Cruising Toward Darkness

That was fun while it lasted, now the solstice is over and the sun is resuming its  decline toward the equator and beyond. So the days are going to get shorter. And here's the thing, the closer you get to the equator the less difference between night and day you get. Keeping this line of thought north of the equator the further north you go the more extreme the day and night difference becomes as the season change. Around here the biggest difference comes with the time change so from now until November 1st we will hold the line with lighter evenings. But after Fantasy Fest I'll be going home in the dark once again.

I'm not sure why I stopped yesterday morning on my way home but the sky was looking the right shade of blue, I had a marked police car in front of me so spirited riding in a 45 mph zone was not on the cards so I stopped and let the line of cars tail off into the dawn like school children trotting off to the play ground. 

 there are people who try to measure our lives by numbers, and they tell us there are 42  bridges between Key West and Florida City but what is this, though not a bridge? With water lapping either side of the Overseas Highway it is I suppose, a causeway but it feels like a bridge.

I ride with my helmet open much of the time, I had a tall windshield shipped from Parabellum to replace my very old one that developed a fatal crack owing to my inattention. The result is I can crouch slightly and keep my windshield open. It is getting that warm.

I like commuting on two wheels I'm surprised I don't see more people doing it in this climate. After all these years I still enjoy the ride. I think back to commuting in California and I think I was like most people, when I figured out the best route, based on whatever criteria mattered, I stuck to it. Rarely would I deviate or make the ride an adventure. Having only one road seems less of a disadvantage looked at that way.

My commute is easy, no cross traffic to speak of, no traffic lights or animals, no pedestrians few cyclists in the roadway, long sight lines, predictable road surface and absurdly slow speed limits for one paying attention.

 And I like the view from the road.

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Come On Down Y'All!

If you were thinking about taking a vacation in the Fabulous Florida Keys it seems as though the sooner the better because prices look set to keep going up.  Apparently  room prices have shot up in the past five years and hoteliers are saying publicly they think they can keep raising their rates. Certainly one feels that the Lower Keys have seen more than their fair share of tourists this past year but in a world where increasing "numbers" are the only desired way forward this has to be viewed as a Good Thing.

Certainly it doesn't feel as crowded in town anymore. Last winter making a left turn at an intersection felt either like you were going to put down roots before you could make the turn. And to think all those people were ready to pay abnormally high prices to stay here! But you can see why a small town with interesting architecture and prosperous flower beds might appeal, not to mention the bars and associated booze, the relatively clear waters and permanent sunshine, even if the beaches are at best modest.

After all I have been walking around Key West for far too long, even if I am rarely seen in a bar, or in one of the numerous churches, and I still take pleasure in the views. I am waiting for the house below to get air conditioning but so far so good. I confess I would have great difficulty staying up all night at work had I not a dark air conditioned cave to go home to each morning. And a portly snoring dog to serenade me to sleep.

I think about those massive increases in tourist numbers and then I pause to contemplate the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the expected opening to Cuban tourism. I wonder who imagines that mass tourism in Cuba will happen any time soon, as people in this country are notoriously unprepared to rough it on vacation. Of course a few hundred thousand will find electricity-free Cuba to be fascinating and a few more will invade the tourist enclaves like Varadero Beach, but I doubt those people clogging the hotels and guest houses of safe secure Key West will suddenly up sticks and bugger off to Cuba for a change. Look how nervous people are of visiting Mexico since drug gangs started taking their rivalries public, even though most of the country is as it ever was. I doubt Communist Cuba will sneak ferry loads of Americans from visiting this town.

Then there is the snowbird phenomenon to consider. House prices are going back up and here these empty building sit apparently even the secure garage is too full to accommodate the overflow automobile left in town to enjoy the bracing summer salt air  humidity. These are boom times for Key West tourism and I hope the city takes advantage to set thw town up in case of lean times ahead for whatever reason.

Winter crowds get tedious especially as the summer influx of family fun seekers make this town a year round destination these days. But I don't get the animosity toward visitors if one chooses to live in a town that lives off tourism. It would be like going to work and hating your job...oh wait...Joking aside I feel lucky to live where many people want to simply visit and apparently they are willing to pay what it takes to do that. Good job for all of us.

Bridge Fishing In The Keys

I confess I am a perversion of a decent upstanding fishing human being. To me standing around drowning worms and attempting to lure fish to their deaths is a dreary way to spend a day. To me it's marginally worse than standing in line with an overly full bladder. I fidget and hop from foot to foot and hope u don't have to share the spectacle of some innocent fish dragged from the life giving waters to suffocate and flop to death burned under the arid Florida sun. So I buy my fish instead.

I saw the pile of trash and figured another reason to get irritated, so instead I decided to enjoy the day and stepped over the slick of wrappers, plastic and beer bottles. "Your beer's safe," I called out, "your bait less so." He looked at me with a stare that radiated exhaustion and non comprehension mixed with a little horror as though I'd asking him if he had beaten his wife again today. A lot of anglers drive down from the great Spanish speaking Mecca that is modern Miami and spend the night pirouetting along the waterfront of several and various Keys attempting to kill fish with ballet moves worthy of the Bolshoi. Weird stuff.

Honestly I didn't bother to engage in a battle of the half witted, me mangling Italo-Spanish with a half asleep all night fisherman whose worst nightmare probably was meeting me in a good mood. His companion Socks-And-Sandals hardly noticed me as he leaned perilously over the parapet imitating either Mercury about to take flight or an indecisive suicide.

The current flowing under the road bridge is wicked and a header into the waters here would spell some serious swimming moves to survive. Nice view while you drown, though.

This guy smiled a sickly smile as I gave him a hearty Buenas properly sibilant on the ess, a form of pronouniation that made it clear I hope that my sort of Spanish was learned at the knees of a person steeped in Mexican culture. Cuban Spanish is a language that is readily identifiable by their inability to pronounce the letters of the alphabet anyone else in the Hispanic world would pronounce them.

In between meditating on the vagaries of speech I did a fine job of keeping my pig in a fur coat out of the bait. For some reason anglers need slivers of very dead, pungent oily fishes to attract the fish they wish to kill. These fish attract my dog like a pig to truffles. 108 pounds of elderly determined stubborn Labrador in hot pursuit of sun baked dead fish is a bugger to control.

What a day. I love summer, and the water is quite warm enough to swim in every day.

I left them to it, tai chi gymnastics and all and silently wished them all the best in their endeavors and may the smartest creature win. The fish I hope.

I am an untrusting soul and I reserve the right to assume the detritus of the midnight picnic, fish wrappers, beer bottles and all will. Not be neatly cleaned up and dumped in one of the multitude of trash cans thoughtfully provided by Monroe County.

A fine start to the day nonetheless.

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Everglades Vespa: End of the Adventure

Heading home from Big Cypress i started by heading east on Duff Bridge dirt road cutting through the countryside toward Highway 27. Behind me it looked like cane clearing season might have begun.

 Sugar cane is a dire crop and Big Sugar offered to sell much of its vast holdings to the state for land reclamation and restoration. The Republican State Legislature and Governor rejected the offer in their usual short-sighted manner. Sugar cane sucks the nutrients out of the soil so completely it takes huge amounts of phosphate fertilizer to keep the crops growing each year. The phosphates leach through the soil into Florida Bay and contribute to wrecking the ocean environment including the coral reef in the Keys. Brilliant stuff. Plus you have to burn off the new crops to clear the fields for harvest thus killing vast swathes of terrified wildlife. Modern techno-agriculture is a nightmare.

I love these wide open spaces, silent but for the wind whistling in your ears.  People always nag on about alligators in South Florida as though they are as common and as lethal as deep snowdrifts in Michigan in winter. In point of fact- not true. I saw maybe one shy alligator head in a canal all day and one whopper I did see at the Seminole museum scuttled off like a cockroach surprised by a sunlamp,  running madly away from my Vespa and throwing itself into a pond and out of sight before my iPhone left my pocket. Terrifying indeed, but keep spreading the rumors to keep people away. Florida is almost as deadly as Australia when it comes to wildlife. Ho Hum.

Evidence that rainy season hasn't yet kicked in, which is why insects were not present and I got not one bite from anything all day.

I looked these guys up on my phone. In some manner not explicable to me they were driving towards each other on the track in their SUVs one night around 9:30 pm and they hit each other head on. Talk about bad luck or bad timing or something. The road is dead straight for miles.

I saw no turtles or alligators or anything much. A few cormorants sunning themselves, a couple of deer which surprised me as they could have been exported from the Florida Keys, and a bunch of turkey vultures. A bunch of vultures flying in circle is known as a "kettle" I am reliably informed. This was a solitary specimen not scared of me:

I got back on the Highway 27  superhighway, dodging trucks which passed me at 65 while I was bimbling into a headwind at 53  miles per hour. At the occasional traffic light I would pull ahead of the 18-wheelers and they would slowly catch me up again and pass. Eventually we turned onto Krome Avenue where I pulled over to let faster vehicles pass. That's where I saw this, a reminder to stay observant.

 I was back in the miles and miles of one lane roadway and I had to pull over a few times until I got snug behind a 50 mile per hour truck and a small retinue of vehicles stuck behind him. This no passing rule is insane on Krome Avenue. The sooner they bring in self driving cars the better for all of us. They should be easier to pass when riding a motorcycle as the car won't take it personally if you pass it.

 Further down Krome I was back in the land of stopping and starting. Plus the traffic is painfully slow. I stopped for a break next to this radar sign. Check it out no one was even close to exceeding the modest speed limit! Notice the long straight roadway!

 In Homestead I stopped to photograph this other piece of Florida DOT madness. These signs have cropped up in Key West on North Roosevelt prompting the belief that the Department of Transportation is trying to encourage cyclists to commit  suicide. Here in Homestead this madness is being promote on a single lane main street. Florida already allows cyclists to ride on sidewalks, yielding to pedestrians. The need for these signs is not apparent to me.

 On my way through town at seven o'clock Friday morning I noticed this restaurant. On my return at 3 in the afternoon I stopped to buy dinner, brown stew chicken and curried goat with a beef patty for appetizer. Twenty bucks, a cheerful smile and I was on my way. Two hours to home.

My mistake was not taking Card Sound Road and instead mixing it up with streaming traffic rushing to a getaway in the Keys on a Friday afternoon. I still am not sure what happened but the Vespa seized and I had to cool off and restart a couple of times to get onto Key Largo.  I haven't yet stripped the engine to figure out what's up but at the moment I have other priorities for time and money so the old Vespa can have a rest for a while as I get my business up and running. I was surprised because the scooter has been running well for more than 4,000 miles and I have had it up to full speed without any worries on my commutes.  This file photo from my archives shows how intense traffic can be, and was on Friday afternoon. I should eased up instead of trying to keep up and keep out of the way. The shoulder was the right place to ride. Oh well a learning experience!

 

I called my good natured wife who dropped everything and drive 90 minutes to pick me up from Mile Marker 103 in her Fiat. I drove us home and Saturday morning Cheyenne and I made the three and a half hour round trip to collect the Vespa from its overnight resting spot. 

Dusty and well worn after our Everglades adventure I need to figure out what happened and why and start the testing process again. Right now I have to ride the automatic Vespa and the Bonneville which is no hardship though I am puzzled why the old girl seized. I shall enjoy the detective work. 

 I have to say I did rather miss the Bonneville on the trip which was an interesting reaction to me. The motorcycle has all the speed you need to keep up with and pass regular freeway traffic and headwinds, cross winds, hills and gravel are no worry to my versatile Triumph motorcycle. I was surprised really how tedious droning across the landscape at 55 could become. 

The Vespa is ideal in the Keys where restricted speed limits become a drag on a 65 hp motorcycle. The Bonneville enables me to pass about any car and puts me front and center for attention I don't really want. The Vespa keeps me honest and allows me to relax and enjoy the ride even at what would otherwise be a tedious 45 mph. After 45  years of riding I have found my ideal bike in the Bonneville, a great all rounder and great fun to ride. The Vespa is my nostalgia machine an an ideal short hop ride.

But on the open road the Bonneville remains my preferred ride. I could have cut off all the Krome Avenue nonsense with the Triumph by hopping on I-75 and zipping up the Turnpike at an unobtrusive 75 mph. And in 85,000 miles the Bonneville has stopped running only once after giving me lots of warning (that I ignored) when the rectifier, a hundred dollar part, failed and the battery went flat and I couldn't  restart the bike during an interrupted commute. Another time it took a long time to start after a rainstorm but a pair of new plug wires and caps solved that. I need to respect the limitations of each ride and enjoy both and while the Vespa is laid up I need to commute slowly on the Bonneville! I'm lucky to have the choices and lucky my wife hasn't yelled at me for screwing up. What a great trip it was - next time on the Bonneville!

Vespa Riding In The Everglades

So there I was  in the Seminole Village, late morning, with increasing heat and  the nub of my journey ahead. 

 From studying my maps I figured it should be possible to cover the eight miles from the Swamp Safari to Hopkins Tropical Fruit Nursery where the asphalt from Highway 29 appeared to end.

It looked easy enough studying the Google satellite  view as the street view ends just past the swamp safari and gets nowhere near the nursery. So off I went off the paved road back into the dirt. I wondered if my path might be blocked off by a gate such as this one leading up a mysterious side road:

 The West Boundary Road is wide open and spacious and quite easy to ride for the most part.

 The forest on either side looked impenetrable with undergrowth under the pine trees.

 Me looking slightly daffy posing for the self portrait.

In its own way it was quite scenic though I wondered how creepy  it would be coming home to the ranch house on a pitch black night. I would get creeped out picking my way through the darkness.

I was of course completely alone, no sign or sound of another human aside from the buzzing of my two stroke scooter popping along at 25 miles an hour.

The photo above shows what I thought might be a dead end but as I got closer I saw the boundary road turned off to the right. The picture below shows the actual end of the road. There was no way I could squeeze the Vespa past to get those last two miles done, and even had there been I don't think I would have risked it. I don't suppose the ranchers here are any less friendly than anywhere else one might choose to trespass. However this lonely emptiness gave me an overriding sense that I should stick to the public road and mind my own business. I turned around. 

There were open spaces, strangely reminiscent of meadows, lacking only cows horses or goats grazing them.

You can see the drainage efforts in the Everglades have been quite successful. This meadow, as crazy as it sounds, reminded me of wooded pastures I've seen in Italy, small fields cultivated by small holders who value each foot of land. This spot just looked forgotten.

I enjoyed the shade where I found it and decided to keep moving until I got back to the Village where I might figure out my next move.

This is what the woodlands looked like either side of the road. There were a few tracks that meandered off out of sight but I figured whatever might be at the end of them, if anything, had nothing to do with me.

Frankly the prospect of riding the way I had come sounded intensely boring to me and I had no desire to face another hour of gluing my eyes to the dirt road ahead of me to get safely back to Highway 27. On the other hand I was pretty sure making a huge deviation almost to Lake Okeechobee would get home for a very late dinner indeed. I decided I would come back one day and approach the boundary road from the west and just see for myself how far in I could get. I am curious, that is all. 

The final stretch of road back to the swamp safari air boat base had a lot of sandy pits which could easily topple an incautious rider. Sand, especially in isolated puts like this are easy to fall over into as the front wheel suddenly slows to a stop and probably twists to one side or the other bucking the rider like a bronco. And over you go. I kept a weather eye out for these deformities in the gravel:

Four wheels better than two. I had seen a sign in the village from the Seminole Tribal Police kindly asking that ATVs be kept off the roadway. With progress come prohibitions.

Finally as I was leaving the wilderness I met some traffic. His wake was blown away from me by the wind. My lucky day.

In case there were any doubt which way to turn the safari folks put up a sign directing visitors back to the Seminole Village and from there the main road south, Snake Road, takes you to the Miccosukee reservation and their gas station at Interstate 75.

I paused at the Seminole School baseball diamond in the shade to check my map. It was clear I had no choice but to head back to Huff Bridge Road and thus back to Highway 27, Krome Avenue and so on back to the Keys. 

I started out around noon stopping to take a picture of the bridge in the middle of the village. It's name reminded me of the late Tony Hillerman novels set in the Navajo reservation where clans are a big thing.

I was about four hours away from another engine seize. Sigh.

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The week's new podcast is available at the Travel and Safety website.  Sixteen years ago a negative experience on a cycling tour changed Peter Easton’s life. That’s when he made a rash promise that he could do better. His wife held him to that promise. He has long since given up his first career as an architect in favor of combining his passion for cycling with his love of European culture and living well.  

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