Flat Seas, Overcast Skies

The morning after the weekend before and it's a debris field surrounding the trash can. What is wrong with people?

Quite a bit it turns out if pictures on my Facebook page are to be believed, pictures of abandoned and abused dogs. Rusty does not seem to miss his former street life one bit.

Once I struggled past the excesses of weekend anglers the west end of the old Bahia Honda bridge created quite the view under overcast skies. Rusty rooted around and I played with my iPhone's camera.

I find serenity out here, even right next to the Overseas Highway, the modern road bridge to the left in the upper picture. Traffic this year has been a  prolonged torture of people in long endless lines stuck behind one slow moving visitor after another, roof down enjoying island time at 40 miles per hour. Snowbirds are long gone and families haven't yet got school vacation time, yet the flow of cars into the Keys seems as thick and constant as ever. Staring at a silhouette of a coconut palm seems to help resettle my jangled nerves.

Further evidence if any were needed that summer is here is the occasional rain and the flat calm seas.

I watched Rusty running hither and yon enjoying his rural time, rolling in seaweed which meant a bath when we got home. He's got much better about bathing and a chicken strip is all it takes to soothe his frazzled nerves and damaged dignity these days. I call the baths the price of admission to this life.

 Happy dog taking a breather before the next series of mad dashed across the landscape.

We took the flying walkway back to the car. The small speck is my dog checking things out. He makes me feel elderly and slightly inform as he sits from time to time, and waits for me to catch up.

Definitely a dog in need of a bath and he knows it. No regrets.

Impromptu Dog Park

My wife said "There's a dog park there as we walked by with Rusty. So there was; who knew?

 I don't know who had the initiative to close off this piece of open space by chaining a couple of gates closed but the result is a place for dogs to play very close to the heart of the city.

Key West is a strange town where travel of even a mile or two is considered "far" consequently there tend to be two of everything of note to allow successful businesses to reap customers deep in Old Town and further out as well.

The idea of transporting one's dog to the south end of White Street might seem too much to a city resident hovering near the north shore of the city. The question is: how long will this delightful space stay open?

The rather expensive Steam Plant Condos overlook the shaggy antics field and one wonders how long they will tolerate plebs disporting themselves with gay abandon in this dog field...Besides which open space like this within sight of salt water might be worth more to some people as cement and industry rather than just as a place for dogs to play. Hard to imagine I know.

Rusty quite enjoyed himself to my surprise. He is not fan of packs of dogs running around in a dog park. Cheyenne wasn't either but she defended herself. Rusty gets overwhelmed.

 It kept him entertained enough for him to need to use the facilities thoughtfully provided:

There is clearly a group of happy dog owners here ready to equip the place for their beasts:

And across the street the Ferry Terminal, still known to some as the Buquebus in remembrance of the Argentine ferry service that got the place built for them and then failed to make money on the boat service. Key West Express is the furthest boat while the smaller closer boat is the ferry for the Dry Tortugas day trips.

I played the the shadows and light in the body of water known as the Key West Bight. This corner used to be known as the Toxic Triangle when the Steamplant used to generate electricity and spew noxious outflow here. I used to have a friend who tied up his boat here for free on the seawall a long time ago. With a name like that I guess no one had the heart to charge a fee to live here. These days its valuable real estate.

 It used to look like this from on top of the Steamplant power station:

The good old days of a commercial fishing fleet, a noxious power plant and a toxic brew in the seawater they said. All grist for the developers' mill today.

Roadside Attractions

The news out of Key West has not been terribly uplifting lately with spats made public about switching voting to citywide elections instead of by district. I don't vote in the city but some of the comments in the paper were rather unpleasant.  I think the plan has died but there were suggestions that it was a plot to consolidate the power in the hands of the few and eliminate minorities from the commission.  Hmm, I though to myself I'd better go take a few pictures and think pretty thoughts. So the first thing I saw was this shot up wildlife boundary sign, worn by time and made holey, if not sanctified.

 These tiny flowers growing by the side of the road seemed to have been sown on rocky ground but they were making the best of it. 

 There is a sameness to the countryside in the Lower Keys, a  lack of elevation and a lack of variety among the trees and shrubs that struggle for life among the rocks and salt water, so you have to look closely to see anything in the scrub lands worth noting. Dead  tree limbs and gnarled, sun bleached roots provide contrasts that stand  out:

The moisture in the summer time sky can produce clouds worthy of note though yesterday it was mostly dreary and uniformly overcast, until the sun broke through and had us both baking along the road as we walked.

 This root put me in mind of a guitar; Rusty was poking about in the bushes leaving me to let my imagination run riot.

 He was in no hurry to come back out into the sunshine that was .

I enjoyed seeing this piece of trash labeled "BITES" in this mosquito infested  area. I remembered my repellent on this trip but I was swatting horseflies off Rusty's nose.

He is a funny dog, and he loves roadside walks. So when I am driving home from chores I'll pull off the highway onto a side road and let him run in the sun. He loves it and I get some power walking exercise keeping up.

I use these opportunities to train him to sit on command when a car goers by and he does very well, perhaps I should have more faith in his traffic sense as he has survived as a street dog in Homestead and he keeps an eye out for the rare car coming up the road.  I call out to him and he sits and watches and waits for me to release him so I'm feeling pretty good about his traffic skills. 

 It was hot and Rusty sat at the trucnk of the car where he knows the water is stored. 

Conch Homes

It was a lovely afternoon and I was in town and Rusty needs to practice urban walking without fear of every least noise...so off we went.

Above the Banana Cafe a French place that has thrived in its newer larger digs. I remember it fondly when it was across the street in a little hole in the wall that felt like it belonged in Martinique. However the food is still good and worth a visit.

Above we have an eyebrow home of which I have spoken often and which I found discussed on this Architecture Blog at some great length. Below we see the official permit required by the city to rent your home out for short periods ie: less than 28 days at a time. They chose 28 to make monthly rentals legal on even the shortest month of the year...for the useless information file.

While we were walking I snagged a few pictures here and there of houses that appealed. This one was not exactly when you think of when you picture Old Town Key West. Interestingly this one looks like an old Florida home, the outdoor terrazzo tile and jalousie window makes it all quite cool in its own way.

This is what the punters line up to buy in Key West and hang their Conch Republic flags from to show their credentials to all the world. For Rusty a 90 degree afternoon was proving to be a bit of a burden which surprised me a bit. I expected him to be better acclimated to Florida summers. Life on the streets must have been tough for him, and its lucky he has an air conditioned room with a couch to retreat to these days. Lucky for him and for me.

I keep wondering how the city is going to overcome it's housing shortfall for working people. Highway One is jammed every day now and I have to suppose in part that is thanks to endless tourism year round these days. But I also see a lot of single occupant vehicles on the road during commute hours and the commuters are coming from as far as Big Pine Key, an hour away.

These little homes with no parking and no garages within a block or two of the noise and bustle of Duval will sell form perhaps three quarters of a million dollars. Add amenities like parking or central air or even a pocket sized swimming pool and the prices go stratospheric. Which doesn't give a working stiff much of a chance.

The little seafood shack on Catherine Street has been here forever but I have never seen it staffed and I've never seen  much in the way of advertising. Until now.

Check this out, clear and to the point. A proper family enterprise.

Back home my hot dog stretched himself out and dreamed of all that he has seen in the past couple of months and what he has yet to see on this strange adventure we call life.

Fort Jefferson

This essay from December 2009 is a reminder to me and you to pay a visit to the Dry Tortugas 70 miles west of Key West.

Sunrise at the Dry Tortugas National Park. I took these pictures while on my last trip to the island known as Garden Key, home to Fort Jefferson built around the period of the Civil War. The coaling docks which were built on these pilings were added in time for World War One:Nowadays they make for excellent snorkeling. The fort and it's moat on the east side of the island, looking southeast:On the opposite side of Garden Key there is Loggerhead Key (named for the turtles that used to reside there in abundance). The lighthouse, three miles west of Fort Jefferson is the last speck of land before Mexico some 300 miles west. National Park volunteers staff the lighthouse and live on a house there, weeks at a time. The only access is by private boat with a dinghy landing on the beach. The Park Service supplies the volunteers at their private dock on the east side of the island.The fort itself has a bunch of antennae, including satellite access to television and Internet for the National Park personnel stationed there. There is a satellite payphone (by credit card) on the dock for the public, but cell phones don't work on this island 70 miles west of Key West.Next door is Bird Key, separated by this strip of water that was filled in, then emptied in turn by hurricanes. The island is closed to the public as it is a nesting ground for migrating birds.
Fort Jefferson is a speck in a very large ocean. A surprisingly civilized speck all things considered.They say the place is constructed out of 16 million bricks, imported from Up North from two different factories which explains the two different shades of red of the bricks in the outer walls. The top of the wall is a grassy, sandy walkway.The five acre interior of the fort, whose construction plans were never completed, is like a park:

Some reconstructive surgery has been completed to prevent buildings, like the domed powder magazine from crumbling.

Looking southeast from the northwest corner:Looking east from the same spot one can see the rectangles of dark grass that show where the barracks were located and beyond them the domed powder magazine once again.This ancient fort looks more like a crusader fortress in Syria or a European castle than a North American building.Darkness falls suddenly at the fort, as is the way at these tropic latitudes:

Campers and the National Park Rangers are the only people left on the island, after the ferries take the day trippers back to Key West, leaving at 2:45pm and getting back to the city around 5:15pm. For campers it's time to cook dinner:And every day succeeds the previous day in the same way. A view south from the main entrance. The covered building is the dock with an information room and some changing rooms for people who need a place to put on, or take off a swimsuit:
The other covered buildings are the composting toilets, four of them, near the campground:They work very well but are only available to campers after the ferries leave. While ferries are docked campers are supposed to use the toilets on board and only use these when the large number of day visitors have left so as not to overwhelm the island facilities.The fort is open during daylight hours and even when the ferries are docked there is plenty of room for everyone. After the boats leave the fort is a private place, and that's when the interior of the fort is one photo opportunity after another:The moat wall was designed to keep marauding boats at a distance from the fort itself to give gunners time to sink enemies before they could get close, but it also keeps wave action away from the delicate foundations of this fort built on sand. Swimming is not allowed in the moat:This is a US National Park so there are informational signs everywhere. My pink crocs are happily barely visible:Bird Key beyond the eastern coaling dock pilings just visible in the foreground:
The unfinished windows in the case mates:The US Coastguard downgraded the old lighthouse at the fort and now it's known as a harbor light. At night it glows with a steady yellow gleam and all boats at anchor in the National Park are required to anchor within one mile of this light:There are some bushes sprouting on the eastern side of the fort and among them I found this prickly pear.......and this I-know-not-what:And here is a view from the salon of the Yankee Freedom ferry taking us home to Key West:It costs $180 round trip on this boat but every trip to the fort is an adventure and an exploration.