Tea Table Keys

I have to be honest and confess my heart shrinks every time the authorities repave US Highway One (the "Overseas Highway" as it is commonly known). The reason is that they have a habit of reducing passing zones or eliminating them entirely and  reducing the ability of cars to make progress along the only road through the Keys. 

According to the paper last week four Spanish tourists were killed in a passing fiasco that saw them take an RV head on in the Tea Table Keys, depicted here. The accident is under investigation and exactly what happened isn't clear but  the call is now out to eliminate the passing zone on the long straight section that is the Tea Table Keys approaching Islamorada. This will add a couple of miles to the already tedious 14 mile long, 45 mph, no passing zone of the highway all the way to Tavernier.

I have driven this Tea Table section many times obviously and I have also passed here and done so safely and efficiently, and yet I have a nagging suspicion that eliminating passing may not be a bad idea no matter what the state authorities decide after they look into it as promised.

Reducing the speed limit though will be a pain as the combination of slow speed and no passing will increase road rage, already a problem on the highway especially among people not trained to pass on two lane roads.  They get frustrated and tail gate instead of passing safely, either because there are too few passing zones or they don't know how to do it. Passing on a  two lane highway is not a widely taught skill apparently.

The problem here as pointed out by an indignant Sheriff, are the pedestrians on either side of the road; the bathers, the families picnicking and so forth right alongside the traffic hurtling by at 60 mph. Distracted frolicking pedestrians and text obsessed distracted drivers are not a good mixture.

Passing here requires patience and careful observation neither of which are in great supply on this road. Especially here where visitors get distracted additionally by the proximity of the sea itself,  and the generally outstanding roadside scenery.

It shouldn't be necessary in a  well regulated world to treat people like children but...coping with the Tea Table Key roadway seems to require such an attitude. Too bad. I wish they could only stop the passing if they have to, while at least keeping the 55 mph speed limit.   I doubt that will happen.I have no doubt passing will be studied and subsequently forbidden here.

 And the views are great especially at sunset and sunrise:

This is Channel Five Bridge nearby looking toward Layton to the south (or west depending on your perspective).

I wonderif in a decade all passing will be outlawed on US One? Perish the thought. 

Key West Night

I took a walk on my lunch break and circumambulated Garrison Bight with my iPhone.

I started at Bayview Park (above) and walked through The Meadows (below).

The Garrison Bight boatyard and boat storage:

Laughing Buddha at Thai Island restaurant:

Charterboat Row, where you go to get a captain and boat to take you fishing:

Out Walking

The tide was  out and the mangrove flats revealed and while Rusty ran around I stood and allowed the stress of work and the debris of another night at work flow off me.  

It's Spring Break, the weird ritual of young American students who abandon inhibitions and good manners while invading beach towns across the continent and in Mexico. Consequently said beach towns tend to get their defenses up in anticipation of hordes of young drunks behaving badly. I think Key West has priced itself out of the Spring Break market. That or this year's crop of Spring Breakers are remarkably well behaved.

Working 911 at night gives you a view of the city that is neither noticed nor appreciated generally. Picking up drunks and clearing accidents is thankless work at the best of times but during Spring Break one would expect a lot more calls for service and many more outraged home owners. These days the crowds are small and the sidewalks roll up as usual earlier and earlier in Key West. I suppose there is plenty of tourist money flowing into town even without young drunk students. One hears no complaints of low occupancy and so forth.

I remember the bad old days with hordes of young people swarming Smathers Beach and keeping Duval Street busy until closing time at four in the morning. Officers made lots of overtime money and worked every night regular shift and Spring Break shifts alternating for three weeks. Not any more; every nigth is a night like any other.

To come out to Blimp Road of an evening on my night off is a treat and my own private sunset celebration. Fat Albert the blimp has reappeared at the air force base for the first time since Hurricane Irma:

Out across the mangroves:

It is silent and still, no mosquitoes and no traffic on this dead end road. Just me and my dog.

New Adventures

Life happens, as they say and sometimes life happens in ways you don't expect. I never expected to find myself owning a weird plastic covered Japanese scooter styled after a feet forward cruiser motorcycle. But here we are, my new ride the Suzuki Burgman 200 in a photo found on the web.It seems a heavy burden to lay on this 360 pound 18 horsepower scooter but the idea is to inject a little travel uncertainty into my life, which is decidedly too filled with routine. 

 I first saw the  Suzuki in New York in a dealership after reading about it and I was struck by the proportions and the well designed lines of the usually bulky plastic bodywork (known as "tupperware" to contemptuous motorcyclists). The seat is vast and apparently comfortable and low to the ground and every review reports a decent turn of speed topping out around 80 mph. Yet my heart has always been with Italian Vespas. When I owned a 2007 Vespa 250 it left me stranded too often to count. It recently appeared rather tired looking at Jiri's shop, running but rusty and careworn:

It was a comfortable fast ride when it worked but I was not willing to go back to the uncertainty of a non starting non running temperamental travel companion. My Vespa 150 as much as I love it can only just keep up with traffic and I have grown weary of defending myself from aggressive car drivers who resent being passed by a hairy old hobbit on a moped, even when they are distracted and driving excessively slowly. Furthermore I don't feel as though attempting even modest trips to the mainland is possible on a 60mph 150cc scooter. To do so once on a  dare or as part of some stunt would be entirely possible but to take my camera to routinely explore the Everglades is not within my grasp right now unless I take the car which is hardly an adventure. Hence the appearance of a larger more capable ride in my life.

Jiri my mechanic thinks I should ride a 400cc scooter like his Yamaha in lovely shiny blue, complete with carrier for his small dog...I went for a test ride and he has a point but these are massive beasts easily able to achieve 100 mph but crippled by bulk when it comes to parking or maneuvering 500 pounds of scooter through torturous Key West lanes. My idea was to have a small capable commuter that remains the essence of a scooter capable of occasional long distance trips for fun. Hence the relatively inexpensive Burgman I found lightly used in Tampa. I'd rather it be white but you can't have everything and I will going to pick it up on St Patrick's day chauffeured by my wife who will follow me as I ride it home.

 I am in no hurry to abandon my dog but I have been feeling rather trapped in my daily routines and I think my wife has noticed because she pushed me to make the change. Her argument is I need to go off with my camera and enjoy some solitude which is true. Rusty will always get his walks but a day spent riding and photographing at my pace would be pleasant and a good way to vary my rare days off. The reason I have not looked at motorcycles after my Bonneville drowned is principally because my arthritic left wrist makes changing gears painful.  I was coming to terms with this limitation wondering what to do when Irma drowned my dilemma in seven feet of angry salt water. I expect that in the not too distant future I will have to let a surgeon loose on my wrist and hopefully using a motorcycle clutch will again be a daily feature of my life. So far exercise and an automatic scooter have kept my wrist in only modest discomfort. 

So all things considered change is good, life is good and learning to ride a weird cruiser scooter will be a new and I trust enjoyable challenge. Old age need not diminish us nor alter our essential natures.

My next painful task is to list this little beauty for  sale. I am in no hurry though my wife is correct - three scooters is far too many. She is so unsentimental and practical, lucky for me.

Ocean Views

 Pictures taken from the Garden Club and also from Rest Beach looking more or less south.

 The White Street Pier:

 The white plaster building hinted to me of North Africa.

 Higgs Beach looking north toward the White Street Pier:

Rest Beach looking south toward the pier.

Prehistoric Florida

A friend of mine said my pictures make Florida look prehistoric, a reminder than in some ways this most maligned state, most badly developed state still has kept in touch with its prehistory. I suppose so. The thing I like about the back country in the Keys is that it reminds me of walking in the desert, a place of not much life and a great deal of wind whistling in your ears as your feet crunch through the soil. Around here the "desert" if green and often moist, populated by birds and insects and not often silent as the cars on Highway One are never more than a few miles distant.

And yet I find that prehistoric look everywhere, bleached tree limbs reaching up to the sky in supplication...I wander off the trail, frequently finding my feet mired in clay and muck, my dog happily splashing unseen between the bright green bushes occasionally flashing his tail like a brown pennant above the mangroves, marking his passage.

In the middle of prehistoric mangroves I spotted the old Niles wooden bridge to nowhere blown away by Hurricane Irma. 

 In its glory days it looked like this:

And now all I can say is it looks forlorn, washed up and even more useless than when it joined two empty mangrove patches.

The views across the waters between the islands are like this, with odd human made structures appearing through the heat haze. I often wish for elevation in this flat low lying islands. Standing on a tree stump or a small mound of gravel gives you immense perspective. Relatively speaking.

There he is, happy as a clam waiting for me to decide our next direction. I whistle and he comes running, then he waits. I feel bad for all those dogs I see outside the trailer park near my home trudging the same stretch of roadside every day in the same way at the same time. At least they are getting walked but Rusty I try to actively stimulate with variety and open spaces to run across.

Exploring is in his nature, wherever we go his nose is down and he is intent. He doesn't like the same walk two days in a  row usually so I take him by car on a  circuit of nearby trails. They look pretty much the same to me but they don't smell the same to him.

 clouds worthy of the heat and humidity of summer:

And then a Florida sunrise. No wonder other states malign Florida; all they see is orange juice and condos and weird lurid tabloid news. 

 I see this:

Thank you Rusty.