The Meadows

To be awake at dawn with your Labrador and to have not a care in the world is a wonderful thing. I decided it was time we went for a walk in the Meadows, that part of Key West that looks like Old Town but is on the western edge of Garrison Bight.

It's those streets bounded by Angela at Peary Court to Truman, and White to Eisenhower.

The bits I like about it is that it's a quiet neighborhood, not least at dawn in September. In winter throngs of people would be out walking their dogs about now.

My dog had the run of the place and this was her day, apparently to sniff tires.

I enjoy the mixture of architecture here, Old Florida:

Trim homes with compliant palms to add a touch of tropical charm:

A pensive Labrador weighing her options:

Lots of trees in this neighborhood, always a sign of wealth for some reason. Homes in The Meadows aren't cheap, and half a million dollars won't buy you much if you are used to ranchettes on quarter acres in other places. There are no sidewalks which is annoying and off street parking is rare as most garages have been sacrificed to create more living space.

The charm of this neighborhood is obvious, despite the cars crammed on the streets.

The Meadows got their name from the time these streets were built on a meadow, I am told.

There are no shops, no tourist attractions, no convenience stores and thus no reasons to visit these selected streets, unless you live here or are eccentric enough to enjoy walking your dog here.

Even the old street markers survive even if they are not apparently considered worth preserving legibly.

And so we left before the neighbors were properly awake.

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Seven Mile Bridge Clouds



I drove  to Marathon where my wife teaches, to meet her for dinner at the Tarpon Creek Grille at the Holiday Inn. It was a spur of the moment thing and Cheyenne did not want to stay home so I took her in the car on an empty Overseas Highway. I was struck by the cloud cover, caused by one of several tropical depressions blowing wind and rain into Southeast Florida recently.  I was so isolated on the road I took a few pictures, not my usual, just off the cuff shots of my primary color world reduced to pale shades of blue and gray. For a change.

 

 

Dinner of Cuban rice balls and Italian shrimp pizza was good. The new restaurant is pretty and service was first rate. I want to go back.

Walking Around Fleming



I have given up wondering how much other people are aware of their own mortality but ever since I was a teenager my mother's death brought home to me the very tenuous nature of life, and the impermanence of our time on earth. It is commonplace for the subject to produce nervous laughter or avoidance or irritation if a blundering fool like me brings the subject up in polite company. I am fond of remarking that if I die while riding, well, that's not something to mourn, but to accept.

 Yet even with an awareness of death life has to be lived as though time is limitless to some extent. you can't max out your credit and spend all your pay check and expect to live with any serenity and purpose at all. yes, we are going to die, but we do have to keep a little something in reserve assuming we won't actually die today! Key West with its churches and its  street people is an example of how life can so easily be lived on the edge.

Last week I learned of the death of an Internet blogger who died in his 60s while asleep, not in the throes of some ill fated road traffic crash, as one might assume would be the fate of a rider... So this past week has been filed with the reflections that come in the wake of a reminder of the very definite parameters of life.

Walking around Key West with my dog I am reminded of abundance, wealth and the superfluous stuff that overloads our lives. Check out all these trash cans:

Even the recycling bins are filled with garbage that will rot in the landfill 200 miles away at Pompano Beach. Bottles and cans only? Hardly!

 I took a walk one morning recently under cloudy skies and Cheyenne, who doesn't  seem to know what gloom is, cheered me up by trotting back and forth incessantly. There is stirring in me that feeling that I must not let life pass me by, perhaps a post mortem gift from Bob Leong, now a mere shade himself no longer able to ride and see and live, and thus I feel the burden that requires me not to waste a minute. Which is bloody hard to do!

 Routines reach out to us and grab us by the ankles. Fear of the future impels us to seek work and security and a place in the world.  Our friends expect us to toe the line and social pressures try to bend us to fit the mold.

More than most I have found my own way through life, declining o be settled in one place, choosing not to have children, eschewing most attempts to shoe horn me into a "proper" career. Yet key West has seduced me into immobility and I like it.

Bob recently wrote of preparing to put his two motorcycles into winter storage to face Canada's cold season off the road and he lamented the lack of rides taken in 2014. That thought set me to thinking how much commuting I have done and how little motorcycle travel his year. We have done family road trips ith more to follow, if I'm spared, but motorcycle trips? Nah. 

By an odd coincidence my wife recently suggested I should take a motorcycle trip this Fall and spend a long weekend cruising the Sunshine State. I guess I must have been giving off that vibe. I hope the vibe is just a need to live, to do something, to prove in some infantile way I am alive beyond the restrictions of routine. To sit, to drink, to stare aimlessly into space is as sure a living death as any.

I walked Cheyenne, I got tired after a full night at work, I went home, I slept. It was good.

Crawling Awake At Higgs Beach

Early morning at Higgs Beach, the county owned property on the south shore of the city.

Higgs beach is a popular hang out.

 Local residentially challenged folk like to spend their days here, and though the beach is closed at eleven pm each day it is open to all during the day. Monroe County frequently has an off-duty deputy sheriff assigned to patrol the beach during the day.

Sleeping by day is permitted and the restrooms are open which helps keep the place clean. There is a sign in the bathrooms reminding patrons that ablutions in the sinks are not allowed. The overnight homeless shelter on Stock Island two miles away has showers. 

Just because they have no roof does not mean they don't have opinions. Lots of opinions for anyone who will listen.

 This woman was loudly giving backing directions to a truck that nearly managed to cream another parked car. Had she one, you might have been tempted to tell her not to give up her day job as traffic control is not her strength. No harm done, just a lot of noise.

 Some of us keep our shoes on the porch, others park their sandals outside their car. The beach is better admired through a windshield for some people.

These shelters used to be favorite hang outs for frequently rowdy drunk homeless citizens. They got themselves banned following numerous citizen complaints, picnickers intimidated from bringing their families to the beach.

The county adopted a smart and simple expedient of  fencing off the pavilions and calling it a restricted children's playground and all adults must be accompanied by children. Unfortunately one of the shade trees shed a branch when children were playing here so all the trees were promptly mown down and replaced by awnings. But the local subjects and their street drama have been effectively silenced. 

The beach itself is raked every morning to keep noxious vegetable matter off the sand, expensive Bahamian stuff, imported to delight tourists, as are the coconut palms which are not native trees in these islands.

The tractor rolls up and down scooping up dead seaweed while the dude with the bucket wanders around collecting trash.

 A tractor is actually a rare sight in these islands where agriculture is an unknown profession. What dirt there is, is too expensive to use to grow crops in this salt laden air. Pioneers used to grow pineapples in the Keys a hundred years ago but cultivated fields stop at Homestead. 

 The short cement swimming pier has steps leading down to the water but this morning I saw one dude only on it, running up and down looking for the source of eternal youth.

Higgs Beach has grassy areas and a dog park about which I wrote in 2010 and which is still there though under threat of being moved to accommodate a new road pattern at Higgs Beach.

I find these outdoor spectacles of Greco-Roman private exercise to be rather tasteless. God invented gymnasiums for a reason, but fortunately they all have jobs to go to or something because later in the day they disappear, unlike the residentially challenged.

Cheyenne is the world's worst opportunist but these folks were simply exchanging opinions about the world and had no food on offer so she soon lost interest.

This guy further up the path at Rest Beach next door to Higgs showed immediate interest in my blonde babe...who was more interested in his breakfast which was placed incautiously on the ground. Like most men he would gladly have given up lunch for a chance to chat up one as cute as Cheyenne but I felt bad for him and dragged her onwards. He might thank me later.

But he sure did look desolate as Cheyenne stumped off with me, her one true love.

 A lot of early risers enjoy the White Street Pier to check out the sunrise.

I might have too but my dog pulled me away among the palms and  trash cans at the Bocce Court on the way back to the car...

Sunset Sailing From The Archives

Reading this essay from five years ago its clear my boat troubles have come and gone. Even down here winter thoughts about cold water, less than 80 degrees, start to close in and though we have maybe two more months swimming the end of a refreshing dip in our canal is nigh! Remembrance:

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Sails At Sunset

A hankering to go on a sunset sail has been building inside my head. I'm not sure why, perhaps it's just the fact that my own skiff has spent the summer on the trailer instead of at the dock behind our house. My wife's shoulder is healing nicely after her worker's comp (socialized medicine- wonderful! No insurance squabbles, no bills!) surgery and she is thinking of taking back her Vespa from me now that she is well enough to ride.

She isn't yet well enough to climb the ladder to get back into the boat after a swim so we have been forced to go swimming off the beach and I find I have missed being out on the water in my little boat.

Finding myself on Trumbo Road of an afternoon while my wife was doing administrative things at the school district headquarters, I noticed the sunset tour boats taking off from Key West Bight. The sail in the picture above is passing the Coastguard base at Trumbo Point. Howard Trumbo was the man in charge of building a railroad terminal and ferry port where there had been water prior to 1911. The Over The Sea Railroad needed a terminal to connect to ferry boats to and from Havana and as no such place existed in Key West Henry Flagler told his engineers to build one, according to the indispensable The Streets of Key West by J Wills Burke.

Wisteria Island, known locally as Christmas Tree Island thanks to all the casuarina trees on it, is a product of the harbor dredging over the years. It can be seen in the picture above. It's privately owned and so far unable to be developed. It is pretty much reserved as a dog walking area for people living at anchor around the island. There is talk of developing the island from time to time but unlike Sunset Key it has no utility services which makes everything more expensive. Some wags have suggested, rather sensibly in my opinion, turning it into a clothing optional park...

They call sunset charter boats like the one picture above "cattle boats" or more politely "head boats" because of the number of people they can cram onto them. I think the Fury catamarans can carry almost 150 people each, and they are extremely popular among the noisy younger set so they seem to do an excellent job with their loud music and on deck bar.

This private sail boat is heading out past the ferry dock on Sunset Key. This is the other spoil island in the harbor and used to be known as Tank Island thanks to the Navy fuel tanks built on it. The Navy never actually used the tanks but had water and electricity piped out to the island which made development easier when the city took back the island as part of the military Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) period twenty years ago. Brilliantly the city managed to sell the island and the waterfront land to a hotel developer for all of eleven million dollars.

I have thought about a biplane ride too, flying over the island seems like it would be fun. I think it's $50 for two people for 15 minutes and something like $200 for half an hour, but don't quote me.

In between all the big boats and the crowds the little boats continue to run back and forth between the dinghy dock at Turtle Kraals and the boats at anchor:

This is the Fort Myers ferry leaving Key West Bight and starting on it's three hour journey to the docks at Fort Myers Beach.

I was struck by how all my pictures seem to come out in black and white, all the color washed out by the intensity of September's setting sun:

My wife was taking inordinately long so I rode round to the White Street Pier to get some pictures of the boats out on the water:

Before heading back to Key West Bight for a final shot of the day:

Now all I have to do is coordinate a day when my wife isn't working late and I am not working at all, to take the sunset cruise.

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