Downtown

This place on Greene Street used to sell kites and now it is a much less colorful banal bike rental shop. Because I guess Key West needs another bicycle rental place. 

You'd have thought people would flock to buy brightly colored stuff like this, people who like dustcatchers that is. 

I like walking Duval Street early on my days off work. Rusty seems to enjoy the change of pace, exploring the smells downtown. It's such a different place compared to the bustle that will fire up the street in a few hours. It must have been seven in the morning and the only human I could see was a homeless dude towing a suitcase:

I used to like the Porch when it opened, a craft beer place that has become deservedly popular. Too crowded and noisy for me nowadays, too millennial maybe:

In addition to the homeless people stirring themselves awake from their hidey holes the worker bees tend to be out resupplying the businesses. In the picture below I had hoped to juxtapose the chicken with the delivery guy but they didn't quite cross paths as I hoped they would:

Taking his ease:

The presbytery at St Paul's still dolled up in support of the Pride Parade:

In the midst of all the constant changes downtown La Concha remains the same and I rather like the way they have set up the covered entrance in the driveway. 

I still miss Fast Buck Freddie's and yes even after I finished working there I shopped there from time to time. My wife likes the 24 hour loo at the CVS store but for me it looks weird seeing a Coca Cola truck pulled up alongside the old Fast Bucks. 

Look at that. It's empty enough you could fire the proverbial cannon down the sidewalk:

A Key West station wagon:

I titled the picture below "Traffic Jam" on Instagram:

The morning after the night before:

Birds of Boca Chica

I have long since known that I have no facility for remembering stuff I can easily look up. I am no naturalist nor a botanist am I so I have trouble remembering the names of more than a handful of trees. I am no angler, despite the fact I live in the Keys so about the only fish I can identify is a grunt, I think... and birds? Not much joy there either. BUt I am learning to enjoy photographing them. Like the osprey I caught above at the top of a very tall cement light pole long since abandoned. 

Around here the most interesting mobile things to photograph end up being birds, even more interesting than the stumbling crowds of tourists all dressed alike and marching lockstep up and down Duval Street. I'm pretty sure the one above is a heron looking for breakfast.

Perhaps this one is a snowy egret all hunched up, except  when it lost it's balanced and spread its wings momentarily.

This stripey headed bandit (below) had me beat. Google is amazing. I asked it to look for images of a "Florida wader with a  striped head." And the reply came back immediately: yellow crowned night heron. There you have it and feel free to disagree.

Taking a telephoto picture of a dragonfly was just a whim as Rusty rooted through the vegetation on a search and destroy mission against iguanas.

 The dragonfly above has a slightly torn wing. The one below doesn't. 

 A dove below violating government airspace on the Navy Base perimeter fence.

 Another heron silhouetted by the rising sun yesterday morning:

 An ibis stalking breakfast:

I am no bird watcher in any meaningful sense but as usual the camera helps me see stuff I would otherwise overlook. In this case it's birds.

 Ibis in a clutch on the beach:

Anchored Out

During the course of the year my commute home changes only by the degree of light, the amount of sunshine and the weather-consisting of variations between sunshine or rain, wind or suffocating humidity. The sunrise varies obviously by the time of year, summer time and winter time and the position of the sun ion the sky all have their effect. All of which is to say this time of year the sunrises are glowing many colors around the time I leave Big Coppitt around 6:15 in the morning. 

It so happened I was off duty one night when Rusty came and sat on my chest at four o'clock in the morning. He does that when he wants to get my attention to go for his early morning walk, and resistance is futile I'm afraid. I delayed a bit clutching the duvet to my ears but he wore me down and we took off an oh dark 30 stroll around town. I don't fancy going for a walk in the woods in the dark so before dawn we drive to the land of street lights and smelly street corners. It woks for Rusty.

On the way back I was delighted to notice I had reached the Big Coppitt boat ramp at just the right time. The sky was on fire. The anchored out boats were sitting there as always waiting for a new day.

And the water too, in places...

In the distance all around the bay I could see boats at anchor, free parking as it were, taken with the telephoto lense in the morning half light at quite a great distance. 

It was a long way across the bay and you can barely see the white specks at anchor. I quite like my Lumix FZ300 camera. Rain proof and dust proof all built in and rugged and not up to professional specs but entirely good enough for digital posts. 

There are quite a few boats around here including one attached I saw to a rather ingenious home made floating dock:

The launch ramp is free to use by the public which is one thing the Keys do really well which is give easy access to the water.

Big Coppitt is nearby with it's gas stations and convenience stores and bus stops:

And Highway One is right there...

....with parking on the shoulder.

Trailer parking isn't allowed here to enable launching as there isn't much room. I didn't park so much as paused and then I was on my way.

Street Living

There used to be a time, and I'm dating myself here when even the street people managed to bring a little eccentricity to the city of Key West. I well remember one guy with a shock of red hair (hence his nickname) who used to hang out shirtless and one armed on Caroline Street begging beer and waving merrily with his one remaining arm. He got offered a part in Pirates of the Caribbean when the first movie was made, as producers felt he looked just like the sorts of pirate they wanted to depict surrounding Captain Sparrow.

Perhaps I am simply jaded or perhaps the quality of the street residents today are like their housed neighbors becoming less bohemian and more mainstream. Which is not to say there is any shortage of scruffy oiks on bikes or on foot wandering around the warmest city in the mainland USA, but they don't seem to be burdened with too much of that essential spark that lifts them out of the street and into the world of lovable eccentrics.

And yet they gather and when they do the issues with vagrants in Key West become apparent. I hear a lot of complaints from people harassed by the homeless but I have to say they never bother me, or my dog. They smell bad they get drunk they don't add much o he ambiance of Key West.

Key West though adds a lot for people who need help and as it generally costs about five thousand dollars to move in to a rental apartment there are a lot of working poor in the city. They get free bed space at KOTS, the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter on city property on Stock Island. There are showers and a mail drop so working stiffs can have a valid address. Its one part of a network of shelters and transitional housing that this rather small community does offer to people seeking a way off the streets. Granted there is not a lot of available low cost subsidized housing I remain quite impressed by the range of help Key West does offer.

Which leaves us wondering why so many people end up on the streets. And let me note not everyone ou see on the streets is necessarily homeless. Read your hone waiting for the Library to open and you could be mistaken for a residentially challenged member of the community.

The thing is the State of Florida has a rule enacted by the state Supreme Court that local government may not arrest vagrants if they do not offer approved secure sleeping locations. So if the city were to do away with KOTS there would be no recourse for sleepers on the city streets at night. As it is there is no eligibility test for public spaces during the day. You can't ban people from parks and benches for being dirty or smelly or making you feel awkward.

I'm not sure why the street population in Key West seems so much more visible than it does in other Florida cities with similar weather but when I go to the mainland I notice the difference. I'm not sure whether to be annoyed by the homeless or glad that there is at least some effort at tolerance in Key West. In part I don't live in the city so I am somewhat removed from the immediacy of people passing out on my porch or  peeing on my fence as happens. Then again I'm not sure who is simply drunk while behaving abominably and who is homeless...

I think the part that is hard to take is the notion of street living as lifestyle. Personally I'd find spending all day doing nothing and having nothing to spend excruciatingly dull. I am not driven to make vast sums of money but some disposable income adds variety to the daily routine. Living out of a bicycle in public parks would get old fast for me.

So, is a sleeper at Simonton Beach a drunk passed out, a youthful impecunious tourist or a homeless guy living the life...Does it matter?

This one looked like it was a tough night that left him sitting at the monument on Greene and Elizabeth Streets. As much as some people despise the homeless vagrants in Key West I am no great fan of public uncontrolled drunkenness. In this town it's elevated to a lifestyle, as much as street living is. And it ends up being just as messy.

The panhandling zone, a free speech area near the tourist attractions seems to have mercifully been abandoned as a bad idea... This is a photo roma few years ago:

But passing out from alcohol and whatever else remains acceptable on Petronia Street just off Duval. It's the price we pay for a successful tourist economy. And police scoop them up as fast as they can and haul them off to dry out but there are just too many.

Everywhere:

So, should we middle class worker bees be envious of the life or resentful of the imposition? Or neither?

We have our escapes, an expensive coffee at Starbucks perhaps, of which there are sadly four in town competing with the tradition of local independent coffee shops. Actually it seems there is plenty of room for both and I like my green tea latte as much as the next yuppie.

And here's another one, better off drinking coffee probably:

So when my wife and I retire with Rusty and take off to enjoy the spaces and cities will we become vagrants too? Will we be carbuncles on the face of settled communities we do not wish to join?

I look forward to finding out in a  few years.(Photo by Pleasure Way of Canada).