The Southard Street Gate never did materialise at the entrance to Truman Annex, after the Navy threatened the Truman Annex master Property Owner's Association with a lawsuit if they put up a gate. Work stopped and the holes were promptly filled in. The guardhouse is staffed at night (visible in the distance in the picture above) but it remains unoccupied during the day when traffic can travel freely to and from the waterfront. So freely indeed, not many cars would notice Thomas street off to the north, towards the new courthouse:
And why would a passer by turn onto Thomas in this direction?
The sign on top is a terminological inexactitude as the street is now open at both ends. For a while the road was closed at Fleming thanks to the construction of the new courthouse, The Freeman Justice Center, but that's done and Thomas Street is a handy way to avoid the interminable light at Southard and Whitehead (in front of the Green Parrot). This section of Thomas Street is all county business or government of one sort apparently:
Nasty fences, no signs and buildings painted battle ship gray, all terribly ominous:
Thomas Street in the opposite direction, heading south from Southard Street is a little more slack, perhaps more human:
Behind the county buildings, wedged into a small space next to the boundary of Truman Annex there is parking for all those beavering county employees:
Which if it weren't so out-of-the-way might make this a useful place to park after hours now that the Post Office has got so hard core about their lot next door. This place is a desert on a Friday evening:
It's not totally deserted:
The parking lot is divided by a leaf filled dusty median strip which is traversed by a cute little wooden footbridge. I have no idea who put it there nor why:
There's another such bridge at the pedestrian entrance to Thomas Street, with more fences and the county clock tower in the background:
The impenetrable fences are everywhere down here keeping people out of the county property:
The Freeman Justice center mercifully isn't so girded and stands imposing at the end of the street:
It bears the symbols of the Conch Republic, ready to assume the mantle of the headquarters of any future breakaway republic:
I spotted a couple of lost tourists, consulting their oracles marching past the endless building as though not sure where they might end up, reading the map, discussing and walking.
I think they were Europeans and I felt once again that perhaps I should have stepped in to offer unsolicited directions. Instead I took a picture of Truman Annex at Fleming:
Or looking towards Whitehead on Fleming:
As you can see: wide open to traffic in all directions after months of construction.
Driving towards Key West on Highway One, there is a place just past the Sugarloaf Lodge where someone parked a plane:
This unmarked street on Google maps is labeled "Perky" after the mythical town that was supposed to have been built around the developer's bat tower that can be found at the northern end of this road. 
The fact that "Perky" never came into being hasn't deterred mapmakers, locals call this place generally "Lower Sugarloaf" and this is where the airstrip lives, shown by that billboard advertising airplane rides.
They say the landing strip is 2700 feet long, about half a mile to you and me, and just over three quarters of a kilometer in Canadian miles. It looks long enough to me, though I know nothing about flying at all. As airports go, Sugarloaf's is a very home brewed affair:
This is where the flying lessons are apparently given:
With planes parked alongside possibly ready to go:
Continuing the home grown theme there is a simple mechanic's shop in a trailer:
There is an ultra light also, similar in many respects to the one currently floating at the dock at Sugarloaf Marina next to the lodge. Doubtless for rent is you have a yen to fly ultra-lightly: 
It wouldn't the Florida Keys is precious land area weren't given up to the hopeless wrecks which sit gently decomposing at am epochal rate in the sun:
Beauty and usefulness are strictly in the eye of the owner. Not to mention the cost of removal and disposal. You might think this would be an excellent spot to try some speed trials or just to bugger about on with a motorcycle, however to guard against a collision with an aircraft such foolishness is forbidden:
Though one can stand for a while and contemplate the surroundings which inevitably include water around here:
And so, after standing in the sun for a while one has nothing left to do but turn around and head out. At which point one comes across the little green shed one saw peripherally on the way in. More rides!
I am told by people that have done it that throwing oneself out of a perfectly good plane here yields tremendous views. The day I decide to do something so foolish I promise I shall post pictures. Looking back at the airport one can glimpse the houses I call the "Ho Ho Ho Homes". They light up the seasonal sentiments at Christmas time, clearly visible across the water for northbound traffic on Highway One.
I hope I shall be back on the Bonneville soon because seeing these pictures and remembering riding does me no good at all.
The not so magnificent:
The revolutionary:
The military:
The middle class (in a class-less society):
The artistic:
I like the modern art gallery above with the sign outside- peligro, "danger" - though I have no doubt it refers to roadworks, not art. Cuba for an American is the back door equivalent of North Korea, though unlike North Korea, every sign I have seen is that Cuba is just another Latin American country, partially dysfunctional, and yet in many ways more functional than one might imagine, considering the US's hostility of the past 60 years.
The American love affair with the automobile is one starting point for a rapprochement, a way to close the gap between two nations ninety miles (150 kilometers) apart:
It used to be that the automotive world in Revolutionary Cuba was stuck in drive circa 1959, but these old cars nowadays are more often powered by modern Japanese or Korean engines and parts cobbled together in ways that Americans have never had to learn. 
These old cars and Soviet era Ladas (Fiat 1500) are replaced by modern shiny go karts from the Far East where trade embargoes and ritual resentment are anathema as far as Cuba's import market is concerned.
Tourists with hard currency (what an Iron Curtain term!) get special treatment, consisting of whores restaurants and buggy rides. In a land of egalitarian poverty, the dollar rules:
There is so much propaganda about Cuba in the US it's hard to discern truth from fiction. My sole visit was a close sail-by taking cover from a storm in the Straits of Florida and all I saw were revolutionary slogans, mountains, fields and endless mangrove islands along the north coast. I listen to Radio Reloj (950am) and Radio Nacional (590 am) in the car, now that I am forced to drive, and while I sit up at work in the quiet times I wonder what they are doing across the way. Probably much the same we are, with less. They tell us Cuba is allowing Havana to crumble, which owing to their lack of money wouldn't be surprising. Perhaps it's true in some parts of the city:
To compare Cuba to the United States as so many critics do seems irrational to me. Comparisons with similar countries might be more in line. I'd rather be Cuban in Cuba, than Haitian in Haiti or Honduran in Honduras. If I were Cuban in Miami I would count my blessings in my dollar denominated bank account, or if I wanted my finca back I'd do what Castro did and take to the Sierra Maestra and fight for it. Otherwise I would shut the fuck up, grow fat and contented in the land of the free and let commerce do it's work to break down barriers. The embargo benefits the dictatorship across the way and the would-be dictators in Miami and why President Obama, who wants change in the rest of the world, won't do anything about this stupidity is just another of those mysteries that puzzle me about our leadership. Banks yes, autos no. Palestinians yes (at last) Cubans no. If not now, when?
