The city of Key West has a height ordinance limiting buildings to less than 40 feet ( 13 meters) more or less, but in 1926 there were no height limitations when they built La Concha Hotel:
People ask me where they should stay when in Key West and it's a question I haven't a clue how to answer. Personally I'd rather have a tooth extraction without anaesthetic than stay at a bed and breakfast; I prefer the anonymity of a hotel to the intimacy of staying as a guest in someones home. And yes I know I'm in the minority on that one, but there it is. While roadside motels are extremely convenient, a hotel like La Concha that has a history is far more fascinating to me.
La Concha is operated these days by Crowne Plaza, but it hasn't always been that way. Hotel chains are like baseball franchises, they change names and allegiances pretty much at the drop of a hat. In 1926 Carl Aubuchon opened this landmark and his is a name that has dropped from sight in the annals of key West popular history. But whoever he was he had a vision and he built a luxury hotel for a town that wasn't completely conversant with the concept of personal bathrooms, elevators and a level of comfort that apparently got people talking.
La Concha fell into disrepair in the seventies and eighties at which point the building got a makeover and was brought back to it's original glory. It strikes me that La Concha measures the fortunes of the economy, rising up in the middle of the crazy 1920s and getting a major makeover at the start of the twenty year boom that began in the 1980s. Today it is still a very comfortable hotel, but a roof top pool and elevators don't mark it as especially luxurious.
But if you're asking this is my kind of hotel, luxurious perhaps not but old fashioned comfort is what I want. And the pool? It's okay I guess, crowded with greenery and people on a Friday evening:
My cousin came to visit a few years ago and stayed here, so I did get to see an average room which is furnished in keeping with the hotel's historic ambiance though the rooms aren't that huge for the most part. And people are strange because they frequently feel the need to sleep in a room that is the size of a barn, for some reason. On the other hand La Concha is on Duval between Southard and Fleming Streets so if downtown is where you want to be, this is the spot.
There's a huge parking lot in back where you can leave your car and rent a scooter is you feel so inclined and you can even pull right up to the door like a motel and unload your luggage:
La Concha puts you right in the heart of the action on the four hundred block of Duval Street and that is cool or annoying depending on your point of view. The city's only Starbucks franchise is in the row of shops alongside the hotel. And the loo for the Starbucks is in the lobby of the hotel so make sure you ask the barrista for the key card before you go wandering through the lobby looking for relief:
And what in this picture looks like a pile of rubbish is actually a palm frond weaver's workplace. The weaver himself, on a slow afternoon, was talking to the coconut painter:
But the painter was staying focused on his work, the devil as we know, is in the details...
Next to the Starbucks there is a store, an official conch republic store I think, selling trinkets, and what vacationer doesn't want to go home without trinkets:
There was even a musical performer crowding the sidewalk in front of the cash cow that is La Concha, but she was taking a break from her drums:
But through it all La Concha sat imperturbable:
You hardly need leave the hotel for a a vacation if you felt like staying in the hotel and ignoring the city around it (as much as the night time revelers allow anyone to ignore their noisy fun). There is a bar and restaurant downstairs:
If , like me, you don't actually stay at the hotel you can scoot through the lobby, check the Hawaiian-shirted concierge at work, listen to the low murmurs of comatose tourists resting comfortably...
...and make a bee-line for the elevator where you will find references to famous residents of the hotel. Wanna guess? Ernest Hemingway stayed here when he first came to the city and Tennessee Williams we are told wrapped up "A Streetcar Named Desire" while staying at the hotel. Those kinds of claim to fame always puzzle me, as though inspiration comes within the wallpaper. Then there was Harry Truman who stayed at the Navy Base while President, and here, later:
The elevator will take you to the top of the hotel, where, lo and behold there is another bar of course...
...with splendid views of the city, including as it happens, my motorcycle parked on Fleming Street:
More tomorrow on the views from The Top that the hotel promotes. A picture of my Bonneville apparently doesn't rate because you won't find it on the hotel website.
It's a three hour ferry ride west of Key West to the old Civil War fort that has been turned into a National Park on the 16 acre island. On the scrap of land in the middle of nowhere (well out of cell phone range!) there are a few camp sites underneath the fort's walls just outside the moat. With absolutely no supplies or facilities beyond a crude salt water toilet (which turned out to have been uopdated to a composting model):
But wait! That isn't Montana, it's Eastern Washington, south of Spokane, an area I'd never heard of before I came across the "Two Wheels and and Engine" blog whence came this picture. It's called the Palouse, this piece of Big Sky and the author took a ride in third gear and came home with a story, published on the Third of May (I think; the gray font is a little indistinct). The blog is in my web list: 
The essay caused me to think about the sense of openness one finds not only in open country wherever it may be but also when one isn't caged by a roof. Many people go camping (which is where I am today actually) to find that Big Sky, some of us ride a motorcycle. Me? I boat and see open horizons, I bicycle and find myself in it five minutes from home.
I manage to make myself small even without the help of the gorilla pod, a bicycle flat on it's back makes a crude place to perch a camera:
I like my big skies over water which is not apparently possible in the Palouse...
...a place that is highly suitable for an enduro style motorcycle like the author's KLR650. I thought about the popular single cylinder KLR until I stood alongside one and started laughing at the prospect of getting into a saddle that came up to my chest. Besides I don't have any proper dirt trails to get lost on.
I noticed also on another blog I read occasionally written by a cyclist in Juneau, how expansive her life became when she took a road trip south. Suddenly I saw how cramped and hemmed in Juneau appeared, even from the tops of the mountains surrounding the city-on-a-fjord, compared to the wilderness of Oregon and even Northern California, which, when I lived there seemed not so vast. 
Sometimes all you have to do is take a look over your roof to see the big sky. 
My GTS developed similar symptoms; it was a relay next to the headlamp they told me, while unable to explain why it kept blowing. I sold mine. Orin didn't sell his because his dealer offered to get it repaired for free. That must be nice. I got berated by Vespa Fort Lauderdale whose chief mechanic accused me of abusing my scooter to cause it to break down ("This hasn't happened to any other Vespas"). I'm still sore about how they, and Piaggio, treated me and my $7200 scooter. This new episode leaves me feeling bad for Orin O'Neill whose blog is about riding a scooter in Seattle and now has no two wheeler at all in his garage.
It is an odd fact but I only work fourteen nights a month, because my dispatch center prefers twelve hour shifts, so,on the nights I do work I start at six in the evening and I leave at six in the morning. The other odd fact could be that even though I have plenty of seniority I like working nights. The work itself is less stressful simply because there are few administrative calls to deal with and because the brass and the detectives are usually soundly tucked up for a refreshing night's sleep the no traffic at all inside the building.
"Hey Michael, could you do me a quick CCH?" the plain clothes officer used to pounce at all hours when I worked day shift looking for a "quick" complete criminal history, or a history of computer entries for a vehicle tag or some other interruption to the constant flow of radio talk and immediate needs of the officers working on the street. At night it's us three dispatchers in the top of the building and the officers out patrolling the city and that's all; and that's how I like it.
The other bit that I like about my job is that I tend to wake up around lunch time even on days I am working, so I get to enjoy every afternoon off before I start my ride to work at ten minutes after five. And now that I've graduated I have no school work to deal with or classes to attend. On the other hand my wife the teacher works an old fashioned schedule from Monday through Friday, statrting at 8am until whenever the paperwork is done. 
Red Mangrove: the dead yellow leaf has absorbed the salt out of the seawater the mangrove has sucked up. 
Red Mangrove leaves spotted with silver mineral salts.
The cigar-like nematode on a Red Mangrove that will drop off and may sprout a new bush.
Where was I? Oh, yes, The Pool. Technically it is a county park, actually it's a hole dug in the ground extending out into the open waters beyond, as seen from the sky:
As seen from the ground:
It's deep enough that I can't see the bottom as I float in it, and the sides are cut straight so it actually looks like a swimming pool though rarely do I find anyone actually enjoying the waters, unless it's by kayak:
Their dog was indeed in the water following my every move as I lowered the bicycle to the ground and took off my shirt:
I swam for a while and listened to the rowdies beyond the bushes playing loud music and loud "fuck yous" for all to enjoy. Then a middle aged couple on the other bank who had been sitting enjoying nature in silence cranked up their stereo and fought back. Amazingly the drunks folded, perhaps made aware of their bad manners at last, and the middle aged couple packed up and left leaving me to continue swimming in silence. 
As I reassembled myself on shore I realised the dog was with him, sitting in his car and the kayakers belonged to some other dog in some other place. 
I pedalled home only more or less following Google's suggested blue line.
Boca Chica Bay is a body of water bounded by Highway One to the north (with enough clearance to allow fishing skiffs to pass underneath) Stock Island to the west, and Boca Chica Naval Air Station to the east. To the south is a narrow channel which gives access to the open waters of the Straits of Florida. It is the perfect place to live on a boat and I am not alone in noticing this.
Over the years I have seen the number of boats anchoring in Boca Chica Bay increase by leaps and bounds. Living on a boat has always been a cheap way to hang out in Key West, and aside from the transient population of mostly winter visitors who stay for a few weeks or months at a time, there are any number of boats whose owners never move their water "craft." 
The waters off Key West aren't the best possible place to anchor from a boater's perspective because even though they are closest to the downtown action they are exposed in any winds that don't have an easterly component to them. Winter north winds rake the harbor and pre-frontal west winds do the same. Holding isn't the best, as it's mostly thin sand over rock and the waters are part of the main channel which carries plenty of traffic to the Gulf of Mexico. All that compares unfavorably to the closed waters of boot Key in Marathon discussed here previously. And Boca Chica isn't too bad at all if you are looking for protected waters. I took these pictures in a steady southeasterly at 20 knots gusting 25:
The channel into Boca Chica is well marked, and splits just south of the old Peninsular Marine, where the right hand channel leads to the trim and inexpensive marina maintained at the Navy Base for military and ex-military at astonishingly cheap slip rents:
I find it ironic that on the water, as on land, the chaos of civilian life finds itself living cheek-by-jowl with the trim and orderly life of a neighboring military base. The chaos of Boca Chica liveaboards is generally a product of the fact that this is housing of the last resort, rent free, amenity free and pretty much unregulated. The fishing boats passing between the Gulf and the Straits zip through here, passing underneath the Highway, and overhead the Navy jets in training, circle on their way to and from imaginary aircraft carrier landings at the Base:
The issue as always for people living on the water is how to get ashore and in that respect Boca Chica ("small mouth" in Spanish) is very accommodating. Cars on the highway zipping past the Key Haven Shell gas station might be forgiven for not noticing the Key Have Boat Ramp that gives access to any trailered boat wanting to launch:
And people who want to launch their boats from here get to do so for free:
For those living on boats this is the main access point to shore side life, though many people land further up the highway in the mangroves alongside the road:
And despite the abundance of garbage cans provided as a service by the county the shoreline in the mangroves is filled with debris, as is the seawall itself, most delightfully:
The mangroves make for safe dockage for the variety of dinghies that the liveaboards use to get to shore; the trees carry out their natural function of acting as living fenders for the shoreline: 
Ashore the causeway is lined at night with parked cars and scooters and bicycles when the boaters come home from their day labors, and make no mistake this is largely a population of working people. Some use bicycles which make for a six mile pedal for someone working on Duval Street:
Others use motorbikes:
No, wait a minute, that one's mine! The ramp parking area does have lots of room:
So there you have it, how to live for free in (or almost in) Key West. 
I can only say that from my many years of living on a boat, in marinas and at anchor, the best way is to be underway. Admiral Nelson is famously quoted as saying: Men and ships rot in port! Look no further than the waters adjacent to Key West to see the truth of that dictum, even today.