Suzuki Burgman 200

Why I ask myself am I the only rider in North America who thinks the Baby Burgman motor scooter is the ideal ride? Perhaps it is because of where I live, in a land of 55 mph speed limits and ample free scooter parking. The Burgman 200 copes very well with both:

 In the world of motorcycling the US stands apart, a place of vast distances connected by amazing freeways, huge mountainous amphitheaters and desert landscapes all contained in one country that uses the same language, the same currency and by-and-large the same habits and customs with modest regional variations. It is I suppose hardly surprising that the motorcycling community has adopted the mantra that there is "no substitute for cubic inches" which, in a nation that firmly rejects metrification is a way of saying big is best. My Burgman at 200 cubic centimeters rates a mere twelve  cubic inches, laughably small in the land of Harley Davidson! But change is in the wind.

Just this month one of the last traditionally styled paper motorcycling monthlies, Rider has a review of three small adventure bikes, under Japanese Indian and German labels but all built in factories in the Far East where these types of bikes are just now coming into their own as toys for the emerging middle classes. Funnily enough they are also starting to appeal to rider sin the US  which brings me right back to my 360 pound 18 horsepower scooter.

I think in the land that developed the above mentioned theory that there is no substitute for cubic inches a modest 200 cc engine doesn't rate for those bad ass bikers. Indeed my scooter was originally purchased by a wife who wanted to ride with her husband until she lost her nerve. Lucky for me she did as I got a $5,000 scooter for just three grand. As I grow older I find myself more and more intrigued by the miniaturization of our world. Technology makes it possible to compress machinery and tools that used to be vast into smaller and smaller packages. As much as that is true of the silicon chip it is also true for motorcycles. Look at me, I was very happy with a 500 pound 900 cc Triumph which I rode for a decade and a hundred thousand miles:

So perhaps I am on the cutting edge of the go small movement? I don't think it's that, I think the pool of riders is just getting smaller and older. Harley Davidson sales are plummeting and their attempts to attract younger riders aren't working real well. Motorcycling is viewed as dangerous and not enough of us make it sound fun adventurous and exciting. Young people aren't driving and they certainly aren't riding and as we old guys age smaller bikes keep us on the road so it seems like geezers are still powering the market. Rider a long time advocate of small bikes, makes a point of saying in the article that these are not beginner's bikes, the fatal label that makes strong men afraid to ride small capacity bikes, these are capable touring machines.

So for someone like me who cares not one jot for fashion or hipness the Burgman is a severely practical answer to the mobility issues I live with. I am 23 miles from work (and play) in a year round mild climate and 75 to 80 miles per gallon on a scooter that is easy to ride and fun makes too much sense. I don't miss shifting gears especially as my arthritis in my left wrist won't go away and using a motorcycle clutch just aggravated it. I wasn't even riding the Triumph Bonneville much before Irma flooded my downstairs at home and wrecked the bike.

While I appreciate the economy and ease of riding and the practical storage on the Burgman it is also a whole load of fun. It's fast enough to put me out of the misery of slow poke cock-blocking drivers who think you can't pass on US One. It keeps up with freeway traffic so I am looking to make some long mainland trips on it when I can tear myself away from Rusty (my wife is much more obliging and likes her space). It is secure and relatively comfortable in heavy rain and I enjoy riding the thing. Check out the underseat trunk, so huge I don't yet find a need for a bulky rear top case:

With this scooter there comes an identity crisis. Am I a motorcyclist any more? I think I am because unlike most Americans I am not a fair weather weekend warrior, I would rather be riding than driving any day of the week. The way you look for the car keys when transport is called for is how I check for the scooter keys when I have to go somewhere. The only time I drive is when Rusty or my wife are involved. Perhaps I'm not a motorcyclist exactly but a rider. I don't even know if I will ever go back to a traditional motorcycle with gears and everything. There are scooters that are every bit as powerful as big motorcycles and more useful. However the Burgman can never be as sexy and appealing as a traditional Vespa. I still have one of those!

Unlike American riders I grew up on a mixture of motorcycles and Vespas like most European riders. Scooters were just another riding choice and these days of immense traffic congestion European riders are as much frustrated car drivers as motorcyclists. It's only in the US that scooters are objects of derision.

Perhaps I should have joined the crowd and gone for a small capacity motorcycle and many of them appeal to me. But for me the ease of use the practicality and low maintenance of the Burgman 200 combined with a  top speed of 80 mph which I rarely feel the need to exceed, makes me a very happy camper. Former motorcyclists perhaps? Whatever!

Two In One

Robert and I had lunch together at the Bier Boutique on First Street. We talked of this and that, perhaps a new home, winters spent in the far west skiing in Utah, a plan much liked by his wife.  I have known Robert for almost 30 years and I am surprised by his embrace of things new and different. A tropical man apres-ski. Well, well.

My wife is the key to my retirement and fortunately for me she only occasionally expresses a longing for a her youth and ski trips to Lake Tahoe with her father. I think Rusty might like snow. He sat around watching the world as Robert and I ate burgers.

 We are boring old men and usually I just take the easy route and do the special. Robert frequently branches out and seeks a bison burger of his own but we both settled for (!) the sriracha burger this time.

 Being a  temporary widower with a wife off at a conference my wife decided she should get to spend some time with Robert so in a rather unusual move we had dinner out with him in Big Pine Key.

It's a miracle, that's the name of the restaurant -Milagro - and the miracle is it might well flourish in Big Pine Key. The food was excellent, the ambiance was more romantic than I needed it to be for dinner with Robert.

 Pozole, which is a Mexican hominy and beef soup.

The fish too was superb. This place rocks.

I want to go back. Big Pine has  a great place to eat.

Getting The Wind Up

A dog has 300 million smell receptors up his nostrils and according to an interview I heard on NPR from a scientist who explained the way Rusty smells the world around him and it is unimaginably complex, varied and layered compared to a human's six million receptors that give us a very two dimensional view of the smells around us. When the wind is howling Rusty goes intoa  delirium of smelling.

I found the interview fascinating actually and I see my dog through a  whole new lense of experience. Dogs rate smells by freshness and can identify smells by direction very accurately as their nostrils work independently and in stereo. It's amazing stuff. So Rusty can smell bacon cooking at the state park campground and he knows how long ago it was cooked. He can smell dog shit too and it doesn't disgust him because, as the scientist put it smells to dogs are like colors to people. Rusty is no more revolted bya  "bad smell" than you or I are revolted by a  "bad color." Strange stuff indeed.

So it was I spent a lot of time sittig giving my buddy time to sort our all the smells flying across his nostrils at 25 miles per hour. When he wants to move on Rusty lets me know by staring hard at me and if that doesn't work he starts to whine. Otherwise I respect his desire to wait.

I drive Rusty to a his walks so he gets to enjoy a variety of destinations and variety is  as important to dogs as it is to us, in my opinion. However after we drive  we walk. I couldn't figure out why this guy felt the need to drive across a perfectly walkable open space to walk in a  small circle and then drive away again. He seemed so young and fit I was surprised he didn't walk.

It was a glorious day and I was put in mind of a saying I used to hear when out sailing. "Better to be in here wishing you were out there than to be out there wishing you were in here." It looked rather energizing from up here, as long as you were sailing downwind.

Back at the parking lot I opened the door for Rusty to get in. I called him to no effect. Grr. I walked around the car and found him being fondled by a  busty blonde woman with a  streak of pink hair. "I gave him some water, is that okay?" I shrugged my indifference. "He's thirsty," she said looking at me. Aren't we all I replied thinking of my teapot back at home. "I thought he was a stray," she said. He was I replied. The former stray hopped onto his bed in the back of the car. The last she saw of him as she climbed back into her Jeep was Rusty between the front seats covering me in kisses. Fooled her he seemed to be cackling.

It's odd how people think I am abusing Rusty by giving him his freedom. I let him run because he will come back to me. He's never had it so good: why would he not come back? I carry water in the car but on a cool day like that he wasn't that thirsty and he prefers for some reason to drink out of the watering can at home which I keep full mainly for him. Fifteen minutes later he had access to all the water he wanted in bowls and garden implements. The worried lady with the pink streak can choose to save any of the two and a half million dogs euthanized every year as "unwanted." Rusty is mine.

Not always does Rusty cooperate with technology just to prove he has a mind of his own. I swear he hates me playing with my phone for instance. Sometimes I pause during our walks and read something and he just walks away. At home if we are on the bed together he will get off and go to his own bed if I pick up the phone. He is far too human for his own good. Brat. And the way he avoids the camera is positively unsettling.

Season For Storms

The rain came and went and more rain and wind followed and we had our first storm of the year. The National Hurricane Center called Alberto a "sub tropical storm" apparently something to do with how the winds formed into a cyclone. It was a bit too subtle for me. It spun, it produced strong winds and lots of rain and once again we found ourselves staring at a tropical storm display. Good enough.

60 mile per hour winds aren't that terrible if you aren't ina  tent or on a boat with a weak anchoring system. Yet the storm in the Western Caribbean had a disproportionately strong effect after the pasting we got from Hurricane irma and its 140 mph winds last September. This was a rain event:

The fact is the Atlantic Hurricane Season starts today and runs through November 30th. It is not unheard of storms to appear before and after those inflexible dates but it is unsettling when it happens. There was no fear of damage or death in Alberto's approach. The storm was more a reminder of what may yet be to come.

If you went through Irma last year you either evacuated and got frustrated you couldn't come home right away which was traumatic, or you stayed and watched the drama unfold in front of your eyes. Either way Iram left it's mark. No one wants that again yet an early season storm does not leave one feeling as though we might get through the summer unsscathed. Tropical or sub-tropical Alberto was viewed by many as a warning.

Some people couldn't take the tension and have left already. My wife mentioned a coupe of her acquaintances who packed up and went North. Over dinner Saturday night as winds outside the restaurant howled one of our friends said she couldn't take it anymore. Her husband insisted they aren't leaving the Keys but she looked very dubious.

My wife and I went to see the documentary on Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg listed only by her initials RBG... It was nice to see an obituary before the person in question is dead and she is very much alive at 84 and still happy to work. A life explained is a simple and certain thing, the ending is known and the plot to get there has already been unraveled. It made for a serene couple of hours at the Tropic Cinema. Then it was back out to Alberto.

Just a little rain, some discomfort, boredom perhaps in a town dedicated to the outdoors. There are museums and bars but rain seems to stop play in Key West. A time to reflect on the hurricane season to come, the desire for a crystal ball the hope that we shall look back and sigh gratefully that that went well.

I dropped off the Burgman for a new tire at the shop and my wife picked me up in the Fiat 500. Celia in sunny Arizona saw my Instagram post and remarked it was about time I was off the scooter and in a car. I suppose so but I always prefer two wheels to four.

But Rusty deal with adverse weather in the best way possible:

In the event of a hurricane he evacuates and I miss him.

Overcast And Grumpy

I find to my great discomfort I am weather dependent and I don't like gray skies and rain. I have known this for decades and in California when I complained of cold wet muddy winters my neighbors looked at me with disdain and remarked I had never spent a winter in Detroit. True enough.Then I had to survive summers in Northern coastal California, days of overcast skies and sunrise and sunset masked by marine inversion that blotted out the sky for hours every day. I craved Florida. I got Florida. 

It is absurd to allow gray skies and rain to dictate one's mood but I am old enough to know that is who I am. And right now the rain has been endless around here. Wind, gray skies, rain and on and on/ I am sick of it. I am a baby. It's not actually cold butthe grayness inspired me to play with the filter settings on my phone camera. Vivid dramatic I think, at the Waterfront Brewery where I enjoyed their wrought iron art.

Apparently the artist Ryan Stimers does more manageable stuff as well for people who don't need a giant sculpture for their business. Click on his name for the link. I wandered morosely along the waterfront looking for inspiration and i saw two young people loading drinks into a car which struck me as odd as there isn't a supermarket here. No point in over thinking it as they may have been crew on a boat getting stores for a cruise or something but their enthusiasm and good cheer reminded me that not everyone thinks flat seas and overcast are reason to be in the dumps. They were off on an adventure and I was silently grateful to them for reminding me that preparing even for a paid cruise can and should be fun.

I'm not sure if it was a crow on the post but I hoped it was, wished it was, looking out over our lives ready to clean up any carrion that might be found lying on the boardwalk. My wife remarked we haven't been swimming yet this year. The canal has been a post Irma mess for months and now that it seems to be returning to clarity -apologies to the sea life probably wrecked also by our garbage - the weather is not cooperating. In ten days my wife leaves for a month in Italy and she is grumpy at the thought of no swim before her landlocked holiday learning Italian.

And there was another lesson for me, two people enjoying the California-like day in Paradise. They didn't care their expensive vacation was nothing like the brochures; or if they did care they masked their frustration like troopers.

After exercise class I had arranged to meet Nick at Sinz a burrito shop on Duval at Truman. Friends neighbors and stranger shave raved about this place so I sat waiting for Nick who had to park a car, and I took this picture. The tall spindly palm reminded me of California palms that survive the relatively cool harsh climate there. I transported myself to a Southern California strip mall in one photo. 

I suck and do-it-yourself. I never go to Subway because I get anxious trying to figure what to put in the sandwich and the problem here is the  same and worse. Do you want a  burrito a taco or a bowl? Meat veg cheese salad bar salsa choices in rapid succession. Nick cheated and followed my example. We ate out of stainless bowls that most closely resemble Rusty's  food bowl. The place soon enough was packed. 

We had no sauces at the table but they put out soap. I pride myself on being able to cope with the unconventional but that had me floored. Do I put it on the food or my hands? Is it mandatory? Then the staff brought out the artillery and shooed off the invasive pigeons with bright plastic water cannon. Th barbacoa was shredded meat with no sauce. We talked a fair bit and got through the food which was a good deal less inspired than the conversation.

I walked back to my scooter where I found the Simonton Center security guard was hovering angrily over my scooter parked for 75 minutes in a  customer only scooter area. He should have been scowling at the moldy yellow twenty year old Honda Helix next to my silver rocket. These days a ratty old scooter lowers the tone of Millionaire Row formerly known as Key Weird. Boy I was grumpy.

We had dinner with friends twice this past weekend, once out at my favorite Italian Bella Luna on Cudjoe and once at home with the wife's cooking. Last year she took cooking classes in Orvieto and every now and again these amazing pastry balls appear on the table filled with sausage and tomato and spices bursting with flavor. What a concept. I should have stayed home.

Night On The Street

The ubiquitous Key West bicycle, Schooner Wharf bar illuminated in the background:

Personalized licence plate ona  scooter, perhaps for a business: 

Reef Relief,  once  always heard from and after the founders left key West, not so much:

 Old fashioned air conditioning:

 Paradise: a palm in every yard and  Jeep in every driveway.

 I like the display without the distracting jewels, 300 block of Duval:

 Doesn't every one? I miss the camera shop that was here:

 Water going to waste. I guess it has been raining...

 A mild mannered mockingbird:

 They charge five bucks for coconuts in Key West. I am amazed what you can get away with.

 Kilwins, home of the chocolate covered Twinkie:

 Everybody needs help but wages never seem to rise:

 Urban garden:

 Tired dog:

Tired me, time for bed.