low tide

Bahia Honda State Park, about 40 minutes north of Key West, had been at some point voted one of among the five most beautiful parks in the United States. I didn't get to vote on it but I agree, it is what natural tropical beauty is all about
and what people up north imagine when they dream
about paradise.

Yeah, there are parking lots and picnic tables, bathrooms and a gift shop, snorkeling party boats and a buoyed beach for the kiddies but, turn left where most folks turn right and you find an amazingly peaceful place.

The Atlantic beach is pristine, completely untouched by any kind of governmental intervention or engineering to make it more hospitable for humans.
Beaches heaped with washed up seaweed, coral and an occasional lobster trap. If, as I've seen it happen, a storm season washes away the beachfront, it stays that way until the next storm season puts it back. The air is fresh, the water is clear and all the while the tides roll in and out as easily as nature's breathing.
My restless spirit is quieted and my faith reassured,
every time I walk it's length.

SR939A

So, the past week and a half have been "taxing". (get it?)
I"ll admit, it takes a little doing for me to get my artistic mind around the annual Infernal Revenue issues but in the end, my girl Louise, the CPA, has seen me through once again. I've sent my checks by certified, rectified, bona fide mail and feel much better having "Rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. . ." (from Mark 12:17 and/or Luke 20:25) and getting the unconstitutional monkeys off my ass for yet another year.
Now I can get back to the business of living quietly under the radar in the Florida Keys.

Anyway. . .
Out on the long end of Sugarloaf Blvd., on Lower Sugarloaf Key, there's only one way you can go. It's a sharp right turn onto SR939A (a.k.a. Old State Rd.4A). I figure that stretch is just about 1/4 mile before it stops dead at a barricade behind which is a dirt trail into the mangroves. On my last visit up that way I took a little time to check it out.


I parked the convertible and set off on foot not knowing what to expect. That's the adventure on paths (spiritual or otherwise) with no end in sight.


Unfortunately, it was late in the day and while I walked and I walked for the better part of 2 hours eventually I realized the daylight was fading with still no end in sight. (2 hours ingress means 2 hours egress).


I knew if I'd pushed on any longer it would be dark before I got back to the car and I just wasn't prepared for that.


So I didn't get to the ultimate end of the trail (but that's not ever the point of any journey - is it?) but promised myself I'd be back earlier on another day with a dirt bike to revisit
the adventure.


And that will be a ton of fun.
Stay tuned. . .

"rainy season" in the keys

I hadn't heard it in so long that when it woke me out of a sound sleep the other day, it took a few seconds before I knew what I was hearing. Rain dancing down on my aluminum porch roofing. Traditionally, we don't get much rain in the first six months of the year and this year practically none. Compared to the rest of Florida we get the lowest amount of average annual rainfall, at about 40 inches a year, and this year I've heard was below well below average. So I welcome the rain dance and so do my plants.

A few months ago I stumbled over a TV show I'd never seen before. No, I didn't break down and buy a boob-tube, I found a website on the computer, a while ago now, called Hulu.com where you can go and watch TV shows and movies for free. The normal routine is, at the end of the day while I'm fixing food or some such, I'll check in with Hulu.com to get a daily dose of Jon Stewart. Well one day I was cuing him up and a promo screen, advertising a show called "24", caught my eye. I'd heard of it, of course, but never saw it so I figured "what the hell" and watched it. . .
and watched it the next week. . .
and the next. . .
and the next. . .
. . .you get the picture.
It's a cliffhanger every week to keep you coming back for more and there's a level of that suspended belief system thing you have to do to get through it but as cop shows go, it's not half bad.
I often think the main dude, Jack Bauer, must be a superhero. Not because he can kill terrorists ten at a time or because he's sure to outlive that pesky pathogen.
I think he's a superhero because the guy can do all that stuff and never needs any sleep. . .
But I do. Goodnight my friends.

low tide

Bahia Honda State Park, about 40 minutes north of Key West, had been at some point voted one of among the five most beautiful parks in the United States. I didn't get to vote on it but I agree, it is what natural tropical beauty is all about.

Yes, there are parking lots and picnic tables, bathrooms and a gift shop, snorkeling party boats and a buoyed beach for the kiddies but, turn left where most folks go right and you find an amazing place.

The Atlantic beach is pristine, completely untouched by any kind of governmental intervention or engineering to make it more hospitable for humans.
Beaches heaped with washed up seaweed, coral and an occasional lobster trap. If, as I've seen it happen, a storm season washes away the beachfront, it stays that way until the next storm season puts it back. The air is fresh, the water is clear and all the while the tides roll in and out as regular as nature's breathing.
My spirit is quieted, reassured every time I walk it's length.

between here and there

During a recent road trip a little way up the Keys, I pulled over just long enough to find a few good angles of this old bridge just south of Bahia Honda. It's a section of Henry Flagler's "wonder of the world", The Florida East Coast Railway. Built between 1906 and 1912, several sections still parallel the Overseas Highway, which replaced it in the mid-1930s, from the Continent to Key West.

I've got a peculiar "organic" connection to this section of the historic railway and that's why I notice it, more than other sections, every time I'm up the Keys.

Years ago, a friend and I were out walking on the short section of the bridge that's open to pedestrian traffic. It's a moderately steep grade that climbs pretty high (I'm guessing a couple of hundred feet) as it ends out over the water where the view is fantastic.

It had been a hot sunny day but as we made it up the span to the end, the sky was a gathering of thick dark clouds with an occasional flash of high lightening. As we were looking down over the edge at the water below, my friend commented on the darkening day. When I looked over to reply I noticed her hair was all standing out on end and so was mine and everyone else's.

Remember, as a kid, rubbing a balloon on a wool sweater and then orbiting your head with it?

Who'd have thought it? Electrically charged air, electrically charged water and an exposed metal superstructure between here and there. . .
Static electricity!

I thought it was pretty cool but it freaked her out so we beat feet out of there and spent the rest of the afternoon watching other people's hair stand out on end from the relative safety of the nearby coffee shop.

card sound road

Card Sound Road was paved through the mangroves and flatlands that skirt the southernmost end of the Florida Everglades as a toll road shortcut between Key Largo and Florida City.
I imagined that this is what it would look like if I were a beagle hanging my head out the passenger side window at 60mph.

mangroves

Mangroves are like miniature forests that grow in the shallow salt marshes around the islands.
Some grow in smaller clumps like in this picture and others, like in the next picture, sprawl over acres.

Looks like a farmer's field that you could walk across but, you can't. While mangroves are a great place for birds to roost on the tops, down below live all manner of fish, crabs and alligators.

I've heard a couple of versions of a story from Key West's "bad old days". . .
About thirty years ago, a drug smuggler named Bum Farto,
(no kidding), got caught by the cops and agreed to rat out a few of his gangster friends to keep himself out of prison. But just before the trial, he disappeared and has never been seen or
heard from since. . .

. . .One version of the story says he grabbed the money, changed his name and moved to South America somewhere. Another version says his gangster friends caught up with him, did him in and at low tide one dark night, tied his body to the roots of a mangrove patch. So, when the tide came back in, so did all those hungry critters and, as quick as you can say "bon appétit", there went the evidence.