There are times when I think that taking pictures and organizing them in an on-line diary is an indulgence that should perhaps be put on the back burner. Then, the back burner suddenly imposes itself on me and I get vexed and frustrated that I have nowhere to put silly looking pictures like this one. Two chairs, on a roof, ready to enjoy an unconventional Key West sunset.
My home Internet connection is restored and my camera has not been completely idle as I fretted, waiting for American Telephone and Telegraph to send me my replacement wireless router. The weekend intervened but they did indeed get it to me overnight, so even though our economy is going resolutely Third World, we aren't there yet. I am still a valued customer. And the best I can do with my restored connection is this:
A view looking south from the upstairs at Louie's Backyard. I was at a fundraiser and managed (with my wife's unwitting help) to break a wineglass, that had no wine in it. The manager said I could have a replacement only if I promised to take proper care of it, hold it
thus, and be a good boy. Fuck you, I wanted to say, but I
was a good boy and hung my head in shame, silently promising I will never spend a dime in this shit hole, now or in the future. By me a drink on the back deck if you want but don't expect me to reciprocate. I am nothing if not good mannered and I did flush the toilet after I used it on my hurried way out. They never yell at me like that at El Siboney where my bill doesn't amount to the cost of a goat cheese sarnie at Louie's.
On the never ending subject of tachometers Chuck Pefley told me recently that the Honda Ruckus scooter is cool, and even though they imported very few 250s, the 50cc model is frequently seen on the streets of Key West. Here is conclusive proof that this cool scooter does not come equipped with a tachometer, just like my plain jane Bonneville. I will have more to say on the subject of the imminent arrival of unofficial summer but this house in New Town made me feel cheerful the day before yesterday. I have had reason lately to feel not very cheerful at all.
This gumbo limbo is still growing in the Meadows and it still fills me with awe. Robin Hood could hide in it's huge leafy branches and ambush a dog walker passing below.
I guess I have needed cheering up because this mailbox caught my eye:
And this one is uncharacteristic in that it invites one inside. "Welcome" it said and I think Cheyenne was ready to take them at their word.
I saw this Mel Brooks gate standing unattended by any fencing. I wanted to open it and walk through like I was in
Blazing Saddles, except I didn't have a dime and couldn't pay the toll.
My dimes currently are going to pay for all the crap in my life that has failed and needs to be replaced so I will be spending a lot more time with Nelly in the weeks to come:
Spring break is over for the most part and night dispatching has quieted down a fair bit, but things still do go bump in the night and police work never stops. Keith has been hitting the overtime pretty hard in a drive to pay off some extra bills of his own.
We are still hiring in dispatch and as lucky as we are to have great jobs we are even luckier to still have access to overtime. It hits me every time I ready about the unemployment numbers as our fake economic recovery powers ahead.Key West, the small town, makes me laugh out loud from time to time as I walk Cheyenne around town. This personal note, parked for all to see in a New Town driveway, was one such moment:
This I thought, was every bit as cool as a Honda Ruckus, and might be the way of the future. Note the orange cord supplying the energy re-charge on the right side.
A cyclist exemplifies good eco-etiquette and this young woman did an amazing job of safely negotiating a series of intersections along Thomas Street in Bahama Village, talking madly on her phone, cycling one handed and barely ever having to put even one well turned ankle on the ground as she flowed smoothly along. I felt compelled to stop at the stop signs which allowed her to keep up with my cumbersome 28 mile-per-gallon eco-wrecker.
I saw these people on the little pier at Simonton Beach and they put me in mind of youth, living on a boat, existing outside the mainstream. That kind of thing.
Similarly with this dude photographed outside Harpoon Harry's. I discarded this picture for that essay but I just couldn't get his jaunty stride out of my mind.
I made a U-turn to photograph this hack on the upper (south) end of Duval Street. This is why a sidecar will never work for me. Metered parking? Huh?
Never say never. I would rather be seen in a hack than in something like this. Can you imagine parking this thing in a street barely wider than one of these tires? Oh and gas has popped over the three dollar-a-gallon mark this week even at my ultra cheap Shell Station on Ramrod Key.
I saw this tag at Boondocks, speaking of Ramrod Key and it started me on this essay, thinking about the madness of driving a quarter million dollar car in the middle of an economic Depression and then putting a populist NASCAR tag on the back? Oh sure, just one of the guys!
Florida is cutting the four million dollar Healthy Start program to balance the state budget this year. Let the little tykes and their improvident mothers get help somewhere else will be our attitude."There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land." Deuteronomy 15:11
My home Internet connection is restored and my camera has not been completely idle as I fretted, waiting for American Telephone and Telegraph to send me my replacement wireless router. The weekend intervened but they did indeed get it to me overnight, so even though our economy is going resolutely Third World, we aren't there yet. I am still a valued customer. And the best I can do with my restored connection is this:
A view looking south from the upstairs at Louie's Backyard. I was at a fundraiser and managed (with my wife's unwitting help) to break a wineglass, that had no wine in it. The manager said I could have a replacement only if I promised to take proper care of it, hold it thus, and be a good boy. Fuck you, I wanted to say, but I was a good boy and hung my head in shame, silently promising I will never spend a dime in this shit hole, now or in the future. By me a drink on the back deck if you want but don't expect me to reciprocate. I am nothing if not good mannered and I did flush the toilet after I used it on my hurried way out. They never yell at me like that at El Siboney where my bill doesn't amount to the cost of a goat cheese sarnie at Louie's.
On the never ending subject of tachometers Chuck Pefley told me recently that the Honda Ruckus scooter is cool, and even though they imported very few 250s, the 50cc model is frequently seen on the streets of Key West. Here is conclusive proof that this cool scooter does not come equipped with a tachometer, just like my plain jane Bonneville. I will have more to say on the subject of the imminent arrival of unofficial summer but this house in New Town made me feel cheerful the day before yesterday. I have had reason lately to feel not very cheerful at all.
I guess I have needed cheering up because this mailbox caught my eye:
And this one is uncharacteristic in that it invites one inside. "Welcome" it said and I think Cheyenne was ready to take them at their word.
I saw this Mel Brooks gate standing unattended by any fencing. I wanted to open it and walk through like I was in Blazing Saddles, except I didn't have a dime and couldn't pay the toll. 
We are still hiring in dispatch and as lucky as we are to have great jobs we are even luckier to still have access to overtime. It hits me every time I ready about the unemployment numbers as our fake economic recovery powers ahead.Key West, the small town, makes me laugh out loud from time to time as I walk Cheyenne around town. This personal note, parked for all to see in a New Town driveway, was one such moment:
A cyclist exemplifies good eco-etiquette and this young woman did an amazing job of safely negotiating a series of intersections along Thomas Street in Bahama Village, talking madly on her phone, cycling one handed and barely ever having to put even one well turned ankle on the ground as she flowed smoothly along. I felt compelled to stop at the stop signs which allowed her to keep up with my cumbersome 28 mile-per-gallon eco-wrecker.
Oh yes, fishing too. But not from the municipal pier where casting a line will net you a twenty five dollar fine. This is the only pier in Florida where fishing is expressly forbidden, so take a good look:
No swimming allowed either, else the under toad will apparently eat you:
And if you somehow got the mistaken idea that swimming off that magnificent sand beach under the palm trees would be refreshing, think again:
And remember those six officers have but 1400 homes to patrol so they will be on you like flies on the proverbial if you dip a big toe in the azure waters of the Straits of Florida. Look don't touch. Which reminds me a bit of that old TV show The Prisoner. 
There is a park after a fashion, but if I want to boil my brains out on the sunlit benches where do I leave the Bonneville? In the next jurisdiction? It's very passive aggressive. Home ownership in KCB does have its advantages, in that the city, unlike Monroe County, does allow short term rentals. Indeed short term is the theme for the Keys' own mouse that roars. The waterfront is obscured for the length of it's KCB mile by condos. Old fashioned 1950's concrete block structures:
And newer designs with faux shutters and weird Mittel European porch lights blazing in the middle of the day to no visible effect:
Not forgetting the neon glories beloved of our parents, back "in the day" as they say most annoyingly:
I did discover an "extra" street within city limits, which was probably more fun than I should have allowed myself. Back at the end of the causeway I was returned brutally to the lives that the rest of us in the world outside the cozy confines of KCB have to deal with daily, in winter: a traffic jam turning out onto Highway One.
The cars at the front of the line were so languid only about three got out on each green light which was making me crazy with boredom so, ever the rebel I took the right turn lane and found myself abruptly in the parking area of a Circle K convenience store. Indeed, and this it turns out is KCB's sole gas station, though as it faces Highway One a passer-by not tuned in to the vagaries of city planning would never guess. The city of Marathon uses the usual green street signs employed elsewhere in the county and in Key West. But KCB in an effort to distinguish itself uses blue street signs:
And right around the corner I found Coral Way, in blue butting up to Clara Boulevard behind the Circle K. And I didn't even need to show id to escape back to the real world. As real as it gets in the Florida Keys, let's face it.
This is dry season at it's driest in the keys. Normally the wet mud has long since dried and acres and acres of mangroves have arisen out of the swamp and the walkable acreage has doubled on many of these small islands. This winter has, with it's incessant rain and cursed cold snaps, caused the mud to take extra long to dry out.
At long last trails normally submerged or semi submerged have dried out enough to encourage an adventurous walker to take a side trail or two which was how Cheyenne and I ended up traipsing far off our normal well beaten, track. The camera was a welcome burden.
I plunged off on a side trail at random, and tried another previously unnoticed side trail and found to my surprise that I had slipped through the looking glass and instead of the trail petering out it led me, as though by a nose ring, deeper and deeper into the furthest recesses of No Name Key.
From the south shore, at low tide I could see the Highway One bridge that connects Big Pine Key to West Summerland Key, the road that leads to Bahia Honda State Park.
The day was warm, a harbinger of summer, yet the breeze was still cool and the atmosphere was far from oppressive. As the sun broke through the haze the walk became a delightful exploration, my dog and I tramping and exploring so far from anywhere we could not, for once hear the remotest of engine sounds from land or water.
Exploring the Lower Keys is not mountaineering, nor is it even the search for the perfect outcrop of rock from which to view valleys and rivers and woods that stretch to the horizon. The horizon here is nothing more than variations on a well worn theme: mud, mangrove and water. 
It was inevitable though somewhat aggravating to find tracks in the dried mud. Not just foot or dog prints but bicycle tracks, no less!
And a giant's elaborate causeway of heavy flat stones. It seems like a lot of work to go and search for bait fish.
A pedestrian freeway back to the car, parked on the main boulevard a mile away. 
