It was time to haul the Bonneville to Pure Triumph in Fort Lauderdale for the major service that is due every 12,000 miles for the Bonneville. The motorbike is actually at 26,000 miles which is due to the fact that after the break-in period it got it's first proper service at 2,000 miles, so I am pretty much on top of the appropriate service intervals. This one was a doozy involving replacement of fluids filters and a top to bottom check. Cable lubrication, fuel hose replacement, you name it, they did it and the bill reflected their involvement. $1080 later, I have my Bonneville back and I am confident it is in tip top shape, or will be after I fork over another $300 for a new front brake rotor which is scheduled for replacement in early June. I used a non-Triumph brake pad which was hard enough to dig grooves in the disc. I am sticking with Triumph parts from here on, live and learn:
At least the rotor replacement job will be a matter of an hour so I will be able to ride the motorcycle up to Fort Lauderdale which I will enjoy a good deal more than driving the trailer.I noticed a couple of expensive Harleys on a trailer being towed instead of ridden. I noticed them because they were trundling down Highway One on their side stands which I learned a few years ago is the worst way to trailer a motorcycle..
I first got into trailering when my Indian-built Stella 150cc kept breaking down, and I'd borrow a friend's trailer to take it up to AA Moped in Miami. Not knowing any better I stood it on it's stand and tied a spider's web of lines to keep it in place:
It swayed horribly over every bump but it survived the journeys. One thing I learned from Vespa Fort Lauderdale was how to trailer my GTS, because when I first went to pick it up (in my own trailer) they sold me a rig to trailer it properly, balanced on it's front wheel and steadied from the handlebars:
I first got into trailering when my Indian-built Stella 150cc kept breaking down, and I'd borrow a friend's trailer to take it up to AA Moped in Miami. Not knowing any better I stood it on it's stand and tied a spider's web of lines to keep it in place:
It swayed horribly over every bump but it survived the journeys. One thing I learned from Vespa Fort Lauderdale was how to trailer my GTS, because when I first went to pick it up (in my own trailer) they sold me a rig to trailer it properly, balanced on it's front wheel and steadied from the handlebars:
It was a good thing I learned because the GTS kept crapping out on me and had to be towed back and forth so often I got a letter from the Sunpass people asking me if i wanted an upgrade for a trailer pass on the turnpike (no joke). Happily the Bonneville is proving to be more resilient but when it goes for a service it does have to suffer the trailering indignity. At least now I know how to do it right. 
The handbar strap I got for the GTS from the Vespa dealer still works on the Bonneville:
The loops go over the ends of the bars and extra loops stick out to which you attach the straps:
The straps compress the forks and press the front wheel hard against the front of the trailer holding the entire bike balanced and in compression:
Somehow this balancing act works perfectly if the bike is lined up properly and you tighten the straps evenly. The magazines assure us the forks suffer no damage from being compressed thusly. Using tis extremely simple system I can squeeze the 500 pound Triumph into my four foot by six foot utility trailer which was a perfect fit for the Vespa 250.The trick to loading the Triumph is to get everything prepared ahead of time. I lay out my straps and rags, which I use to cushion the straps against the sharp edges of the trailer. I usually put the machine into first gear and roll it up the ramp as fast as I can.
I laid down the plywood floor to give better support to the motorbike, but also to the side stand which I pull out once the Bonneville is in the trailer and blocked by first gear:
Then I start attaching the straps, which can be annoying as they can drop out of their anchor points if there isn't tension on the strap so I devised yet another use for bungee cords, to secure the hooks while I line up the straps:
Then it's a matter of applying tension evenly to the straps and as they take up the motorcycle I lift the side stand and-look ma! No hands!
Then I use the right hand strap to tighten the front brake for added security and the bungees come back into their own to stop the straps vibrating in harmony with the wind:
On arrival Lucho, Pure Triumph's mechanic takes my Bonneville into his care:
And just to prove to Jack riepe that my motorcycle and I aren't one and the same here I am waiting urgently for the doors to open so I could use the facilities:
For my money it looks fine on it's own:
And indeed I do prefer riding to trailering, but self sufficiency is a great thing.
And just to prove to Jack riepe that my motorcycle and I aren't one and the same here I am waiting urgently for the doors to open so I could use the facilities:For my money it looks fine on it's own:And indeed I do prefer riding to trailering, but self sufficiency is a great thing. 
This time I walked the whole bloody lot in one afternoon, and it was ninety degrees (32C) so it was hot...and I didn't just walk the object of this essay, Loop Road, but I took in a chunk of the old State Road 939 as well so I spent three hours tramping around south Sugarloaf Key. Granted it's not the Mojave Desert but that's a lot of big sky to be roaming under:
And did I mention it was hot?
I did much better this time because I did remember to use sunscreen and mosquito repellent, though I did forget water and a hat, so in the heat of the early afternoon my shirt had to serve double duty. My wardrobe seems to be coming in for unusual scrutiny these days, pink crocs and all, so I feel obliged to point out that one can do a lot more than most people imagine, with even not ideal equipment. I felt like Gassim in Lawrence of Arabia, crossing the Nefud desert on foot after falling off his camel in a stupor. Lawrence proved he was as tough as the Bedu by turning around, against their advice and rescuing the stranded man. Of course later Lawrence had to shoot him because he initiated a blood feud that threatened the whole expedition. And people wonder why I am an Ironist. In the event I did survive the Loop Road crossing, even without a camel.
I have no knowledge at all about Loop Road's history or it's raison d'etre, though one can assume that this place was built to further development, which is the usual story everywhere in Florida there is something inexplicable. However what exactly they were planning to develop is unfathomable because the road is surrounded on both sides by salt water, in the form of a sound or lake:
Or by boggy ground that becomes water in the rainy season:
The house visible in the distance is on the other side of a massive canal dug through the rock alongside the homes on Sugarloaf Boulevard and is thus unreachable in a direct line short of flying (or swimming). Loop Road seems like it was a massive boondoggle of some sort that has become an abandoned roadway serving no visible purpose other than recreation:
However my fellow travelers only started to appear after the sun was obscured by a thick layer of clouds and while they were all busy improving their physiques, I was the only person I saw ambling along the road looking at this and that and pausing to take pictures of whatever I saw with no strenuous benefit in mind. Like observing pretty flowers:
Sea grapes here are doing a lot better than mine, which have taken to shedding their fruit as though in an act of self destruction:
I first heard, then saw this woodpecker even as the exercise enthusiasts were whirring by, heads down, no time for subtleties:
And I'm pretty sure I saw a rabbit-like creature bounding through the scrub, too fast for my camera. There were several sticks in the roadway of which this was the most tortured and artistic:
And I think the heat must have been getting to me but I was pretty sure I could the face of a rodent in this dried up coconut:
I took a few detours across the mud, wetted this week by some heavy summer thunderstorms and found mysterious paw prints, hopping along in parallel pairs:
And I also found this recliner, delightful presumably in the cool sunlight of winter, though a torture rack in the heat of summer, surrounded by freshly minted mud:
This is the side path I followed last October when i rambled down alongside the canal:
This unknown trail hacked out of the bushes I was too tired to follow:
The road went on and on, winding hither and yon:
I passed a trim boat snug at anchor, quite possibly a liveaboard as the bimini was up shading the cockpit, who knows perhaps someone working on Lower Sugarloaf, quite the castaway:
Not impossibly far from the bright lights of Highway One if equipped with a powerful dinghy:
But certainly isolated enough for most of us:
Loop Road and Old State Road 939 are closed to motorised traffic these days but the asphalt is starting to deteriorate:
Though some enterprising soul has carted out surplus cement to patch what they could:
And somebody else has been painting mysterious code in the roadway:
BS? Quite possibly, though I'll tell you what I think is BS, it's speed limits. In the days of motor vehicles traveling this loop the speed limit was 35:
Meanwhile on the enormous, wide and very straight modern Sugarloaf Boulevard the county has seen fit to impose a thirty mile an hour limit on modern vehicles. I mentioned this in my October essay and since then nothing has changed and the speed limit on the Boulevard remains at a piddly 30 miles per. Amazing!
The US Army started building Fort Jefferson in 1846, twenty one years after a lighthouse was built on Garden Key to guide shipping past the shoals separating the Gulf of Mexico from the Straits of Florida and passage to and from the Eastern Seaboard. These days the anchorage to the south of the fort is occupied mostly by recreational sailors with commercial fishermen stopping by in season (no commercial fishing is allowed in the national park) but in the 19th century the deep waters around the fort were a refuge for ocean sailing commercial ships.
The one big thing everyone will always tell you about the Fort is that it is built of 16 million bricks. And those bricks came from various places on the east coast which is why there are two distinct shades of red used in the construction:
According to people who know, the masonry in the fort is a work of art that would be hard to reproduce today, consisting as it does of hundreds of unsupported arches. This is one such example, a particularly spectacular one which covers the main magazine inside the fort, the place where they stored gunpowder:
The whole fort is a honeycomb of arches built a hundred and fifty years ago and still standing:
The army labored on for decades piling brick upon brick, until in 1874, after a particularly virulent outbreak of yellow fever they gave up and walked away. During those almost thirty years of occupation the fort had served as a garrison for between 250 and 400 extremely bored soldiers, then during the Civil War it became a prison camp and president Lincoln commuted death sentences for desertion into prison terms at the remote fort.
The cannon I'm leaning up against is a Rodman, one of several hundred dragged to the fort but never used for anything more serious than target practice. Rifled barrels made brick defenses obsolete and the fort lost it's purpose before it came close to being finished. Later it became a staging point for the Spanish American war and then steam ships which stopped by to pick up coal after they added coal docks to the fort. They built two docks on iron posts which have rotted away almost completely but the pilings that reman make excellent growing platforms for coral and thus are excellent snorkling spots. These pilings are the easternmost set shown next to a Privilege catamaran leaving the harbor:
The exterior of the fort is protected by a brick wall that encloses a moat designed as protection from from wave action, but many of the exterior bricks in the fort wall are still choosing to crumble away:
The casemates for the cannons, many of which were never installed, are rotting under the effects of the damp salt air and the iron shutters are falling apart:
Carol told me they have started replacing them with new shutters- made of fiberglass! You wouldn't know it to look at them:
And then there are all the open windows looking out of the fort:
Inside the fort it's a huge parade ground gone bad- or gone good if you like your parade ground full of leafy green open spaces that resemble manicured parkland.
And the park service markers hint at much construction that went on in here in the bad old days:
But some of the stuff is still there and is indeed restored:
The work of restoration has won a six million dollar grant according to Carol, my source of all knowledge related to the fort. Indeed there was a construction crew on the job inside the fort while I wandered around:
Wetting their bricks prior to installing them, as good as new because they are new:
One bricked-up corner reminded me of perhaps an ivy covered seat of learning, or a cloister for some reason, not at all a fort:
Viewed from the ferry Fort Jefferson is a Swiss cheese of brick arches:
Solid in it's fragility. 