Prospect Alley

Someone wanted to know what happened to the hole in Duval Street's 500 block, next to the San Carlos Theater:The short answer is not much since the fire destroyed the businesses that used to live here. The fire last March was a rather big deal in the early hours:
As I recall there was an art gallery alongside the French pancake shop, whose remains are shown here:
Right now, between Margaritaville and the San Carlos there is some very attractive fencing and a large hole:

However in the absence of more established redevelopers taking this project on, local talent has done it's best to spruce up le grand trou, as a French pancake eater might describe this big 'ole:The odd thing is the big hole gives a certain airiness to the space with a grand view all the way down to Whitehead Street:
And here's the good news, I'm pretty sure, if you were the type you could win a bet here. The other end of the big hole is actually a city street, unmarked and mostly unknown, except to police officers and the people who hang out here at night trying to kip:
And while I am in a good news sort of moment let me add that the wheels of private development grind slow, but to paraphrase the Good Book, they tend to grind exceeding small:
I have a feeling this is one Key West development that will get no opposition, at least until some berk publishes the plans and then everyone will have an opinion about it, 83% sure to be negative. After five years no one will remember how it used to look except for a few elderly barflies mumbling about where "the old creperie used to be...." That's how it goes in Key West, you get street cred by knowing where things used to be. Here's a freebie: remember when Office Max used to be Pantry Pride?

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Anyway back to the bet. This here is the 500 block of Prospect Lane.
I suppose technically it is one block long though it doesn't actually open into Applerouth Lane but you can certainly ride a Bonneville up Prospect from Fleming Street opposite La Concha (or The La Concha if you don't eSpeak eSpanish):
And as you can see it is unmarked, hence the bet suggestion. The one way sign actually refers to Fleming Street and points to Duval. If Prospect were one way it would soon get pretty jammed up.
Prospect is not, with the best will in the world, too terribly scenic. It is the backside of everything else. It's the back of the old Kress Building, which houses fast Buck Freddie's and Margaritaville:
And the back side of a department store isn't usually to be found decorating postcards. I spent many happy months here sorting out deliveries too and from Fast Bucks while enjoying the gastronomic leftovers from Margaritaville warming over in their dumpster nearby:

And the parking lot of the former Cuban Consulate is decidedly frosty as one might expect in a town where parking is at a premium. Appelrouth Lane is beyond the distant trees as shown in this previous essay: http://conchscooter.blogspot.com/2009/02/appelrouth-lane.html published here February 13th 2009.So, having won the bet worded to your best advantage about Key West's least known alley, there is more one question to be answered. Why did the chicken cross the street?

a) To check out the cool Bonneville.

b) To get legal advice from the Spottswood law firm.

c) To cross the alley?

The Other Sunset

It is said the playwright Tennessee Williams, in a moment of inebriated jubilation toasted the setting sun on the waterfront in Key West, and with that simple act of honoring the best show in town set off the carnival that sunset has become at Mallory Square.
Residents of the Keys have an ambiguous relationship with the visitors who keep the economy going in the islands. They argue over the noise of Navy jets training from Boca Chica Naval Air Station, a huge source of local income. They make fun of civilian tourists who flock to the town year round, wide eyed with wonder at this tropical paradise. Residents have a long history of nibbling the hand that feeds them and it is normal to tell various jokes about the gullibility of visitors. "Do they schedule a second sunset?" we are told they frequently ask. "Can the sunset be delayed till after I finish my dinner?" Then the locals hang out in the bars, cadge free drinks and tell tall stories for their liquid supper. Me? I head north to watch the sun set. I don't get to watch the sun set that often. I am usually at work at the magic hour but one evening when I was home and my wife was working late I decided to go for an evening swim at Veterans Park, a turn out 13 miles from my house at the southern end of the Seven Mile Bridge. My wife's Vespa ET4 has been at home since she injured her shoulder so I decided it was a relaxing ride I wanted and the 150cc scooter would be the ideal tool for the job. There was no traffic heading north so I stopped on the new Bahia Honda bridge, with two empty lanes all to myself and played with the camera.
I ambled along at 50mph (80km/h) enjoying the road, the warm air, the sun dropping rapidly out of sight and taking all prospects of a sunlit swim with it... I didn't care, I was here in the spirit (if not the inebriation) of the playwright. The trailer park at Ohio Key looked good as I floated by. I saw a group of residents, their golf cart parked on the old Flagler bridge watching their own private sunset in the shadow of the massive flag, a splash of color against the gray thunderheads of summer. Veterans Park is a narrow beach fronting shallow water, equipped with a few ramadas and palm trees to give the necessary sub tropical ambiance.
People who insist on wearing all the gear all the time miss out sometimes on the subtle pleasures of just jumping on and going. You never know what happens when you submit to spontaneity. Perhaps a palm tree will sprout out of your head.To the north, at the other end of the bridge seven miles away, the thunder clouds were piling up, over the first twinkling lights in the city of Marathon.

To the west the sun was putting the finishing touches to it's act. It was the start of bike week and Harley Davidsons by the thousand were starting to invade the islands. The road may be straight but it does offer out of towners a different experience, that of riding over water.

The Vespa is a relaxing ride, surprisingly fast especially for car drivers who think mopeds can't go faster than a snail's pace. The little Vespa 150 can run 60 mph (100 kmh) all day on these level roads:In Big Pine I stopped off to check in on a friend......and home to dinner with my wife. All that or I could have watched jugglers at Mallory Square. Luckily I live here so I get to take more than one bite at the sunset apple. Maybe next time I'll jostle with the crowds and leave a large tip.

Rainy Meditation

I had Friday off and I took the day to go on a long ride. I have been feeling a little trapped by the unwonted heat of this summer. My wife's shoulder injury has meant we cannot use our little skiff daily, so I pulled the boat from our dock and it has sat, disconsolate, on it's trailer for the summer. I determined I had to go for a ride, so I gave myself an unreasonable goal and decided I would ride there and back and see how I coped. The day went well on the whole, I arrived where I wanted to go and I managed to avoid all but the lightest of showers as I crossed the Everglades. In addition to a severe shortage of breezes we have enjoyed a surfeit of showers this long hot summer and I fully expected to be rained upon. As can bee seen from the photo above, I met my Waterloo on Snake Road in the Seminole Indian Reservation. It was to be the highlight of an excellent day. I pulled over to enjoy a spectacle I had not yet seen in a thundercloud. It was like a white blaze in a gray head of hair, and there were elements of a rainbow within the splash of white in the rain storm. Of course my attempts to photograph the phenomenon fell far short of what I saw with my own eyes:The temperature gauge had been hovering above 100 degrees all day (38C) and i was sweating in my helmet and my gloves and my waistband all day. The thunderhead was producing a phenomenon that I was used to, a down draft of cold air that rush across the fields and bent the leaves on the bushes and the scrub palmettos. When out sailing that rush of cold air was my first warning to shorten sail, especially at night when I couldn't see the black anvil in the sky that was producing it. Standing next to my motorcycle I just grinned and sniffed the cold air like a city-dwelling child first exposed to the ozone of fresh salt air. The rain was thick and blotting out landmarks across the fields:Rain spattered and I turned and fled, thinking perhaps to return to the U Save gas station in the Seminole village where I could buy a coke and sit at a table on the porch and wait for the rain to pass. As it happened I had noticed a corral as I rode and as I thought about it I figured that if i stopped there I could shelter my motorcycle and also probably not have to talk to anyone. I had a thermos of hot tea and a book I have been enjoying (Hitler's Pope, a biography of Pius XII, which is not nearly as dry as it sounds) in my saddlebag and I would take advantage of the pause to do some reading.
It is commonplace these days for riders to load up with music and GPS and blue toothed cell phones that allow one to be distracted by almost as many electrons as the average car driver. I am not one of those, I continue the practice of enjoying my thoughts while I ride. Partly I hope to ride with greater care, partly I enjoy listening to the silence and thinking thoughts as I barrel down the long straight stretches of Florida back country. To thus have to pause and refresh the memory banks with new thoughts is a chance not to be missed.
I could tell this thunder head was special. The edges were blurry, the heart was black and it spread so wide the edges produced rainbows even as it advanced on me. So thick did it look down the road, and so strong were the down drafts, I figured it was prudent to leave my waterproofs in the other saddlebag and take the opportunity to stay dry. I was at least four hours, possibly more from home and I wanted to stay dry as darkness was two hours away and my blood is so thin that riding wet, in the darkness in 80 degree (27C) ambient temperatures could set my teeth to chattering.

It's not easy to photograph rain I find but I had lots of time to try to perfect the technique. The wind howled, sending raindrops horizontally under the roof. The the thunder clapped so loud my teeth ached and I wondered if the zinc roof would act as a lightning conductor. I retreated to the interior of the corral and hid behind the slats trying to stay dry. And the rain came down.

It bent the leaves of the trees and shook the branches with it's force. The sound was the hissing of a dozen steam locomotives, the very air was damp with rain, even at the center of my shelter. There was a viciousness to the rain, it felt like it was pounding the ground into submission. The wind stopped and left the rain to do it's worst and like a guard dog released by it's master the rain hammered and worried and tore in a frenzy, trying to do as much damage as time allowed. How this neighboring roof stood up to the assault I don't know. Them Seminoles know how to build a strong roof, they do.

Well, I thought, I made the correct decision. Tea, anyone?

It was undignified I know, using the motorbike as a table, but the little folding chair thoughtfully left behind by the stock man (thank you, whoever you are) was the perfect height to allow me to read and drink tea with the minimum of effort.

And so time passed. I knew that if I had togged up and continued the ride would have been not much fun. Rain of this intensity would have penetrated my plastic clothing at strategic spots and anyone who tells you riding with a soppy crotch and a wet chest is fun are lying. It would have been a challenge, of that there is no doubt, but I met the challenge my way and it went well. Indeed I was reluctant to put the book down. I had got to the bit where the Vatican made no comment on the "Night of the Long Knives" and I was wondering what the author had found on that subject in the Vatican archives.

The rain was easing up but as long as I could see spray shooting out from under the passing vehicles I decided to stay put. Either that or put my plastic pants on to keep dry and sweaty.The cars drove by in a steady stream and I didn't envy them their mobility. They had no conscious moment of this storm, just another wet view through the window. For me it had been a calculated risk, a well thought out decision, a maneuver to keep me dry. An hour spent here was an hour that would live on in my memories for a good long while. "Remember when...?"

As we age our lives speed up because so much of our older lifetime is repetition. Routine creates fog in the memories, the same photographs taken over and over get filed in one place. New pictures merit a special look and a thought or two. That takes time, and the time taken is added to the bank of life well lived.I do like the perpetual sunshine though, and it got a particular applause from me as the cloud moved off to ravage some other place and left me to pack up and ride out in a world made fresh and clean by the rain. A Seminole police car slowed to look at me lurking in the corral as I was running my eye over the bike making sure everything was as it should be. He didn't stop to talk, perhaps he got a call of something more urgent than a motorcyclist taking refuge from the rain. I thus managed to hide out for the storm and spoke to no one about anything making the moment all mine.

Mine and the Bonneville's of course, for what would Timmy be without the dog?