A Wooden Bridge

The solstice means it's quite dark until close to seven in the morning. I get home at 6;30 change out of my uniform after my fulsome greeting by Rusty, then we get in the car and rive to a different location each day for a walk. I have found variety fuels a dog's imagination as much as it does a human's though I do tend to choose longer walks for days when I feel fresher after a night spent taking 911 calls. Some mornings I am too frazzled for much.

The plan this morning was a quick walk at the end of Niles Road on north Summerland Key. I turned north opposite the Mobil gas station and drove to the end of the pavement. I noticed the tide was extremely low and I got an idea. We arrived at the old wooden bridge to nowhere and before Rusty knew what I was doing I swept all sixty pounds of him into my arms and put him on the bridge. He liked that, as he has a lively curiosity.

Years ago Cheyenne and I came out here but she wasn't going on the bridge as it was beyond even me to lift her 100 pounds over my head...I did walk the bridge the last time in 2008 the year before I got Cheyenne so I knew what was at the other end of it (nothing).

Nowadays there is a massive ladder attached to the end of the bridge where in the old days I scrambled up using steel spikes hammered into the pilings by somebody for that purpose. You can still see them sticking out of the wood.

From the bridge the view was quite lovely at dawn and the gnats and no-see-ums hadn't found me- yet.

Some fisherman left some reeking bait in a bag on the bridge. Rusty was grateful even if I wasn't.

It was a hefty construction apparently designed to carry vehicles. The bridge looks very similar to the bridges I have seen in old pictures connecting the various Keys before the single unified road was built. I took this picture of a bridge near Key West from the book Charlotte's Story.

I was kicking myself for leaving behind my big camera,m the one with the telephoto lense but as usual my iPhone 6 acquitted itself remarkably well all things considered.

The northern end of the bridge does not present an implacable cliff figuring I guess that if you got this far you might as well have an easy step off into the mangroves.

However the trail is nothing but a small line between cleared bushes, more or less muddy with no sign of any construction of any kind. It's as though someone thought about developing this small island and built a massive bridge before plans fell through. I timed it as a 15 minute stroll to a point where the trail got more muddy than it was worth struggling to walk on and we turned back. It seems some people land near here by boat and have built a fire pit now overlooked by a rather severe sign:

The blue dot marks the spot as screen- shot on my iPhone map:

At the bottom of the picture you can see the asphalt parking area at the end of Niles Road and the trail to the bridge, the straight gray line. The island is utterly devoid of traces of development. Which suited Rusty.

Oddly enough there was a solar shower hanging in a bush which was also decorated with several shampoo bottles perched in the branches. At first glance it seems idyllic but there again you weren't walking in a swarm of no-see-ums which landed on the tiniest piece of bare flesh not exactly sprayed with repellent.  I swallowed them by the mouthful when I breathed. It was obnoxious walking with my head in my own private cloud of hovering gnats. To strip naked to wash seemed like torture of the worst kind.

The only problem remaining was the descent back to Summerland Key by my sixty pound Carolina Dog who, when he realized he had to throw himself into my arms got rather restless. I stood in the shallow water and reached up for him while making soothing noises. He allowed himself to be caught when all other options were clearly not going to work. I carried him safely to the dry land and the walk was about done.

It was a memorable morning one way and another.

He forgave me for manhandling him.

Night Downtown

I have no idea what possessed Rusty but on my night off he came to my bedside and stuck his snout in my ear effectively banishing sleep. I had no choice but to load Rusty in the car and take him for a walk. We started from the city parking lot between Waterfront Brewery and Buddy Owen's Fish Wagon:

We passed by The Marker the latest development by Pritam Singh, where once there was Jabour's Trailer Park there is now the hotel complex as though there had never been anything else.

We wandered down Lazy Way Lane and as it was well before six in the morning there was nobody around. I've taken lots of pictures there and I do rather take them during the day as there is a bit more life than a few boarded up shops which is all you see at five in the morning... We got down to the docks and I saw this piling covered in bumper stickers so I thought it was worth a picture. Rusty was off rooting around while I paused.

The Gallery on Green an oasis of colors and light in the darkness. Greene Street has gone through a  few businesses over the past few months but this place stays the same...so far:

Inside Tattoos and Scars the bar I saw this motorcycle memorabilia:

The thing is that night time is a difficult time to take the dog for a walk in the mangroves and downtown Key West is the best possible place to be if you are out and about before dawn. Besides you get time to study window displays which is something I rarely do during my daytime hours. 

Then again I was quite underwhelmed by the "window display" at the new CVS  on Duval. The steps are still filthy and the windows look like a going out of business sale. So much for sprucing up the 100 block of Duval Street. 

Rusty went all stray dog on me and started rounding up pizza slices. He quite reminded me of Cheyenne.

Meanwhile I found a stray cap at Mallory Square, one of Santa's elves running amok presumably, which is easy to do in Key West when you don't have a head for liquor:

This picture got 30 or more likes on Instagram which surprised me. I shot it from the hip with my iPhone:

The cause of all the mischief:

At home he didn't want to nap alone:

Fire On THe Water

There are these two old guys who live for a few months each year at the RV park on Ohio Key and each morning they wander out on the beach across the highway and they come with their dogs.

While Lucas and Sam play out of the water  the men stand up the beach a bit to avoid the flying sand and water thrown up by the frantic dogs. Sam the Labrador and Rusty:

They, the men, talk of this and that, their ailments which all retirees seem to enjoy, and they talk of politics and tell tales of human stupidity and sometimes they get around to discussing life in the RV park.

And I know this because I bring Rusty here once in a while for a play date. He seems to enjoy himself being sociable with the other dogs and I, much to my surprise enjoy listening to the two men who are close to 20 years older than me discuss the joys of life in retirement.

Below I took a skimpy picture of the American Shoal light tower barely visible to the naked eye:

Before the other dogs arrived I took advantage of our alone time to set Rusty to running up and down the narrow strip of sand not covered in seaweed. While he did that I played with my Lumix FZ330 and its rather remarkable telephoto lense.  Remarkable for a "bridge camera" which resembles a traditional Single Lense Reflex in size and shape but is a one piece camera that functions like a sophisticated pocket camera. Hence the term "bridge" as it bridges two different philosophies of camera equipment.

One of the old farts is from Kentucky and he drawls in that peculiarly typical way that makes almost any pronouncement hilarious. Particularly when the speaker has a sharp wit and a non nonsense view of human stupidity and frailty. Because I speak with an English accent (modified over the years) I am viewed as extra smart  which I find very odd. Especially when I come up against a Southerner who paid attention while living a long life and is frequently stereotyped badly for his accent despite the knowledge he has gained. I wish he was at work with me listening to the catalogue of complaints I hear answering 911 calls of which very few are what you might call emergencies...He has a pointed and wry sense of the ridiculous.

 I learned a fair bit about sleep apnea the other day as Rusty ran himself into a coma. It turns out one of the guys has failed to get a  good nights sleep in about five years. Hard to imagine.

 There we stood on the edge of the world pondering death by truck driven by some crazy suicide killer in the name of religion. I don't suppose I could run out of the way one of the men said. After we've walked  a  couple of hours on Duval we get pretty slow, he pondered to himself. Don't know if we could  step aside he said. I wondered if having people walking around with guns everywhere would put a suicide driver off.

He told me about a  veteran he knew who kept 28 guns in a 30 foot RV who he allowed didn't seem to be "quite right." I wondered if the veteran could hit an angry truck driver with any of the 28 if push came to shove. Not too far away traffic rumbled on US One, caring not one jot about our mental ramblings.

I went to the nursery yesterday Sleep Apnea said. I stood and stared at plants all morning, which made her happy. His buddy was still wondering about the 28 guns the veteran owned. I wonder he said where he stored them all in an RV only thirty feet long. Well he did live alone said the other old timer as though that made room for more guns and fewer plants. I went on vacation with 8 kids and grandkids once, the other guy reminisced. It was pretty good even though we only had three beds.

I'd rather have a dog than a bunch of plants or guns though I wondered if we live in a  world where random drivers may suddenly decide to run us down to the greater glory of God. If that were the case I don't think a gun would save me. I am so clumsy I'd shoot myself first.

Rusty was exhausted by then  and happy. As we all were.

 I wasn't that tired.

Play date is effective.

The Lost Horizon

I stood on the beach and watched  a whole winter world float by. The waters south of Bahia Honda were busy, another sign that the winter influx has started to fill the Keys for the next few months.

It is a relief to come out to places like this and get away from work and the crowded roads and all the people on the streets. 

The funny thing about these places is that visitors naturally tend to congregate in one place and just a few feet away there you will find a quiet spot to walk with your dog, take pictures and space out all by your lonesome. 

Rusty found iguana holes to inspect and I put my Lumix camera to use chasing boats and birds with the telephoto lense.

A busy dog.

An hour of running back and forth chasing smells and he was ready to take  a nap when we got home.

I am not used to seeing pink seaweed. So I took a picture as Rusty rustled up the bushes behind me. There was no one anywhere in sight even though a dozen cars were in the parking lot right off Highway One.

Then I saw the cormorant paddling along the shore and I thought to myself, small bird big ocean.

The old Bahia Honda bridge, over a hundred years old in fact, still stands and looks great in pictures. I know I have taken variations on this picture before and I am pretty sure I will again.  It is an extraordinary structure no matter how many times you photograph it.

I thought I blew this picture but the FZ330 Panasonic made a picture I did not expect to get.

I saw what I thought was a car exhaust under water. On closer inspection it was a waterlogged old boat fender and the rope it had been tied to... I wonder what the story was?

This barge was actually a sailing catamaran with its mast on deck. Another story there too, especially if the mast lowering was involuntary.

Dramatic skies following a weak cold front:

We don't seem to get strong cold fronts anymore with powerful winds and rain and roiling clouds and plunges in temperatures. Everything is relative but a drop from 82 to 65 in the space of an hour, especially around here in the sub-tropics, is pretty dramatic.

The lobster carapace put me in mind of lobster mini season and that's something I don't much like. It's two days when anyone can dive for lobster supposedly under strict limits and conditions (no air tanks, no spear guns, not in residential canals etc...) but it turns into a massacre the week before commercial lobster season begins. 

A couple of turkey vultures pondering what exactly Rusty might taste like as he...

...lay there panting to get his breath back.