Safe Harbor, Stock Island

I had to take my lunch break earlier than I liked so instead of taking a nap I took a Vespa ride across town to Stock Island. It was rather disconcerting not to be the only person awake, but that was to be expected considering it wasn't yet midnight. Hogfish Restaurant is where tourists go to slum and you can see why.

The giant palm thatched building reeks of tropical ambiance, no walls, a  funky bar and a menu heavy with fish and frying and food served at rough hewn tables. Its a fabulous schtick especially for refugees from winter snows.

But its also a marina, home to equally funky and not-so-funky boats which in turn act as low income housing for people who live and work around here. Mixed in with the tourist ambiance is real life and perhaps that's why Safe Harbor is so alluring.

Humphrey Bogart could have been filmed here in To Have and To Have Not a film set in wartime Caribbean waters and shot in Burbank, California on a sound stage, they say.

The film has little to do with the book which was actually set in Key West in part and when I walk these docks I am put in mind of the book. They say its not one of Hemingway's best novels and certainly one can't argue as its choppy and oddly constructed but some its descriptions of Key West depressed are vivid enough to make it a worthwhile read.

I like Safe Harbor at night, and you would too if you like the dark corners and distant lights I show here, bathed in warm night air.

Houseboats line the docks and I wonder how long they will last. There is plan for Monroe County to buy the neighboring fish docks for seven million dollars to "preserve the working waterfront" and while I like the idea I wonder how useful it might be in the long run.

It used to be that Key West Bight was packed with commercial shrimping boats, so thick were they tied up you could walk on water across the harbor jumping from boat to boat. They got pushed out and now its all recreational craft docked between the Galleon and Dante's.

All the talk of Stock Island development puts me in mind of Key West's maritime past, a reality in 1970 and now mere history. How can these modest people survive here in the face of so much money?

It's all shadows and light, open doors, people watching TV shirtless while the world they left behind Up North is still covered in coats and mufflers, snow still refusing to melt completely.

It's an eccentric way of life worth hanging onto. But money breeds more money and the desire for more money so...

...these delightful archaic touches may be here now and I cherish them before they are not.

I have never quite appreciated as much as I do here the constant stress of change and development and growth and progress. There are so many small towns across America where communities decay and disintegrate and that seems like t would be bad enough. But this drive to build and change seems insidiously worse.

On the face of it who could argue with progress? Yet progress so often ends up as bland uniformity and when you see the crude liveliness of a place like Hogfish you know it couldn't survive gentrification.

Well, for now its all there waiting to be seen and enjoyed just the way it is.

They even have scoter parking. Very civilized, for such an uncivilized spot. 

Industrial Art

On a recent trip up north my wife went shopping and I was let loose with my camera, my ceaseless thoughts and my dog. Not necessarily in that order. Coming across the wreckage if a pay phone I was tempted by the gods of irony, a photo of the outmoded phone by the modern pocket model. A phone book? Hmm, Google works much better...

Target for Cheyenne is much less of an experience than your average small town store. Far fewer food particles for an inquisitive Labrador to hunt down. And these unconsidered trifles require much harder work.

I was amazed by the size and scope if this glass wall. These bricks used to be desirable collectors objects in some places I lived, cool symbols of a different era.

Target went to town with them.

Call me mad but the back areas of the mall looked Art Deco inspired to me.

All was not lost for my dog, never one to give up the hunt.

It's not Miami Beach, but the colors and shapes inspired me.

Perhaps I've been spending too much time in the Keys where fortresses like this are nowhere to be found ( happily).

Life sprouts in the unlikeliest places:

We took off across the parade ground to take the fort by storm...

 

Bizarre looking, toadstools of modern fire fighting utility, all properly labeled.

"Vision Drives Us. Passion Defines Us." When a mall management company uses this kind of slogan you know vision and passion have reached the peak of their over use, and soon management Gurus will find some new fake marketing emotion to drive us crazy with a new manufactured "passion."

Sometimes Labradors over do it and then they have to rest.

That's okay by me, I can enjoy sitting for a spell. I have a smart phone loaded with books; try reading a book on your pay phone.

 

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Cheyenne, Traveler

A request from your's truly: the Travel and Safety podcasts are now on iTunes, updated Mondays and fully operational. It would be a huge help to myself and my Producer if you could swing by and give them a rating. TravelandSafety.com/iTunes will get you there and it  would be very much appreciated.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

I took Cheyenne to the mainland a few days ago. It's turned hot now and walking when the sun is up is  a burden for my dog. I worry sometimes that age is creeping up on her and I watch for signs of decrepitude. She seems to be sleeping a lot more now and the vet says she is "very lively" for her age. 

With daytime highs in the mid 80s I keep her water bowl to hand and I listen for the sound of her panting, a sure sign she is in distress, because she never barks or whines.

My wife had the genius idea of putting a  fan in the back of the car to move the air around. This after she herself had to sit in the back and discovered for herself how warm it could be even with the air blasting the front seats. The result of this twenty dollar purchase is humans in the front are no longer freezing in an arctic air conditioned blast and the dog in the back no longer panting in the heat. Harmony restored.

Even though I worry about her health what I am really concerned about is how I will cope without her. When I am tired or annoyed at the world taking Cheyenne for a walk is better even than going for a motorcycle ride and were she not around I would not have that companionship. In talking about it with my wife she pointed out Cheyenne had eight tough years with a family that used her more than loved her though her retirement with us has lasted six years, a lot longer retirement than we will get, she pointed out... I dug out this old picture and thought for a moment. That was Cheyenne's predecessor Emma, a dog I got from the pound when she was two and who died of spinal cancer at age 12. She traveled with us all over the country by car, and sailed with us from San Francisco to key West putting up with all the madness of our lives. Dogs amaze me.

Cheyenne had better hang in for a couple more years. I need her around that long to get me through the next few projects of my life. In the shorter term we are going to North Carolina next week, cool air, mountain freshness and total attention all the time. She'll be sick of me fawning all over her by the time we get back to Florida.

Key West Map

Suitable for the Ides of March, I think.

This was on Facebook, a passing picture and I have no idea which genius dreamed it up or created it. It should be in the t-shirt shops on Duval Street if there were any justice, but here it is.

Chasing Tags On A Vespa

It's turned hot again. So there's only one thing for it, if you are a hairy Labrador; push your forehead up against something and pass out while waiting for winter to return.

I headed out  to Big Pine Key to get some milk and to pick up a scooter tag for the ADVrider forum.I was heading to No Name Pub when I saw a vintage Yamaha parked by the baseball diamond on Key Deer Boulevard. Oooh I thought, an XS500, very rare. Trevor liked it enough he pounced on a neighbor to sell it and eventually the neighbor yielded the bike to the young enthusiast.

The motorcycle is  perfect, a little rusty slightly faded paint but original, unused and ride-able.  The early models were  a bit cranky and go a reputation for not being reliable so they ended up not selling well but they were quite advanced for their time. This is an extraordinary survivor lacking a little bit of oil before Trevor could get back on the road. His buddy was heading over to refill the oil tank for him.

I showed Trevor over the Vespa, the spare wheel, the hand gear shift, the split rims, the flat  forced air cooled cylinder, then I took off to grab my next tag, a building with the word "pub" in it: 

Suburbia on Big Pine: big homes, lawns, canals, a sense of order and middle class sobriety which make up this Tropical Bay Estate. 

 In my studies to make this Vespa reliable at high speeds I have been contemplating the mixture of air versus fuel that is in the combustion chamber as the Vespa gets hotter and faster at speeds approaching 60 miles per hour. It is a dark art but I need to get familiar with it if I don't want to burn a piston up every time I hold the scooter at full speed, a supposed 62  mph (100 km/h). So what one does is a "spark plug chop," a nerve wracking thing. You hold the scooter at full speed for  half a minute then shut off the ignition, coast to a stop and pull out the burning hot spark plug. Yum!

So I went out to Middle Torch Key and took off at full tilt. I timed my run to stop the scooter in the shade of the only tall tree where I played "shade tree mechanic" and took the spark plug out. As I started a couple of Harley riders came by, ignoring me in my apparent distress. That's funny I said to myself as I burned my fingers, I'll bet they wave like crazy to their fellow Hogs on the highway...but do they know enough about riding to think to stop alongside a stopped motorbike (or Vespa)?

The plug was looking good, chocolate brown and a little bit oily. The mixture looks good. I tried it again on my way to work holding 62 mph for a bit. The plug was still brown but a little less oily so I increased the amount of fuel in hopes of keeping the piston cool at speed.

The Harley came back as I contemplated the result of my plug chop. No stopping this time either. He only looks like an old school bike rider.

 Time to ride for pleasure. At times like these variety would be the spice of life. I ride where I can and enjoy the wilderness as I can. A mountain would be nice but this is what I have:

Play with the Vespa, mess with the camera and time to go home, take  a nap and prepare to commute to work.

 The next tag required your scooter at a sports field with the scoreboard visible. Looked good:

And so it goes, ride a little work a lot. Enjoy the warm night air.

Industrial Key West

Stock Island has always played second fiddle to Key West. It's very name derives from the fact that the early settlers kept cows here and raised them for meat. When it came time to kill them they took them to Rest Beach and slaughtered them there for consumption in the city. These days things are marginally less agricultural and more industrial here.

Stock Island is where things get done that make Key West work, but there is change in the air.

Even the green triangle in the heart of "downtown" has a for sale sign on it. The Tom Thumb convenience store is the closest thing to a grocery store here, even though there are two Publix stores, one Winn Dixie and two Fausto's markets in neighboring Key West across the Cow Key Bridge.

Housing here is a mixture of small bungalows, a few houses on stilts and lots of trailers. For Sale again:

These modest homes are where Spanish and Creole is spoken. Nattily dressed tourists and snowbirds pass through on their way to slum it in local color at Hogfish, a tourist trap near the fishing docks, or at Roostica a rather good New Jersey-style Italian-American restaurant on the main drag.

Stock Island has bus service to Key West, locals ride bikes or scooters, this is a hold out for true working class restaurant workers and commercial fishermen. But it can't last.

Plans have been in the works for years to transform this rustic working man's retreat into a place to increase wealth for the usual crowd. The crash of 2008 slowed things down but real estate is heating up in the Keys once again and those plans are starting to look appetizing.

It's funny to me to see how the American Dream manifests itself among other immigrants. So often it's a car, proudly bearing traces of home. To me a well worn expensive SUV is less of a draw than a useful small car but I've never been drawn to four wheeled vehicles. Haiti, soccer, BMW - a winning combo!

Jiri's motorcycle shop is still in business here but his neighbors are gone. Rents are going up and I know this place may slip away too. Jiri makes no bones about the irritation of having to relocate his motorcycle repair shop. I'm not happy.

The concept of one human family, the motto of the city of Key West, approved years ago by the city commission to express solidarity with gay Key West, gains new and ironic meaning as money strangles these islands. Here the free stickers are used to cover a failing window in another Stock Island jalopy:

The new CVS pharmacy is one more nudge in the direction of gentrification. To me it looks like the US embassy in Bagdad, a towering pile of cleanliness, crisp black asphalt, street lights, a beacon of progress on an island that's messy, disorganized and eminently human.

Across the street Coral Hammocks gated community is out if place in the same way. Trees surround homes protected by fencing, homes in the Key West style, crammed for maximum return on the location where the trailer park of the same name used to exist alongside US Highway One. I used to see a bar there as I rode to and from work. "Free beer tomorrow!" was the cheerful sign above the door. Then finally they crossed out "tomorrow" and hand painted "today" on the last day of operation.

On the other side of the island gentrification has transformed old dirty marinas into country clubs. These facilities face an interesting future by comparison:

And this low income housing? Maybe these will survive. They will need the labor won't they? Even though the new hotels are said to be planning to create on-site worker housing for staff.

May we live in interesting times. In places where tourists never go.

 

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