Truman Road Works

Truman Avenue is going to be torn up soon and a new traffic light will be installed in front of Sears and dips that periodically fill with rain water and drown bicycles and small children will be filled in.


These palm trees were to be replaced with maintenance free palmettos but the snowbirds got upset and demanded the city sent money maintaining these non native coconut palms so workers were out recording them for posterity and so they will be returned ot their original holes I suppose.


Meanwhile at the other end of the road that becomes Truman Avenue the surface is being torn up.


This road used to be called Division Street as it divided the inhabited parts of the island from the wilderness to the east. Now it divides that part of the city that floods less in the rain from the parts that flood more in the rain.


I have no idea what they are digging up but I'm sure it will be good.


For the time being traffic is inbound only past Bayview Park but this will be work in motion.


The whole job is supposed to take two and a half years so traffic will be snarled for ages in New Town and everyone is excited about that.

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My Heroes

I love Aerostich. They sell clothing and accessories for people who actually ride their motorcycles and don't just accessorize them before re-selling them. Their catalogue is a work of art and makes a great read, packed with humor and candor in a world where selling is treated far too seriously. This is their ad in Cycle World magazine.


I am no shopper but Aerostich products are a sure bet and if they promise they deliver. I love bike stuff from people who ride and test their own products. They ride in the rain, in the dark, in the cold...and they have fun.


Besides this is a philosophy I can get behind. Just ride and stop farkeling. I know, that notion involves buying stuff from Aerostich to make riding a more comfortable affair, but I like thinking of reasons to take the bike, not leave it at home. Ride Everywhere, indeed.

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Higgs Beach Made Better

I had delayed returning to Higgs Beach t see the new fence and when I did finally check it out I was astonished.


With one quick move the authorities seem to have solved the problem of the bums taking over the pavilions at the public county owned beach in the middle of the city of Key West.


The old Astro City playground seen above has been replaced by a shady, waterfront child's park in the sand:


It was busy when I was there with mothers and kids coming and going.


In many respects it's a better location, with shade, an attractive ocean view, shade from the casuarina trees and the useful picnic pavilions line the fenced area.


These used to be residentially challenged cabanas filled with drinking squabbling bums who made a pleasant aft noon at the beach an impossibility for anyone with any sense of decorum in public places.


It's easy to point a finger in a shitty economy and say these are the dispossessed but unhappily these are the hobos and bums made romantic by early 20th century authors (John Steinbeck leaps to mind) though these modern incarnations are not by any stretch romantic.


The have relocated across the street to the wooden picnic tables next to the dog park, and there they sit. Key West offers an amazing array of services for the poor and homeless and hopeless, not surprisingly as this city is packed with millionaires and working poor. But there is a population, that swells in winter, of travelers and they seek no help and prefer to be viewed as rebels and outsiders.


It seems clear to me the relocation of the childrens' playground accomplishes the relocation of the bums, but also paves the ay for the new road planned to run inland from the beach, moving Atlantic Boulevard away from the shore.


Next the county will have to find the money to move the dog
park which was built with donations from citizens and now sits directly in the path of the planned relocated street. Once Atlantic is moved the remainder of Higgs Park will be mostly dog park, children's park a d recreational facilities, tennis courts and the like and the bum problem which has plagued this place will evaporate.


And the kids get their water front playground.


One has to assume the bums will move and some other neighborhood will be blogged for a while.



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Birds And A Dog

Minding their own business.


What's this? A peacock stalking something or someone.


I hear them cawing in the early morning when I walk Cheyenne at Ramrod Pool. I am familiar with peacocks from my youth when a farmer near my school decided to raise them. Noisy buggers, and nosy too. My dog as usual ignored all wildlife in her pursuit of pleasure.


This one was the leader of the pack and looked ready to pounce on my Labrador.


When Cheyenne became aware of the visitor she turned to say hullo. The peacock wasn't having any and scuttled off.


My Labrador ruled the road once again.

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Sunrise Light

My dog ignores this stuff when I take her for her early morning stroll. Sometimes I remember to take my camera and record the moment for posterity. But I never take it for granted.








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Ramrod Key Signs

Some signs I saw when out with Cheyenne. This one struck me as homey, over at the canvas shop.


Prisoners doing the work paid laborers could do. What's a little unemployment tom worry about? Never mind we tax payers pay their modest monthly benefits even as the private sector fails to give them real jobs.



For those with a job there's paradise 27 miles up the road. Who said sex doesn't sell, and I am sick of seeing her head floating above the Overseas Highway every commute.


And what I can't understand is how do cheap t-shirts and sandals pay for these huge billboards?


I wonder what the hell they are laundering and how they get away with it.

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