Motorcycling On Water

The Lower Florida Keys are that handful of islands that stretch south from the Seven Mile Bridge to Key West. The number of city residents who don't know the Lower Keys at all amazes me, and then I discover there are thousands of repeat visitors who never venture out of the City of Key West on their vacations and deprive themselves of the pleasure of enjoying tremendous ocean views alongside the Overseas Highway.Call me lucky, or call me smart but I choose to ride a motorcycle to and from work which makes the commute highly enjoyable. And even though these pictures were taken between Big Pine Key and the Seven Mile Bridge aforementioned and are thus not part of my route, I get to see stuff very much like this every evening on my way in to work, on my green Triumph Bonneville.Even though gas prices are still around $4 a gallon (one US dollar per liter) and I only get around 43 miles per (US) gallon, or 16 kilometers per liter, the pleasure of the ride makes the commute well worth burning dead dinosaurs. As I pointed out previously gas needs to get more expensive (!) to make the bus worthwhile...One of my friends complains the summers are too hot to ride. I'm lucky because I work nights and commute in the evening with the sun low on the horizon, so even though it can still be ninety degrees (32C) it never feels too hot to me. Over most of my life I've been too cold far too often and those occasions stick in my memory. The Keys are humid but temperatures rarely hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38C). And there's always lots of gorgeous blue water to flop into all up and down the Fabulous Florida Keys, if you are a over heated visitor driving down for some end-of-the-road fun. One of the great things about Highway One in Monroe County is that you can pretty much park alongside the Highway wherever you feel like and there are trash cans all along the way. Bring a picnic! Go for a swim! Visitors find it warm enough to swim in winter, imagine what an al fresco bathtub it is in August:And of course there are the people who derive their living from the sea, like these:Me? I'd rather ride to work and use my boat to play.

Clouds And Chairs

It started out as a rant in my head. "Why does some stupid Chinese middle manager in the Special Economic Zone think he's doing anyone any good by forcing his slaves to wrap these bloody chairs in miles of stupid plastic?" You know the thought. It goes round and round in your head as you struggle with some impossibly recalcitrant inanimate object. And then, squatting in the heat under the house waving your Leatherman around you focus your unreasonable, unreasoning ire on the human who must have been responsible for your predicament. And still the stupid plastic unravels inch by precious inch and gets caught in the screw heads and forces, forces I tell you, your Leatherman blade to scrape the painted metal thus causing the scratches the stupid plastic was supposed to prevent. And it's not my fault my hands are a bit greasy from fiddling with the motorcycle, is it?Which is when one realises one is being bloody stupid and the rant trails off into self conscious incoherence. Actually the new outdoor recliners look quite nice, at $69 apiece remarkably so. Even with more of that stupid ineffectual plastic clinging to the legs.And they look a lot nicer than the old plastic ribbed cushioned things that are mouldering and ready for the dump. Out with the old and in with the new.Somehow in the lottery of life I got to be born on the rich side of the blanket, the part that buys new chairs on a whim, that gets to toss out the old ones, too old and funky even for Habitat, and then I, the lucky one gets to test the new chairs on the dock, and gets to check out the sky and the clouds and the passing boats and the impossibly still waters of the canal that reflects the stormy summer skies.Hmmm. Life could be worse.

Ohio Key

Heading north away from Key West, Ohio Key is the last inhabited Key before the seven mile bridge, and a funny little Key it is too, easily recognized by the giant flag flapping overhead: Ohio Key comes in two parts, the nature park to the south of the highway and the trailer park to the north. As far as I know the trailer park is living on borrowed time, because there was an agreement some time ago to hand the southern portion of the island to the park service in return for condo-isation of the northern half. So far, so good:

This is primarily a snowbird community and a weekend community for hard core Keys fans who will drive down from the urban mainland, two hours north, for a couple of days of rest and recreation. And boy, do they have themselves a slice of paradise!

This is the 1912 Flagler railroad bridge converted to road use in 1938 by the State of Florida when the original rails were welded into hand rails. It's open to anglers, golf carts and bicycles alongside the main road which is where traffic runs between Marathon and the Southernmost City and the main water pipe to Key West hangs off the side:

The Key to the north of Ohio is Missouri, so named by the railroad workers who laid the tracks on these islands at the beginning of the twentieth century. Before their work these islands had no names among the settlers on the populated Keys, but the railroad mapped and named everything and the homesick navvies had a habit of memorializing where they were from Up North:For the youngsters in the park this is all a playground:Though I did dissuade one excessively adventurous young Huckleberry Finn from leaping off the seawall into three inches of water. "Think this is deep enough?" "NO!" This is quite the paradise for adults too, with lots of boating and fishing and even sandy beaches, rara avis! to enjoy:

That last picture is a beach on the northern tip of Bahia Honda Key, the State Park that is the next key to the south of Ohio Key.

Technically the southern half of Ohio Key has been renamed according to the large brown sign on the headland, Carson Key:

The dude in the blue shirt was waiting for a very happy back lab to come panting round the corner. This part of the island is desolate and wet, as this is rainy season and the salt ponds fill with water:Back on the busy side of the Key, there is a gas station and inconvenience store. The gas was offered at $3.91 a gallon which is a very reasonable price in the Lower Keys, and I have my five-percent-off-Shell card so I might have to consider stopping here for fuel:And there is small, well protected marina for residents to keep their boats in the water:What more could they want? A Triumph Bonneville perhaps...And you'd better believe that vinyl seat was hot to the touch after sitting in the 95 degree sunshine.