Harley Week

You'd think, if you didn't know any better, that a dude like me, what rides his motorcycle most days of the week, would be delighted to welcome a few hundred fellow enthusiasts to a weekend's revelry in the Southernmost City. Well, now you know better. Bike Week is good for the merchants and it's been a tough year so they have my sympathy and I hope they wring this lot for every penny. It's just that I'm not a really clubby kind of guy and standing around with a bunch of men admiring yet another air cooled V-twin while puffing on a cigar just isn't my cup of pansy-parallel-twin cup of tea. They close off the one, two and three hundred blocks of Duval and let the motorcycles have at it. Very cool:

And yes, there were a few non-Harley Davidsons in the crowd, including a half dozen BMWs:

A few of Erik Buell's Harley-based V-twins including this dude in High Visibility clothing. Like he doesn't think people are on the look out for motorcycles during Bike Week? Perhaps he was wearing a Kevlar baseball cap with invisible chin strap to be really "safe:"This thing that was labelled a "Kicker" though it looked a bit like an Aermacchi four stroke flat single to me, in rat bike form: Or a two stroke Yamaha twin in Kenny Roberts livery. Be still my beating middle aged heart: Or a lovely old Honda Four burdened with a gruesome seat. Imagine, I used to wonder how anyone could ride a 750cc "Superbike" as powerful as this:Nowadays I wonder how people get around looking like this, exposing their armpits and everything:When this brute was fired up it rumbled out into the street with the radio blaring. All the comforts of home. I had a motorcycle once that had a radio and I thought it was weird. I still do: At least a Gold wing isn't a Harley. It's not that I don't like Harleys it's just that there are other motorcycles in the known universe and it would be nice once in a while to be exposed to something slightly different on the streets of the Southernmost City. This would be more my style than the Gold Wing, if I lived where the horsepower were usable:Magnificent eh? Not good enough for Irondad apparently, who after a modest 160,000 miles with an earlier model of the Honda ST (sport tourer) decided to ditch the brand and go with the Yamaha instead. Fickle, that's what I call it. Triumphs? Well, there was one on Duval Street briefly:"Hey," I said to the guy on the Harley."If anyone asks, tell them there was at least one Triumph at bike week!" He cackled appreciatively so at least he seemed to know what a Triumph was... The motor unit was there riding...Harleys of course. At work I once suggested Vespas might be more suitable for Key West traffic and they nearly lynched me. They do like their Harleys:And there were babes too, in various guises:And there were blokes standing around, doing what the weaker sex do best, clutching drinks and trying to look knowledgeable:This next one looks like he's cursing his machine (an uncomfortable custom Harley) but he wasn't, he was simply adjusting his protective headgear:But I did see one full face helmet other than mine:Everyone else was riding Florida style including more than just this one with his feet down like training wheels which is a concept I find so profoundly wrong I can hardly express the depth of my feelings:And so it was, I had my fill of leather vests, rumbling twins, spilled beer and hail-fellow-well-met camaraderie. I took my Bonneville and threaded my way home through herds of more Harleys and yet more Harleys and their weekend riders:I made sure before I left not to look too closely at the Road King with the For Sale sign on it. Did I ever mention the Road King is my favorite Harley design? Probably just as well I never did.

I Am An Ironist

"So you actually enjoy dealing with laundry?" I was asked when I explained that my artistic sensibilities were fed by my being an Ironist. I think the question was posed in all innocence but my wife enjoyed the joke far too much and she makes a point of bringing it up from time to time.

.............................The Ironist in Corsica on a BMW R1150, 2004....................................

One of the great irritants of living in a University town is that everyone is an Artist. Practicing their various arts comes first, and the daily practicalities of real life come a close second. So, let us suppose you are out for breakfast, a simple meal, easily and quickly prepared American style, with lots of coffee followed swiftly by a modest bill. The whole experience gets turned on it's head if the person waiting on you is actually a Shamanic Druid in training because s/he will be spending each waking moment contemplating the intricacies of their Art, not getting your eggs swiftly under your bib.

......The Ironist, With Lab And Boat, Rio Pedregal, Republic of Panama,1999.....

So, after a couple of decades of putting up with artists on all sides, whose Art prevented the smooth running of my tedious plain spoken life, I decided I couldn't beat them. So I joined them. I discovered my own Art, and when at a party I was asked what I did, meaning in Santa Cruz terms, what I did to improve humanity's lot, I'd say I am an Ironist. If this statement elicited the least bit of interest I'd further explain that I practiced the lost Art of Irony, and no, ironing boards are not part of my stock-in-trade.

.........................In Which The Sign Refers To Living, Not Live Bait.........................................

Well, it's a fine line that separates Irony from Sarcasm, and in new age places like Santa Cruz, California, the line is so fine it pretty much evaporates where two or more people gather in Art's name. My chosen Art form was treated with contempt, on those rare occasions when laundry wasn't invoked, and the contempt came in the form of supercilious silence. Which, fellow Ironists, is exactly what a hard core Ironist seeks to provoke: confusion, misunderstanding and just sometimes a sly smile of secret understanding and agreement..................................Fifteen Years Of Suffering With An Ironist...............................................

Hi, I'm Conchscooter, and I'm an Ironist.

John Pennekamp State Park

On my recent jaunt up the Keys I stopped off at the John Pennekamp State Park on Key Largo. This is probably the most well known state park in the islands, and the fact that it has received awards is duly noted on a signboard at the entrance. This was my first visit to the park since I had sailed there in 1990, ducking out of strong winds while on my way from Key West to Bimini.I recall a rather unpleasant stay on a mooring buoy in the lagoon, bouncing around and bickering as we waited for the weather to ease up and let us go on our way to the Bahamas. Ours was an under equipped expedition in many respects and i don't believe we went ashore as we lacked an outboard to propel us back to the boat from the little beach in the park. Our relationship was doomed by these inadequacies and my inexperience to lead us to foreign shores. She still loathes me to this day, and i don't think therapy has helped her either for which I am sorry. I got it right later and the woman who spent a couple of years sailing with me through Central America is still married to me, and calls me daily from Turkey making sure I am eating right and getting enough sleep. We live and learn.Reminicences aside the Pennekamp park is best visited not in September, I believe, because it is hot:

Up North I read people are already observing the shortening of the days, changing of leaves and colling of temperatures. Down here September is the cruelest month, not least because a person raised in a temperate clime in the northern hemisphere has a right to expect the weather to start cooling off. Not a bit of it.Rain clouds built up overhead but yielded nothing in the way of cooling raindrops. Nevertheless, here I was two hours from home and determined to enjoy this park, whether I got heat stroke or not. It was ninety five degrees (37c) with humidity to match but there was a mangrove trail to be explored, so by God, off I went, down the boardwalk.It's not like I haven't seen a mangrove swamp before but I find the light and shadow of these forests to be particular and in some way always varied. In California I used to like walking through redwood forests and their similarities to cathedrals were too obvious for them not to be pointed out by anyone and everyone. I find mangroves, with all their subdued activity, and silence to have a similar effect on me and I tend to get contemplative:And of course I was denied the chance to climb the observation deck and look out across the greenery. The path was gated, presumably to allow rangers the time to repair damage to the boardwalk, which was a disappointment:But from ground level, or as close to ground level as one can get in a forest of trees growing out of saltwater I did get to see a boat chugging by, or at least I got to see part of it:African Queen ain't in it...Back at the visitor center and aquarium they had a little window dedicated to life an death in the mangroves which in some ways looked more active than real life:

This end of the Keys is where several of the 500 or so remaining American crocodiles reside, and I peered about looking for them but they didn't show. I don't suppose park people would encourage them to show up in the middle of the human madness of the park. A couple of witless young females nearly wet themselves and deafened me with their screams when they stumbled across a small squirrel minding his own business outside the gift shop. I dread to think what a Crocodile would do to their tender gray matter. Of course I forgot to photograph the squirrel, a mammal not yet found in Key West, happily but I did get some other wildlife:

That last was actually a group of humans at the beach evading the sun. The Keys I never hesitate to point out are not endowed with sandy beaches, which some ill informed tourists expect to find when they arrive. Thus it is people who long for sand take it where they find it on their days off. and haul grandpa down to be propped up in the shade of a palm tree:

I am not much of a beach goer and all the paraphenalia of family picnics makes me cringe (tote that bale!) but this small stretch of sand brought pure delight to those using it. I parked the Bonneville in a spot where I hoped I could return from a short walk and not burn my backside through my pants:

The park is a haven for flora and fauna and the park needs to be there to allow things to grow unimpeded by human interference and development:

The rest of Key Largo is along suburban tract, houses, businessesand roads everywhere, and as it's Spanish name implies it is the largest Key in the chain, so it's landmass gives the Pennekamp park room to breathe. It offers small marina with room for some boats to dock and take tourists out to the reef, which is actually what the park is famous for. The Bonneville is a great ride, but it doesn't ride at all well on water. Luckily there is an aquarium at the park:I continue to insist I enjoy the heat and solitude of summers in the Keys, but that is not to say I don't like the cool refreshing blast of air conditioning too, and the visitor center did a good job of cooling me down while the Bonneville rested in the shade:I don't go to zoos, I don't like to see animals locked up, but aquariums generally don't seem so bad, perhaps because I can't empathise with fish. I did wonder about the little nurse shark though, hiding his nose as though to make the world invisible. A small boy nearby was learning all about the fishes and stuff, and I suppose this was really his classroom, not mine:One last stop to tank up with a bottle of refreshing water and I would be on my way. I wanted to be cunning and dropped two dollars in the machine outside (I was still refrigerated from the aquarium visit) in order to avoid the lines inside. The machine ate my money and just to prove I am a slow learner I had the same damned experience in Marathon when I stopped for gas and the soda machine failed to cough up a bottle of water for my money. The shoppe had stuff to sell and one interested window shopper caught my eye. My thighs are nothing to write home about but I do keep mine covered in public and don't go shopping in my underwear. He should follow my example:

So we close with a little thank you to Mr Pennekamp, a Miami newspaperman and outdoor enthusiast who pushed and pulled his strings to get the park created. He was successful in 1957 and there is a photo of him happily casting, on the wall of the visitor center. I think he would be pleased to see the park still there. I am.