Sunup To Sundown

Sunup over Big Pine Key.

Cheyenne prefers walking in the cool of morning as do I, as there are fewer people around, a bonus in the winter when streets even in Big Pine are crowded with clumps of eager snowbirds stretching their northern wings under southern sun.

Crowded may be an exaggeration but compared to summer there are more people around this time of year. One is constantly under observation, I find.

I have heard tell that evil spirits may be trapped in bottles hung, usually upside down, but decoration is as decoration does and in this case the bottles looked good right side up. I'd not have the patience to tie the bottles up but I'm glad someone does.

The back streets of Big Pine are a refuge for eccentrics and loners and ordinary working families. You'll see gravel tracks winding through the pine woods to lonely homesteads. Some homes right on the street stick a notice up and call it good.

Key deer seem to be doing well this winter, sleek well fed and seen in large numbers. A few years ago they were suffering horribly and many were moved to leave food out for the suffering creatures with rib cages showing and unsteady gait from hunger. The refuge managers want the public to let the deer live and die by their own best ability. They ask us, the public, to simply try to avoid running the deer down. Please don't feed them, as the signs implore...

I'm actually surprised the deer are doing as well as they seem to be, for of rain there is still no sign and we,be not had rain for weeks, for years it seems like. Each dawn comes up sunny, a few scattered rain clouds on the horizon and as the day develops the sun beats down and we see eighty degrees at peak, dropping to seventy by night. No humidity a fresh light breeze and this is perfection for humans.

For Cheyenne between walks the shade of the veranda does nicely. I like to think she is guarding the bougainvillea from the predatory iguana but she is just resting. Every now and again she lumbers to her feet and goes and lays in the sun for a while before heat forces her to retreat.

And on my day off, like yesterday, an evening walk on the southern edge of Sugarloaf Key saw us watching a family chase fish at water's edge, dusk being one of two best times of day to fish I'm told.

I don't fish, my affliction living as I do in these most desirable angling isles, but every now and again I come across some wildlife I contrive to capture in my telephone.

And that brings us to the end of another day, sundown over Sugarloaf Key. A pope resigned, scandal surely to follow later, more people were shot to death in continuing debate over guns and liberty, and snow fell somewhere but not here. Never here were we drift through this tropical winter barely aware of the need to wear long sleeves.

And tomorrow will bring another day of tropical lassitude and meandering. - No. Wait a minute. Tomorrow I work. A different kettle of fish altogether.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Stock Island Yachts

The car needed an oil change and I needed a new perspective on Stock Island so while Mike did the honors on the car I wandered off. Mike is from Santa Barbara in California and moved to Key West as we did from Santa Cruz, just up the coast. More important than that faint connection, his location across the highway from my wife's job makes it easy to drop off the car and he takes appointments and honors them and is easy to deal with. I approach new businesses that drop into these narrow islands with a jaundiced eye as so many fail or lose their way. When you find a good one you hold it close of course.

Hogfish has been around for a while and they sell a nice line in "old Key West" under the relatively new huge tiki roof. The food is okay off a large menu and it's reputation is such that visitors love to come here "off the beaten track" and eat next to palms with the sun reflecting off the water. Bobby Mongelli's new place Roostica further up the road is doing land sale business with locals and I like that Italian eatery a lot despite it's inland location in Stock Island's industrial zone.

You can see why Hogfish fills a need for people with a certain idea of what Key West should be like, authentic commercial fishing boats tied up alongside, the sun glimmering on they water like I said. See?

After I picked up the car I went over to the Stock Island Yacht Club where we have renewed our membership for a winter of swimming in their heated pool. A family membership is sixty bucks a month for access to the pool, sauna, gym and restaurant. They don't serve Red Stripe any more and their beer list is weak in this age of fashionable craft beers but I do like the atmosphere of genteel gentrification (ahem!) and the fact that the pool is divided strictly between adults and noisome offspring. I get to swim among adults even though they can be rather crass snowbirds down for the winter to show us how it's done.

They have a marina as well with fuel docks and a ships store and covered storage for boats. They also allow liveaboards in the marina and they also get access to the club. It's actually quite a sweet set up, and even though I have been ragged for being the only Democrat in a Republican strong hold I point out the Key West Yacht Club, terribly exclusive and reclusive on North Roosevelt Boulevard is where the city power brokers hang out. This place is actually a refuge for middle class families, snowbirds who want to see and be seen and don't have the credentials for the real thing, and a few eccentrics like me that like the facilities without the folderol of watching sports on TV and making small talk at the rather nice wood and brass bar. The food is actually quite good and happy hour is extremely reasonably priced.

The views are pretty nice too.

Worlds collide on Stock Island, and moves to increase the proportion of places like this will put strains on worker housing on Stock Island. The Yacht Club used to be called Peninsular Marine a place where boats were hauled out of te steer and repaired in an atmosphere as unlike this as its possible to imagine. I used to bring my oat here to to do woe and I was intimately familiar with the cold water shower and seatless toilets of Peninsular and standing in line petitioning for office time. Peninsular was home to homeless who made a life among the hulks permanently propped up in the dirt and gravel of the old boatyard. I remember groups of boat dwellers making fires in old oil drums during cold fronts standing around under the hulls of their boats and sharing beers and talking boat talk watching the flames flicker and hold the cold at bay.

Is it better now? I don't know but I can move between both worlds and I take them as they come.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Monday Morning

The start of another week in Key West and a few other inconsequential places around the globe. 80 degrees by day and 70 degrees by night for the foreseeable future. Bummer. We have no exciting weather forecast though power did go out on Ramrod Key for a few hours Saturday afternoon. I found out when I woke up and the house was hot and still and some impatient berk across the canal was running a buzzy generator to keep the all important electrons flowing. I read a book in the sun. That was the weekend's excitement while snow smothered people elsewhere and power went down and left people freezing. I cannot imagine being poor, covered in snow and lacking any form of heat. Way too exciting. This is Key West Bight seen from Trumbo Road near the Coastguard Station.

We paused to listen as the National Anthem rang out at the base played electronically in modern chintzy fashion at eight in the morning, eight bells the start of the forenoon watch. After this reminder that Key West is a military town we ambled off to watch people live the tropical life. Breakfast al fresco at Harpoon Harry's. Try that in February where you live in the northern hemisphere. If you live in Hawaii take a two day road trip after breakfast and see where that gets you.

I was going to delete this missed shot except suddenly I noticed she is wearing clothing identical in color to her bicycle. I know nothing of fashion but it struck me as a bit odd. Should I wear bottle green when I ride my Bonneville?

Tourists come here to ride the Conch Train and learn about Key West's Hisotry in a ninety minute tour. The trains irritate residents by their slow progress and incessant repetitive narration, the same words at the same spot on the entire tour. However, if we are going to be honest the train is an excellent way to get a start on learning about the influences that helped create modern Key West. Early in the morning some dude in a pick up was fixing something so nothing should look out of place at the critical moment when people pay to ride.

I dislike motorcycle with external speakers that play music as they ride. The sound quality is awful, their choice of music generally is the same and to me it detracts from the experience of riding. The great thing about a motorcycle snthatktlegitimatley takes you out of the world, far from phones texts and noise. You and the machine in the world. Obviously modern technology enables geeks to plug in music and phones and all the rest of it but that's for them, not for me. I ride and I am out of touch with everything but the road. As you can see below I am in a minority, my usual status. You could buy two Bonnevilles for the price of this Harley with the antenna at the back just above the tin dangly testicles(!). I ride a Bonneville so I keep my balls to myself thank you.

Salt life is alive and well and so deserves another shot of the much sought after mural at the former Waterfront Market, shortly to become a brew pub, they say.

Winter is the time of year when socialists invade the Keys and supermarkets carry products from my childhood by Crosse and Blackwell Home | Crosse & Blackwell – Gourmet and Specialty Food Products which are enjoyed by residents of the 51st state, those people who pay high taxes and get socialized healthcare. They come down in droves this time of year in their expensive cars and motor homes, all they can afford because they live in the workers frozen gulag called Canada. So we impoverished tropical 99 percenters try to get them to release their overvalued dollars to us and Buddy Owen has come upon an interesting scam. It's well known Canadians' greatest exports are hockey and poutine and here is the American version of that; I guess that's what it is. It loos pretty good, certainly better than proper Canadian fries and brown sauce.

The startling new addition to Schooner Wharf is coming along nicely if this big white box looks nice to you. It will probably blend in nicely with the new hotel that's scheduled to go up across the street.

I was struck by the numbers of tourist boats parked in the bight, all red yellow blue and orange stripes.

There are booths all over the city ready to sell you a ticket if you want to go for a ride. Early morning is a good time to get in depth low down on the various rides:

Damn! My dog's having a second breakfast again. Check out the trash can not fifty feet away in the background. Alcohol does not make humans into better people.

Then I goofed off for a while. I took this picture of public housing in Bahama Village and I liked it. So I messed with it.

Cheyenne was busy so I made it into sepia.

Then I took the sepia and did something else with it.

Have a great week. Mine's off to a good start.

Posted with Blogsy

Lovely Key West

These, on the other hand are pictures I took of Key West to show how we are weathering the Nemo Storm which has been smothering the northeast in snow. This is more my speed. 

I took this picture of the cracked house wondering how much one might pay in rent for a place like this, were it for rent at all. 

The Key West Youth Hostel on South Street. Much less expensive if you can sleep in a dorm even if you can find space there.

Cheyenne as usual not swimming, but cooling off.

This is a city of cars which may come as a surprise considering its geography. But if you look at old pictures of Key West you will always see, from the early 20th century, lots of cars parked on city streets. Like this, perhaps, only less so.

An abandoned house here below, "bank owned" I think they call them, or by that horrid euphemism REO, as though real estate could own itself.

Seen below Casa Marina, all washed out  in the distance by the powerful winter sun.

Lovely old Florida shutters to keep sunlight at bay.

Golly, just think, if we had seasons these leaves would be dead.

Reynolds School on the street by the same name.

This seems to be dentists' corner, my own is just up the street. However Claude Harris lacks this splendid old fashioned sign.

Hmm, Cheyenne seems to be wondering if Mommy's people are around...if she hadn't married me they would let her into the temple if she chose. But I am not one of the chosen people and she is thus polluted. Religion is weird. The Bishop of Monterey nearly refused to allow me to marry in the Roman church among whom I was born, because I was marrying a non believer. I'd have been fine getting spliced at city hall...damnation be damned!

Posted with Blogsy