Everyone knows about the Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys, but the lesser noted Long Key Bridge is a very useful piece of open road in the Middle Keys.
It's proper name is the Dante Fascell Bridge, named for an industrious Dade County member of the US Congress, whose photo I append here from their roll:
He was born in New York and went to law school in Miami and served in Congress for decades, more precisely from 1954 to 1993, and he died in 1998. Perhaps his crowning achievement was the creation of the Biscayne National Park in 1968 (and which itself deserves an essay). Spend any time in South Florida;s open spaces and Dante Fascell's name will pop up. He also has a research boat with the marine sanctuary named after him. This is the view north from the bridge looking at Long Key:
I am fond of the Long Key Bridge because it is extremely handy for passing slow pokes, as it is about two and a half miles long and the yellow line is dotted all the way. The only thing to be careful of is the hump at the southern end that can mess with your sight lines. The beauty of Keys bridges is that visitors like to slow down to admire the water which makes it easy to zip past them.
That isn't the only reason to enjoy the bridge, it does have some pretty views, including this section of the Gulf side of Long Key which reminds me of the Bay Islands of Honduras
I got these three pictures by way of comparison from the excellent site aboututila.com:
It's proper name is the Dante Fascell Bridge, named for an industrious Dade County member of the US Congress, whose photo I append here from their roll:He was born in New York and went to law school in Miami and served in Congress for decades, more precisely from 1954 to 1993, and he died in 1998. Perhaps his crowning achievement was the creation of the Biscayne National Park in 1968 (and which itself deserves an essay). Spend any time in South Florida;s open spaces and Dante Fascell's name will pop up. He also has a research boat with the marine sanctuary named after him. This is the view north from the bridge looking at Long Key:I am fond of the Long Key Bridge because it is extremely handy for passing slow pokes, as it is about two and a half miles long and the yellow line is dotted all the way. The only thing to be careful of is the hump at the southern end that can mess with your sight lines. The beauty of Keys bridges is that visitors like to slow down to admire the water which makes it easy to zip past them.That isn't the only reason to enjoy the bridge, it does have some pretty views, including this section of the Gulf side of Long Key which reminds me of the Bay Islands of HondurasI got these three pictures by way of comparison from the excellent site aboututila.com:
The new bridge which was built as part of the Overseas Highway modernisation in 1982, runs parallel to Flagler's original bridge built as part of the original 1912 railroad connection to Key West.
Nowadays the Flagler bridge is a most excellent walking, jogging, biking and fishing pier:
And if by chance you are in the area and attempting to kill fish please put your discarded monofilament fishing line in here:
To prevent critters like this from tangling themselves in it:
Fishing was on the mind of this man who scrambled down under the main bridge to try his hand, not successfully apparently because later I saw him walking back to his vehicle, an 18-wheeler! Quite the enterprising trucker, I thought.
Fishing isn't the only sport. A period of sustained southeast winds has raked the Keys with gusts to thirty miles per hour and this couple figured their own entertainment in the conditions:
I was on a mission with no time for frivolities, so I had to saddle up and get going:
Taking a ride up the Keys on my day off was the name of the game.
I have never found Duval Street to be especially photogenic, and every time I try to take a street scene it ends up looking rather blah. So I turned my camera on things and people closer to hand. Hog's Breath yielded a couple of stereotypes,two riders of BMW motorbikes who were somewhat overdressed by local standards. Helmets, gloves, jackets...phew!
This cool cat is more like it, with it seems, skin to spare in case of a wreck:
He was also playing loud music as though he thought he was riding a cruiser, and I don't suppose it would be surprising were I to confess loud speakers are second only to loud pipes in the noise pollution stakes. Grump. 
There, that's better. Strolling Duval you never know what you might see. A man balancing a sidecar on his Vespa 150, for instance:
As you can tell I barely caught the picture, such as it is, and I missed entirely his dutiful wife following along behind on her yellow Vespa. Very cute I'm sure. This dude collects money for parking and doesn't he look like he's been sitting under the sub tropic sun for quite a while:
And this man was not apparently getting the information he needed so he glued a phone to his ear:
For some this is all they need on Duval Street,or indeed Key West as a whole:
Which prompted me to photograph a store advertising "Fine" Silver Jewelry, and if that wasn't inducement enough to enter they had this sign up as well:
Elsewhere look for the mannequin if you are an energetic shopper:
Or an Adirondack chair if not so much:
Dogs are welcome in Key West more than many cities though the Health Department has stepped up enforcement as far as dogs in eating establishments goes and generally they aren't welcome inside. They show up on Duval nevertheless:
And then there are those working scooters, frequently Chinese made, that give sterling service yet are so often the object of scorn from people who ride flash Italian scooters. I like my (wife's) Vespa but scooters like these are the back bone of Key West's rental fleets and they are abused day in and day out:
And on the subject of food... you know those little rolled up napkins with cutlery in them? Someone has to do that rolling up every day, like this worker at the Lazy Gecko:
And even though it may not look it, I'm sure working the bar at Captain Tony's ("Florida's Oldest Bar") has to be hard work. He's the one leaning up against it, not the dude with the back pack who is I think a customer and was probably hoping his mom didn't know where he was:
Perhaps it's the not-so shorts, they are youth enhancing. I should take notes I suppose for my wardrobe. And what would Duval be without it's energetic cyclists?
On the subject of bicycles i saw this rather trim cruiser propped up against the wall. Then I saw the No Trespassing sign and then I thought how valuable that sign is. I was just about to consider trespassing up that manky moldy looking wall on Telegraph Lane, but I was saved by the presence of that stern signage:
I stayed on the street and mold free. Kino Plaza was around the corner and looking good in the sunlight:
Sunlight there may have been, all over downtown, but not enough apparently for this spendthrift:
By the time I was back on Greene Street I had time to wonder how lucky, or smart one might be to make a living selling kites and similar apparatus:
And for the love of Art someone built this biplane, not for sale but decoration: 
Gotta go, I hear my wife calling, Duplicity's playing at the Tropic. Tour's over.
And the Clinton Square Market which is Key West's answer to modern indoor shopping malls:
Wedged between those two great piles is the third brick building on the Square (or Place, though I've never heard it spoken of as such), which is the red Customs House, now a museum:
Currently displaying a series of Seward Johnson's life sized trompe l'oeil (in a three dimensional sense) statuary, one of whom is seen here permanently photographing the actual bronze statue of Ernest Hemingway:
On the other side of Clinton Square (or Place) are the t-shirt shops, without which no waterfront resort would feel complete. At least this lot wasn't showing off the usual penis jokes and hilarious fart one liners that plague Duval Street, though you'd think someone could pull out a paintbrush and perhaps some nails and spruce things up a bit. This is not enticing, plywood over the upstairs window speaks of dissolution and decay:
Ah yes the "bar hopping Key West" t-shirt, without a doubt the ultimate fashion accessory. Personally I'd be just as happy to see the visitors reading the Historical Marker stuck in the apex of the triangular pocket park in the middle of the Square (or Place). The marker discusses the nearby home of Stephen Mallory whose claim to fame (outside Mallory Square) is that he was Secretary of the Confederate Navy,when there was such a thing. The monument itself, in the middle (as middle as it can be) of the triangle was erected to honor the military who died in service to their country, the US, not the Confederacy which never governed Key West thanks to the intervention of the garrison that prevented secession from taking root:
If the park, such as it is, wasn't closed, it would be bulging with sleeping human forms. Perhaps my nose has lost it's sensitivity but the little park doesn't smell the least bit like a toilet as it did of old. The Square (or Place) is named in honor of a New York Mayor, a charmer called DeWitt Clinton, who according to Wills helped build the Erie Canal making New York connect to the interior of the country. Which helped it prosper apparently, though what that has to do with Key West I couldn't say. Then of course there is all the hubbub about pirates who aren't it seems to me historically affiliated with Key West at all.
Pirates are a way to make money in the modern era of commercial trinket selling, but before the arrival of city builders in Key West there wasn't much here to entice pirates- no drinking water and no trees to repair wooden hulls and spars . Thus after the city got going so did the US Navy making the harbor a base for pirate hunting in the Straits of Florida.I can't imagine a booming trade in t-shirts depicting the strait laced Commodore Porter, so from a t-shirt shop's perspective, and from that of the bars and the Tourism council, far better be it to stress snazzily clad pirates and "wenches." Oh well, trade still goes on strong in Key West and prices sometimes seem to reflect the would-be piratical past. Booty brought by truck these days: