Getting Around

It was a rainy  day in Key West, a sudden thunderstorm dropped rain and all units returned to base to park their patrol motorcycles under their roof at the Key West Police Department. I the intrepid Vespa rider pulled up to take cover while I pulled on my waterproofs, my Frogg Toggs for my ride home. The Vespa had to stay in the rain as the Road Kings were all neatly in their spots, their riders in cars to get through the tough weather break. I rode home 23 miles. In the rain. 

 

I have noticed that Rusty accepts me departing the house if not willingly at least with forbearance when I do it on two wheels. I suppose he sees no place for himself so he sits at the top of the stairs and watches me pull on my helmet and get astride my bike and leave. When I leave in the car without him he sits on the top of the stairs but with his back turned after he sees me climb in the car without him. "He looks angry" my wife said one day. I guess he doesn't like being left behind.

I go to exercise most mornings at eleven and return close to two o'clock. On the way home I might go downtown to take some pictures,

...or sometimes I take a  side road and look for pictures for myself or perhaps for a scooter tag forum. This one at the end of Blimp Road was tot snag a tag posted in Idaho showing  a"hill billy ventilated road sign." I knew where we had one of those and it made an excuse to ride three miles up Blimp Road to admire the whitecaps and snap a picture.

I then took a picture of the Vespa 150 on Spain Boulevard and tagged it "Your scooter on a dirt gravel or sand road" which didn't last long as someone in Virginia  got his Suzuki scooter in the dirt right away. By then I was home.

It's been windy in the Keys for a while now which is a nice way of keeping summer at bay. The temperatures are cooler and mosquitoes are somewhat suppressed and it was blowing so hard they even pulled Fat Albert (in the background)  to earth.

These bright windy days are lovely to look at. I am riding my Vespas much more than my motorcycle these days because they do 60 miles an hour, enough to keep up with traffic but not so fast as to tempt me to pass or speed and thus earn more tickets. And any long distance trip I might be tempted to do with the motorcycle these days I'd rather do by car to enjoy Rusty's company. 

So on the Vespa I race downwind gaining a handful of precious miles per hour -what fun!- and upwind home I ride a machine that struggles to hold 55 mph into the wind and I take advantage of every hedge and building and cringe as I cross the windswept bridges that slow me down...Util I get home to himself:

There he sits in the driveway sunning himself, grazing on grass, un-fenced free to come and go inside the house and out as he pleases. Rusty he wonder dog.

Highway Dawn

I took this picture without adjusting the white balance for the dark morning skies, and I liked the result looking at the Bahia Honda bridges, old and new.

Thew bridge with traffic:

A slow cloudy dawn in the distance:

Seaweed pushed into the shore by the wind:

The rising sun shining on the branches:

Another great start to a new day in the Florida Keys.

Wildlife

I ended up watching rapt as a group of wading ibis snacked on some abundant water borne food in the rapidly shrinking mud puddle. I hope they are as fascinating to look at in pictures which I snuck through the mangroves as they were in person.

Rusty waited a few minutes for me before we took off again together.

At the end of the street we met another of his neighborhood buddies, Pablo, who came out and played for a while. Rusty the formerly shy and scared stray now has friends on several different islands where we walk.

Pablo's Dad told me about this trail which I had not previously seen so we added it to our rotating itinerary of places to walk:

It got to be quite warm as the sun was up and we were waiting for the cold front that would cool temperatures off very nicely in another twenty four hours.

I played with my Lumix camera while Rusty checked out the surrounding bushes in person.

And at the very limit of the camera's 600 mm telephoto with some digital telephoto magnification added I got one last bundle of feathers perched on a branch:

A two hour walk that sent Rusty to his bed when we got home, to sleep, perchance to dream.

Taco Truck

I live in the Lower Keys so I'm not sure what is happening in the World with food trucks, whether they are still fashionable or are they just accepted or are they forgotten? Key West got really annoyed by these food palaces ostensibly on wheels arguing they took short cuts to serve cheaper food than established eateries in proper buildings...But here we have a prime example, Taco Express, tucked away between a pawn shop and a tire shop on North Roosevelt Boulevard.

My wife has had her eye on Taco Express and we stopped off on our way home last week from downtown and ordered up some food to go. It is actually a truck on wheels offering limited seating. It was a cool breezy evening, well not that cool but not oppressive by local standards and we were happy to wait for our food.

The menu is pretty expansive and we tried a little of this and that, a quesadilla, a burrito, a couple of tacos and took the food home.

The crew we were told consists of three men, funnily enough one Mexican, one Guatemalan and one Nicaraguan who happened to be on duty when we were there. The food though was very Mexican and my wife, a California native pronounced it authentic by West Coast standards. She wasn't completely fond of the ground beef  as she is of the school that authentic Mexican requires shredded beef but some adaptation to palates trained by (gasp!) Taco Bell is to be expected.

I thoroughly enjoyed the assorted dishes we took home and plan to stop by again and soon. Once again cheap eats in Key West come through on the street.

Flay For All

Usually my wife plans the eatery when we travel as she has the apps and the phone charged and I am driving and she tells me where to go. After a brief consultation on her choices. This time I said how about Bobby Flay's place round the corner? I have mixed feelings about celebrity chefs and their food but we tried Mario Batali's place in Las Vegas and it was good actually. 

The decor inside the palace was rather interesting and swirly, like a modern take on a 1950s  diner. However you don't actually sit and order at the diner counter. You get in line just inside the door, study the wall menu and place your order and pay. They assign you a number flag to put on the table and the food appears aas though by magic at your "unattended" section of the counter.

We went basic hamburger though basic wasn't exactly what we ordered. My wife got a blue cheese and bacon which was as tall as her head. How did you bite yours she asked me after a prolonged struggle with her mound. I ordered the New Mexico burger I said, chilies and cheese and onions make a smaller mound.

The onion rings were great the milk shake was over the top delicious and service was spot on.

Which naturally leaves me with egg on my face about the celebrity reticence I feel. We didn't even need the assorted sauces as there was plenty of flavor on the plate.

Our neighbor got a cheerful greeting when the server brought his food. Same place same order she smiled every time you come. I guess the food is consistently good then.  We liked it. #flayforall indeed! There are only 17 locations on the East Coast and Las Vegas so we were lucky to land one in Miami I guess.

Dadeland Mall is a stark reminder to a bumpkin from the Keys that the world outside has choices and lots of them. I was amazed by the displays of opulence. And someone says we need to make America great again? Down here at the bottom of the country it doesn't seem at all bad.

Grammar is dreadful but there again wrecking the school system instead of fixing it seems unlikely to help. At least they have a go in more than one language which has to count for something. Miami really is an extension of South America in many respects. Bankers are happy.

The rest of it was predictable enough, rounds of shopping, walking Rusty and eventually home. Rusty is my consolation for all those dreary parking lots. We explore together while Herself shops.

Great dog.

Season's End

My wife saw the writing on the wall last week and when she went to the Farmer's Market on Big PIne Key near our home it was shrunk down in preparation for the end of the winter season. So we came to Key West, had breakfast at Azur and very pleasant it was too.

 Poached eggs on potato hash with ham...

 ...and walked over to the last farmer's market of the winter.

Rusty was at home though when I saw other dogs I got my usual dose of K9 envy:

 This is a farmer's market by the sea...with a  dog bowl in this warm climate. 

 And my wife loves this man's pickles. I remember the roof over the parking lot protected cars for sale at the Cates Auto dealership. A long time ago.

 The Coastguard was having fun with a remote controlled boat puzzling the kids:

We repaired to the new brewpub behind the restaurant store. The Cuzzy Bubba was a light refreshing lager-like ale that we shared and thoroughly enjoyed.

It's a part time operation that sells through the Restaurant Store. I want to go back and try some of their other products as they aren't all hard core bitter IPA derivatives. Check out: Bone Island Brewing.

I was interested to see the Cole's Peace sign on the bread rack, another local business that was folded into the Restaurant Store. Cole's Peace was around forever it seemed like, since 1997 actually according to the archives, and I remember when the closure was announced and I wondered what would happen to the remarkable recipes. I used to eat mango bread straight from the brown paper bag like cake, when I was on my way to my boat captain job and I needed/wanted breakfast to go. And here it is, still here, the name of the business celebrating the baker's son who must be ...in college by now?