Flowers On Olivia

The gruesome Conch Train made a splash of color between the bougainvillea.



I feel fairly certain this is a piece of Art but what it represents I'm not entirely sure. I thought perhaps a dog?



Olivia Street through The Meadows is pretty made colorful by the variety of flowers.



And cyclists.



And here is an empty lot for the enterprising. It always surprises me a city as expensive as Key West still has patches of open land with No Trespassing signs on them. It does not appear to be for sale.



I got quite carried away by the sight of the blossoms alongbthe street. Check out the pictures:



















This Vespa is identical to the GTS 250 I was riding when I started this blog in 2007. I rode it to death in ten months, this one is treated rather more gently I think.



More houses for sale.



And refurbishment.



And this one needs a fair bit of sorting out.



I liked this gate in the foliage. It reminds me of some stately mansion.



Olivia in The Meadows.



The Meadows is called that because it was a meadow before it was developed in the middle of the last century. The boundaries of the neighborhood are Truman, White, Palm and Eisenhower.


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Stephen Julius's Indian

I was taking pictures of this piece of machinery on Eisenhower Drive when a passer by, a non motorcyclist asked if I liked it. She was just being polite because she didn't wait for an answer but started fussing over my dog instead.


It's hard to say of I like the reborn Indian brand recently sold to the Canadian Polaris/Bombardier/Victory conglomerate. Indian went out of business in 1953 and came back to life decades later in Gilroy California and that failed after a while.


I was at school years ago with a child who has become a venture capitalist in adulthood reviving failed corporate "brands" and then after building it up selling it. His name trumpeted in the motorcycling press is Stephen Julius and if you have $35,000 to spare on a bone shaker you too can have one of these over priced pieces of nostalgia.


It's a pretty piece of work but the magazines report it shakes like a cement mixer and gets rather tiring.


But it is pretty. My Bonneville a nostalgia trip but at $8,000 my bike is decidedly a better value.


It is pretty though isn't it? I can't get away from it.


For those not amused by motorcycles, the philistines, here is a picture of my dog, resting from her labors.


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Dogs And Chickens On Albury

What the operators of the secret surveillance cameras didn't know was that I was out there photographing them. So there!


It was another pretty day in The Meadows one of my favorite neighborhoods.


The gruesome big apartment complex on Eisenhower Drive, easily as tall as the hated new school building at Horace O'Bryant has been painted a refreshing shade of mustard yellow. I wonder why this night on the landscape doesn't stir people up in the newspaper the same way the school building does?


Recreational vehicles are not allowed on city streets if they are over 20 feet (6.7 meters) long.


This is why people spend absurd amounts of money to live here, year round greenery and permanent blue skies.


Cheyenne was minding her own business sashaying down the street when the local canine noticed the babe in their midst.


If you walk this neighborhood shortly before dusk you will see a positive army of people walking their dogs in all directions. The Meadows seems to be full of canines, and here they are.


Key West is a city of primary colors.


Roosters add co.or to though I could do without the messy beasts. Some people really like them.


Was this a dog or a chicken? I couldn't quite tell...


These decidedly were chickens, digging and squawking and making their own mess.


These signs certainly improve the look of the town. If you are too inconsiderate to pick up after your dog reminding everyone else that dog "waste" exists isn't going to persuade you to clean it up. Notice how the sign even carries a pictogram showing how to pick up dog shit, like it's rocket science. Who dreams these things up?


A motorcycle is all you need to get around in Key West.


And to end our short tour of Albury Street we have a quick view of a rock wall. Why it's here I have no idea.


The Albury family has deep roots in the Abaco Islands of the Bahamas where they are known for boat building.


In Key West the name is perpetuated by a short street in a delightfully quiet residential neighborhood.

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Franco's Deli

In January 2010 I was on Upper Duval checking out this funky little deli. This is the essay I wrote reviewing the joint.This deli is a recent arrival in Key West operated by a couple of brothers whose last name is, appropriately enough Bologna, the city that gave it's name to the pressed meat called baloney...When I asked him if his name forced this career onto him brother Peter ( which wa show he identified himself) looked at me a bit old fashioned and said "No," in a gruff New York style. "I could'a been anything. This was my fate." I wondered if he could have been a contender too but kept that thought to myself. His brother Franco paints in between making sandwiches:I have no experience of New York style delis having spent most of my adult life in California. However one night I got a call at work from Officer Sellers, she who likes to call me "Mr Conchscooter" after the time she spotted her neighbor's house on my blog. "What's the name of the deli on Upper Duval?" she asked, anxious to show her friends a good time. "Er..." I said in the manner of one who is mistaken for a person who knows everything. So when this Key West native started extolling the value of Franco's I thought I'd better try it:Peter Bologna (unless he was pulling my leg and he is a shy painter called Franco) in the yellow cap, saw the camera and asked if I was a restaurant critic. "No" I said. He grunted when I said it was just a record for my blog. "I would'a bribed you..." The thought hung tantalisingly in the air. I wondered what a Bologna bribe looks like. Perhaps a bottle of virgin olive oil or some capers from the Old Country?I grew up somewhere in the middle of the Italian boot and we never had sandwiches like they sell here. The Italian sandwiches I ate as a kid were two pieces of bread with a piece of meat or a piece of cheese, no condiments, no mayonnaise no lettuce no nothing. No wonder Italians emigrated en masse to America. It wasn't that the streets were paved with gold, it was that Italian heros had all the ingredients one could imagine between two slices of bread.And Illy coffee isn't bad at all though I've never seen it sold out of a Thermos in Italy. New York maybe but I only ever spent one night in New York 29 years ago so I know nothing about the Big Apple. Franco's deli charges 50 cents for a cup of ice and only let's customers use the restroom. That's a Key West thing, else the bums will set up camp there.They proudly use Boar Head meats and I guess that was what I got because I wanted to try the basic cold Italian combo.They also produce Italian pasta dishes and stuffed vegetables. I was planning on eating the sandwich at the movies so I wanted something easy to deal with. Look at that sparkling clean kitchen:They don't have anywhere to sit except a couple of stools on the porch which make a nice spot to observe life on Upper Duval. The yellow awning marks the Banana Cafe next door which used to be my favorite Italian restaurant in Key West called Carmine's which had to close as the landlord went nuts and doubled the rent or something. Very annoying as I liked the Banana Cafe better in it's old cramped intimate quarters. A crepe at the counter was a great lunch for one. Now I have Franco's to test:Notice the prices are not especially high and one has to wonder what a sweet Italian sausage or a chicken cutlet would taste like. They also use this abbreviation for parmigiana which I first heard on a TV show called The Sopranos where they abbreviated everything and cut off the last vowels of Italian words. So that becomes "parm" which would shock the residents of Parma no doubt, which is where the cheese is from. Abbreviating is not an Italian thing to do. Unless you are in New York or New Jersey or somewhere.They sell salads too and they have stuff for breakfast which sounds enticing. It's as well I live outside the city I think, this is not low calorie food.For eight and a half bucks I got a sandwich big enough for two meals.I wonder what a New Yorker would make of it?