot today this is definitely low tourist season in Key West. 
What used to be the only independent bookstore in town has competition now and thank god for that. The workers at Voltaire smiled when I remarked how nice it was to have a store with friendly people operating it. "We hear that a lot," they said. And yes I have heard from visitors who buy quite a few books here that Island Books is a perfectly pleasant place to shop. 
We don't frequent all our possible Third Spaces, some I enjoy more than my wife does of course, but there are quite a number of public gathering spaces, that we visit from time to time. Some get too much attention from our 
Instead the bulk of the Everglades are as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas put it so memorably and vividly, A River of Grass.There's a lookout platform just ten feet above the grass and it gives a tremendous view across the sawgrass to the clumps of hardwood trees known as hammocks. This is the Shark River Slough, 8 miles wide I'm told:
And in the foreground one can see a puddle of water, proving the truth of the title of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's book, which I have adapted as the title of this diary entry.
Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I love the Everglades, whether I'm rolling down Tamiami Trail, or bouncing down the gravel of the Loop Road or taking the back roads through Seminole Country. It's a complete change from the rocks and water and narrow strips of land that comprise the Florida Keys. Also its totally quiet out in the grass, a place where just the wind whistles an accompaniment to the birds.
I left home at 5am today and got home exactly 12 hours and 319 miles later. It started inauspiciously enough as the Highway was wet from earlier rain. Indeed it started to sprinkle around Mile Marker 90, an hour into the ride. I took cover for ten minutes under an overhang and forced myself to stay upright and awake as I had slept badly the night before and I was exhausted. Breakfast at Denny's in Key Largo at Mile Marker 99 woke me up with chorizo, eggs, tortillas and cafe con leche.
After breakfast I had half a mind to turn back and tuck myself into bed by ten o'clock but streaks of blue to the north convinced me the low lying clouds would blow away and a glorious day would burst forth. Fortune favors the bold, and I was right; I spent the rest of the day in sunshine and temperatures hovering between 80 and 90 degrees. The road to Flamingo, 50 miles from Homestead passes through fields of agriculture that remind me of nothing so much as California's Salinas Valley.
The headquarters building, equally ugly if a good deal more bizarre in design still operates with peeling paint and lots of hurricane induced rust.
The views south towards Florida Bay are tremendous
and there is an excellent exhibit about the life cycles of the bay inside the building. Looking inland from the observation deck one is forced to wonder who figured this sort of parade ground set the proper tone for "downtown" Flamingo! Pity the man with the mower.
I though it went quite well, but after a mile or so the potholes were still holey and the vegetation was dense as ever and the road kept rolling merrily along. So I turned back, deciding whatever there was to see at the end would have to wait for another day. I expect it was a campground unsuitable for RVs, but the road was potholed enough it wasn't terribly suitable for Triumph Bonnevilles though the machine acquitted itself just fine.
I got tired of bouncing is all, and I wondered what I'd do if I got a flat. It was hot and very quiet down there, all by myself. 
I was tempted to coast downhill from here but I had taken my time in the morning and now it was time to pick up the pace back to civilization which was still there,not improved, I'm sorry to say, since I passed through Florida City in the morning.
But not in summer, never in summer unless suicide by mosquito is on the agenda.