Still Life on Southard Street

 A lunch break saw me walking around under rather bleak skies, a promise of a cold front to come no doubt. I had to look to see things to photograph and I found a few in the heart of Old Town.

I suspect we will be dealing with Covid for much of 2021, not a situation that fills one with joy but I feel compelled not to allow it to get me down. I keep going out with my camera to see what I can see around town. In the middle of the day I am inclined to avoid Duval Street as crowds of visitors I find treat masks with disdain. I try to stay to areas where locals travel, keeping their distance and properly masked. Having come this far virus free I'd like to continue to keep my family that way.

I find the large trees offer patterns and lines that intrigue me and I sometimes wonder, after I have finished, what I must look like to a  passerby, a tree inspector perhaps. 

The Old Harris School still stands empty and rather forlorn giving me an opportunity to photograph what might be mistaken for a castle or a stately home were I able to travel. It is merely a former school filled with memories for people who grew up here. Now it is empty and seeking new owners with a great deal of money. The land is being used as a paid parking lot which seems undignified.

Textures and light. I miss the bright sharp winter sunlight of which we have not had enough this year. 

Even my wife and my shift colleague have noticed that our days off are plagued with rain overcast and clouds. As soon as I am securely buttoned up at work the sun comes out...

A line if bright rainbow scooters, the excellent PGO Buddy made in Taiwan and that seem to run for ever.

It was a day for contrasts of shadow, me keeping my hand in:

A Cuban Lunch

I had not eaten a Cuban sandwich in a long time. I debated the exact amount of time with my wife and we couldn't decide if it had been one year or three and decided it was most likely two. Let's face it: a sandwich filled with meat cheese mayonnaise and lots of salt is not a health conscious choice so abstinence is not all bad. But once you have that flavor on your mind it's hard to dismiss it. 

It happened that I was on foot on White Street and looking for lunch. I thought about the new sandwich shop at the other end of the street, Ingrid's Kitchen offering Czech food to rave reviews. However I had to be at this end of the street in not much time. I tried the Polish Market next to the gas station but Covid has shut their kitchen temporarily according to the babushka at the counter. So at that point I fell back, not unwillingly on the old stand by and they did not disappoint.  

Sandy's had had a falling out with the employees who moved everything but the store up the street and opened a rival coffeeshop in a flurry of lawsuits and accusations over naming rights. Fernandy's came and went and the original Sandy's is still here and still delicious. A large café con leche and a heap of meat and cheese and calories and I was set to head across the street and deal with the title transfer on my scooter.

I like Sandy's and when I worked night shift at the police station three blocks away a strong Cuban coffee in the middle of the night was just the ticket sometimes. At the moment I work days and they are no longer a twenty four hour operation but every time I drive by that's what I think about, coffee and darkness.

The Harvey Government Center where I was bound was harboring the usual collection of dubious characters:

These guys failed to make the deadline for my chicken essay earlier this week so here they are parading around the grounds of the old school building at Truman and White. It's where we pay taxes, renew registration if we miss the mailing deadline and buy assorted permits. It's organized, the staff are very helpful and everyone wears a damned mask without arguing about it. I am so tired of mask protestors; if I'd wanted to deal with kindergarteners I'd have had my own.

Stuffed with food and one hundred dollar bills I waved good bye to the Suzuki Burgman 200 and while I was at it I also waved good bye to Sandy's for a while. You just can't eat there every day you know. I mean you could but there would be consequences...
 

Sugarloaf Mangroves

I interrupted a kettle of turkey vultures at lunch when Rusty and I pulled up in the Ford Fusion to go for a stroll. They lifted themselves laboriously off the ground and perched in the trees watching us balefully as we walked in small circles below them.

Not to put too fine a point on it but they were enjoying a pungent meal and death hung in the air over us when we got out of the car. I can't imagine what had died to provide their lunch but it was reeking. The mangroves looked nice though:

I have to confess Rusty enjoys this trail on Sugarloaf Key far less than I do and he wandered with a lot of sniffing and not a huge amount of enthusiasm.

He was fine, we had already walked an hour elsewhere and I wanted to look at some red mangroves up close, so I did.

This narrow trail used to be a road, State Road 939 and  it is built on a firm rock surface winding for four miles to the very end of the island, across from Geiger Key. Look east from Geiger Key Marina and here we are.

New young mangroves shooting out of the thick shiny leaves of the red mangroves. The trees thrive is slat water by sucking up the ocean and spitting out the salt onto it's leaves which is why some of them are always going yellow, dying off and taking surplus salt with them.

Hurricane Irma exacted a high prices in drowned trees around here in 2017:

Four miles later it still looks pretty much like this. We went about 200 yards before Rusty pooped and demanded to be taken home.

The Birds

I wasn't expecting to see flocks of birds when we got out of the car, Rusty and I. You take what you find.

Winter is when the birds are enjoying the mild climate, just like the people. 

I kept seeing more of them and I kept pointing my camera at them.

I am not by any stretch devoted to wildlife photography, but I do like to record daily life as it happens.

Bird photographers spend thousands on massive lenses and top of the line camera bodies on tripods.

My camera has a long lens but I can't be bothered to use a tripod and all the rest of it. I like the birds.

But I really like how the birds give me a focus to record the keys just looking colorful and good.

Look at the horizon line, the low tide pushing up the brown rocks and the white egrets flying together.

In the picture below the unremarkable flight is hovering above a white ghost - Fat Albert ten miles away.

Not a bird but a mural previously shown on this page. I still like it.

There is a bird in there, down low over the water, possibly a pelican flying into the sunrise.

Pelicans flying low:

A lovely morning away from work and enjoying the flight. Not alone.

Carsten Lane

I am sorry the Fiat 500 is no longer being sold in the US. My wife's convertible has 111,000 miles and since she teaches from home I have taken to commuting in ours  and thoroughly enjoy it. This one is in rather cleaner shape than ours, parked across from Carsten Lane.

A block long with a  weird right turn in the middle, lots of foliage and lovely light.  A  few pictures: