A Sunday Ride

I am keeping my fingers crossed but with 1,000 crisp clean miles on my old Vespa I seem to be moving into a place of trust with my 1979 P200E. I have been riding it to work, for errands and for fun over the past couple of months and I am finding the scooter to be living up to my hopes for sensible reliable transportation in the Keys.

The idea was to spare my well ridden Triumph Bonneville motorcycle from racking up another 80,000 commuter miles by using a low maintenance , properly restored classic Vespa to ride to work. These old machines have a reputation for reliability when restored properly and not tuned within an inch of their lives for speed. For me, who grew up with these two stroke wonders there is the satisfaction of an old nostalgic itch as well as I bomb along Highway One keeping up with traffic and enjoying an old school ride. Or, as in this case taking an hour to abandon my dog and ride a few back roads through the Lower Keys. 

On Facebook (Michael Conchscooter) the furniture abandoned at the end of the road prompted quite a few ludicrous comments, though I had to confess it never occurred to me to try to step through it and see if I could find a portal back to Narnia, which CS Lewis based on a village near my hometown of Terni, in Italy. I caught this t-shirt in a shop window in Narni in 2013:

No Lions ruling the Keys or Umbria, worst luck, but my Vespa and its 12 horsepower rule the road.

It's the  time of year when the winds honk out of the southeast, blowing cool breezes up from the Bahamas, a time of year when the sun's heat starts to assert itself, winter cold fronts are a memory (missed by some) yet for those of us that live here the heat is not yet close to unberable. Early mornings are cool and during the afternoon the air is not yet saturated as it will be in July and  August into September. I rate this weather as just about perfect and swimming season is just about here.

Now I get to look forward to summer thunderstorms, lashing rain, spectacular lightning at night  and big black ominous clouds by day. I'll have to dig out my waterproofs and see how my reconditioned Vespa does in wet season...

I hope you have an easy reflective Sunday, and gird your loins for the  week ahead. Me and my Vespa are ready.

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Transvestites And Old Bikes, Keys Dress Up

I am Facebook friends with Vickie who as I recall posted these pictures and I immediately knew I had to use them so I said so, and here they are. I loved these pictures because they are so casual and random and so totally unlike the image of drag queens which only ever put them on stage as objects.

Tourists like to give themselves a thrill by heading down to the last remaining block of Key West Gayness, the eight hundred block of Duval Street and check out the three gay bars, straight friendly if you don't dig too deep into the back of the 801, and ready to put on a show. You could go to La Te Da further up the street or try slumming at Bobby's on Simonton but that is just for drinks and stuff that follows from lack of sober judgement. I've been to the cabaret, done that and got bored. It may be that I lack the capacity of imagination, or the ability to step outside myself but watching men dress up as women pretending to be well known performers strikes me as an odd way to spend a vacation. Lots of people love it, and it is all a huge attraction.

Clearly it's not my scene but I am told that Wilton Manors, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale is this geberation's gay scene, good weather, lots of land for cheaper housing, accessible. It's not Key West, but this town is pricing everyone out of it's housing. In the days when Navy sailors attracted gay men Key West attracted men with money taste and culture and transformed this little fishing village. Now it's too popular for its own good and we straight camp followers are doing our best to suffocate the free spirited weirdness that made Key West so colorful. I go to the convenience store for a coke at two in the morning and find myself in line behind a noted grand dame of the transvestite scene, except here she's make up free shopping for stupid daily stuff just like all of us. It's a metaphor for Key West itself, all made up and nowhere to go, and shorn of glamor in daily life. Still, it suits me even if I am transvestite-free...

One thing though, you don't often get to see a variety of motorcycles so when I found an elderly Yamaha from Wisconsin in the parking lot I stopped and stared.

It looked perfect, by my estimate roughly a 1970 first generation of a motorcycle that changed the way Japanese motorcycles were viewed by people who wanted to ride Bonnevilles that were reliable and modern but didn't have four cylinders like much derided "sewing machines." In short it married tradition with modernity and I remember it well.

Naturally old fanatics get all wound up about the details but to me it's just a picture into my past and I loved staring at it.

Of course the human story behind it was much better. It's owner (no name, forgot) collects and fixes Nortons but this bike circulated among his friends, members of his wedding party it turns out and the Yamaha came back to him after passing through several hands. And he brought it down to the Keys for the longer riding season.

Riders of old bikes talk and it was a rare treat. The Vespa is running nicely, for now. So what's next?

 

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Decrepitude - The Sugarloaf Bat Tower

I've stared at this picture quite a bit. I know exactly what this picture looks like in color. But here it is in monochrome, black and white as we ordinary mortals say, and the old wreck of a bat tower looks like anything but a long since abandoned home for mosquito-eating bats. It could be a rocket or some industrial smoke stack spewing misty white poisonous gas. Or it could be a wooden tower built as a bat home almost a hundred years ago.

I love these clouds that are starting to creep up over the Keys. They aren't poisonous gas at all. As they build in rainy season, the summer, they get thick and heavy and dark and threatening. They create drama in our little island world. They burst open and drop tons of cold gray water all over us.

Taking that sense of forboding to ground level I saw an abandoned U-Haul van at the top of a slope. Bear in mind that this being the Keys the slope was not steep and the top of the slope might have been maybe eight feet above sea level, to be generous. I squatted and tried zooming to get the claustrophobic effect I was looking for, but as that didn't work I pulled the picture back and with the help of the monochrome I got the tunnel effect I wanted.

Turning back to the tower the dried mud, made moist by rain or a high high tide especially in summer, caught my eye. This stuff is typical of the Lower Keys, clay-like it dries to a crust with nasty looking scabs of dried mud floating on the surface. In monochrome it looks lunar, and I left the landings of the rocket ship in the background to give it perspective.

One reason I have resisted the iPhone for so long has been the tinting of pictures that comes out of so many cameras. It's so popular it looks like a default setting to me. I tried it here as a transition from the colorless pictures above to the full color pictures below. Besides the washed out look fits with the sense of decay I found in the black white pictures that precede it. To use this filter on sunny holiday snaps seems odd to me but I see it all the time.

Cheyenne starring in her own movie-again. Perhaps this time it's an Ingmar Bergman... Slow, laconic and in black and white.

These are the real life pictures I also took on my Labrador's walk.

I have visited the lace from time to time so there are other posts in my blog about its history. (Link).

The osprey nest on top is of course getting bigger, while the wood below gets more and more decrepit.

There is still no sign this thing exists as you travel the Overseas Highway. Just look for the sky diving sign west of Sugarloaf Lodge.

 

 

 

Time is slowly running out for this unloved home for bats.

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Old Town Grocer

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It seems a fire has wrecked this place, 4/11/2015.  I am distraught, though I doubt hardly a smidgen compared to the owners whose enterprise was full of promise.

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What possessed this nice young couple (she is out of the frame) to open a small store on Whitehead Street I don't know, but I'm very glad they did.

It's an unassuming store front with a large menu board with sandwiches and Cuban coffee on offer. Inside it is much larger than you'd expect, "a work in progress" we were told that is grounded in quality foods and flavors judging by what's on the shelves.

We hit the specials for lunch, and I got shepherds pie, apparently very popular and I can see why. They use the original receipe with ground beef (lamb is not an American favorite) with peas carrots and toasted mash potatoes on top. There's nothing fancy here or any appeal to hip young tastes. It's honest grub well done.

The gumbo had plenty of properly cooked shrimp, okra that was miraculously textured and not slimy, hot and spicy but again done right. This isn't a flashy dish trying to convince you burning heat is hip and therefore good. It was just well spiced and full of flavor. It came with a side of rice which we didn't need. We got more good overall than we needed but it was too good to waste any of it.

They sell beer and wine, of the latter I could shop here and be happy, Guinness, Blue Moon, Yuengling, a variety of all sorts of decent beers. You can't drink inside with your meal - we ate informally at the couch across from the counter- it was cool and pleasant. Outside it was trying to be summer.

Old Town Grocer - what a find! The movie we went to see was selected by my wife and it turned out to be an Argentine film of rare writing and exquisite fun. A series of short films not connected appeared on the screen in quick succession. Each one told a wild story of human stupidity, or madness or rage; each one left a last impression.

Wild Tales, well worth a view.

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Key West Artisan Market

We had planned a Sunday afternoon in town to see a movie and it happened that I spotted the Artesian Market on Eaton Street on our way to lunch. There was no parking of course but we improvised for our two scooters and my wife went on the prowl with me trailing behind.

This used to be Cates Auto dealership which closed and got taken over by an expanded Restaurant Store, a building filled with kitchen toys and serious stuff, not to mention fresh bread and it turns out the most delicious mozzarella: more on that in a minute. The dealership used to park cars under this roof which is now a handy place to shop as the noon time sun was quite warm.

Shop, yes or get your hair braided or something.

My wife wanted her aching neck to get some attention but the line was too long.

I got a pound of honey made in the Keys and for sale at the Salt store on Fleming at Margaret streets.

The Juice Guy sold us a bottle of coconut lime juice that was excellent, and he was having a good time doing it.

Season your nuts anyone? My wife lives to cook and is always looking for new and interesting flavors. These are sold locally when she needs to re-supply.

We had lunch plans but the pasta cooked fresh in front of everybody had me entranced. It looked delicious.

We were leery of taking mozzarella to lunch and then to a movie before riding home on our Vespas unrefrigerated but he told us not to worry. So we didn't and the stuff was luscious.

Made right here by curdling the milk, the cheese was buttery and not all salty with just the right soft texture. This is the mozzarella you can buy at the restaurant store.

The Crepe place on Petronia had a food truck. More lunch options.

And like any Farmer's Market Up North there were the basics as well. This market takes place on the first Sunday of the month and will wrap up for the summer after next month. There is another market on Thursdays so the principle of fresh local food is alive and well even in this most isolated of non- agricultural communities. Annie's Organics still delivers through the Keys from Homestead which is two hours away and is a thriving agricultural town south of Miami. Maybe not so entirely isolated then.

We stopped by Garbo's in a futile attempt to introduce my wife to Key West's most famous and elusive food truck. They were closed of course so we ride up the street to lunch at Old Town Grocery, a new place on Whitehead Street, of which more tomorrow.

One last picture taken on Caroline Street of my old Vespa next to a modern scooter decorated with...cloth. Hmm.

 

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