It has been glorious weather lately, sunny days around 80 degrees, blue skies and a light cooling breeze.
Considering how grim the weather has been Up North we have been very fortunate to have a big block of high pressure overhead keeping cold air out of South Florida. I read of snow in Dallas and frost in Florida's panhandle and I know I couldn't take it.
What I can take is Cheyenne down to our favorite coastal walk on south Big Pine Key. It's busier this time of year when people from the nearby campground stroll up and down beach combing, unlike summer when I have the place entirely to myself. Even forced to share this spot with a few visitors isn't at all bad.
The campers clean up assiduously, trimming foliage and trying to get the invasive Brazilian peppers under control. Known locally as Florida holly for their green leaves and red berries:
Low tide brings a wider foreshore to walk but there is almost no sand to speak of, just rocks and dried seaweed.
The past week or more the weather has been lovely, almost summer like with flat waters, big puffy white clouds, and over it all a slightly cool breeze, enough to ruffle a newspaper but not enough to blow the laundry off the line. I have taken the liner out of my mesh riding jacket and I've been thinking about fishing my lightweight summer riding gloves out of the closet it's been that warm.The weather has induced a meditative state in me, a detachment that has surprised me a bit.
The weather forecasters tell us a block of high pressure is keeping the cold northern air out of South Florida and the Bahamas and we get to have an early summer when the rest of the country is literally freezing. 
The beauty of this is that owing to the frequency of winter cold fronts this time of year, one appreciates and doubly so this prolonged spell of warm weather with afternoons above 80 degrees and nights well above 70.
There is a little bit of irony here, there always is in my life it seems. This also happens to be the week when I am off work and in the classroom during the day. My usual afternoons off are replaced by precious hours of sunlight sitting in a classroom learning to be a better medical dispatcher. It's useful stuff no doubt, but I'd rather be working during darkness and getting up at lunch time in my normal fashion to be home with my dog and loose in the wilderness enjoying the patterns of sunlight on the gumbo limbo trees and their peculiar red bark.
The Bonneville will be parked in the sunlight and Cheyenne will be home alone for eight hours every day for three days. Our lives will be turned upside down! And the sun will continue to shine without me. I will ride past the Bahia Honda bridge on my way to Marathon in the morning and on my way back in the evening. My commute will be turned upside down. I am a creature of habit... 
When we were out walking the beach we met more than one person which is a sign of winter as the campground on Long Beach road is full of people and this is also "their" nature trail. In summer we can enjoy it almost always alone, Cheyenne and I.
We are deeply in love my Labrador and I. After fifteen months together Cheyenne is getting very used to her new freedoms of middle age. She stays home alone, free to come and go as she pleases and for the most part my wife or myself are there with her. When we aren't there she manages fine moving between the lounge chair on the porch, her bad and the couch. When I am home she enjoys being as close to me as possible. I find it hard to refuse her.
I met a woman walking the beach and in my efforts to be polite to strangers we fell to talking. She said she thought I was a visitor but it turns out we live on neighboring islands more or less and we fell to talking about places we knew in the back country.
She was candid enough to describe herself as witch and when that didn't phase me I had to point out that twenty years in a California University town gets you past worrying about labels, and even though I would not claim to be a Wiccan anymore than I would claim to be a Mormon I am not particularly opposed to the worship of nature. I don't label nature very much either unlike the conservancy people. 
It turns out there is more than one group (coven) of Wiccans in the Keys, who knew, and we chatted about how it is easier to be off the mainstream here than on mainland Florida. My wife encountered surprising anti-Semitism in Fort Myers where she started her teaching career. That despite the fact that she describes herself as a cultural Jew, not a particularly religious member of the Chosen People. Every time I think we are past being afraid of each other I find people busy labeling each other in ways that make no sense to me. 
I was quite surprised the Wiccan spoke up to me about herself as openly as she did but it made for a fascinating conversation about her family's roots in this religious practice (if that is how you can describe it). Mind you she described herself as very open about it so she was clearly used to talking about her beliefs. So often my attempts to be engage strangers in my polite new way leads down a dead end of really boring small talk, usually about the weather , always a popular topic in the Keys, that I have been thinking about giving up the new me. However, even though the weather has in fact been delightful, I also got some thought provoking conversation. 
Her thesis was that Wiccans are all about love and respect and her beliefs take the judgment out of being judgmental, or at least she tries to. My response was that sometimes people are just to evil, if not simply irritating such that it is impossible not to be judgmental about them. She laughed at me. I suppose I deserved it. We met some campers and they strolled by with a brief greeting and keep marching along. I'm not sure which one of us worried them the most though I'd like to think my pink Crocs played their usual role.
The day was still splendid and I'd had a decent conversation, and my wife had planned a bang up Chinese dinner at home. 
What more could a man and his dog ask for?
A breather on the trail to catch one's breath and count one's blessings. Wiccan or otherwise.
Considering how grim the weather has been Up North we have been very fortunate to have a big block of high pressure overhead keeping cold air out of South Florida. I read of snow in Dallas and frost in Florida's panhandle and I know I couldn't take it.
What I can take is Cheyenne down to our favorite coastal walk on south Big Pine Key. It's busier this time of year when people from the nearby campground stroll up and down beach combing, unlike summer when I have the place entirely to myself. Even forced to share this spot with a few visitors isn't at all bad.
The campers clean up assiduously, trimming foliage and trying to get the invasive Brazilian peppers under control. Known locally as Florida holly for their green leaves and red berries:
Low tide brings a wider foreshore to walk but there is almost no sand to speak of, just rocks and dried seaweed.
The past week or more the weather has been lovely, almost summer like with flat waters, big puffy white clouds, and over it all a slightly cool breeze, enough to ruffle a newspaper but not enough to blow the laundry off the line. I have taken the liner out of my mesh riding jacket and I've been thinking about fishing my lightweight summer riding gloves out of the closet it's been that warm.The weather has induced a meditative state in me, a detachment that has surprised me a bit.
The weather forecasters tell us a block of high pressure is keeping the cold northern air out of South Florida and the Bahamas and we get to have an early summer when the rest of the country is literally freezing. 
The beauty of this is that owing to the frequency of winter cold fronts this time of year, one appreciates and doubly so this prolonged spell of warm weather with afternoons above 80 degrees and nights well above 70.
There is a little bit of irony here, there always is in my life it seems. This also happens to be the week when I am off work and in the classroom during the day. My usual afternoons off are replaced by precious hours of sunlight sitting in a classroom learning to be a better medical dispatcher. It's useful stuff no doubt, but I'd rather be working during darkness and getting up at lunch time in my normal fashion to be home with my dog and loose in the wilderness enjoying the patterns of sunlight on the gumbo limbo trees and their peculiar red bark.
The Bonneville will be parked in the sunlight and Cheyenne will be home alone for eight hours every day for three days. Our lives will be turned upside down! And the sun will continue to shine without me. I will ride past the Bahia Honda bridge on my way to Marathon in the morning and on my way back in the evening. My commute will be turned upside down. I am a creature of habit... 
When we were out walking the beach we met more than one person which is a sign of winter as the campground on Long Beach road is full of people and this is also "their" nature trail. In summer we can enjoy it almost always alone, Cheyenne and I.
We are deeply in love my Labrador and I. After fifteen months together Cheyenne is getting very used to her new freedoms of middle age. She stays home alone, free to come and go as she pleases and for the most part my wife or myself are there with her. When we aren't there she manages fine moving between the lounge chair on the porch, her bad and the couch. When I am home she enjoys being as close to me as possible. I find it hard to refuse her.
I met a woman walking the beach and in my efforts to be polite to strangers we fell to talking. She said she thought I was a visitor but it turns out we live on neighboring islands more or less and we fell to talking about places we knew in the back country.
She was candid enough to describe herself as witch and when that didn't phase me I had to point out that twenty years in a California University town gets you past worrying about labels, and even though I would not claim to be a Wiccan anymore than I would claim to be a Mormon I am not particularly opposed to the worship of nature. I don't label nature very much either unlike the conservancy people. 
It turns out there is more than one group (coven) of Wiccans in the Keys, who knew, and we chatted about how it is easier to be off the mainstream here than on mainland Florida. My wife encountered surprising anti-Semitism in Fort Myers where she started her teaching career. That despite the fact that she describes herself as a cultural Jew, not a particularly religious member of the Chosen People. Every time I think we are past being afraid of each other I find people busy labeling each other in ways that make no sense to me. 
I was quite surprised the Wiccan spoke up to me about herself as openly as she did but it made for a fascinating conversation about her family's roots in this religious practice (if that is how you can describe it). Mind you she described herself as very open about it so she was clearly used to talking about her beliefs. So often my attempts to be engage strangers in my polite new way leads down a dead end of really boring small talk, usually about the weather , always a popular topic in the Keys, that I have been thinking about giving up the new me. However, even though the weather has in fact been delightful, I also got some thought provoking conversation. 
Her thesis was that Wiccans are all about love and respect and her beliefs take the judgment out of being judgmental, or at least she tries to. My response was that sometimes people are just to evil, if not simply irritating such that it is impossible not to be judgmental about them. She laughed at me. I suppose I deserved it. We met some campers and they strolled by with a brief greeting and keep marching along. I'm not sure which one of us worried them the most though I'd like to think my pink Crocs played their usual role.
The day was still splendid and I'd had a decent conversation, and my wife had planned a bang up Chinese dinner at home. 
What more could a man and his dog ask for?
A breather on the trail to catch one's breath and count one's blessings. Wiccan or otherwise.
Brian is the male half of the outfit, taking orders while keeping an eye on the tortillas on the griddle.
My wife and I enjoy their and shrimp fish tacos and the fish quesadilla was excellent also. My next step is to have a burrito. I am very fond of my Gaucho Ernesto Burrito at Badboy on Simonton but a California style burrito would be an enjoyable addition.
Cheyenne thought this place had potential.
Heat, baby heat!
Buzzing through Big Pine of a weekend this is what to look for.
Tall Cathy was visiting our house when I got the call to pick up tacos on the way home from walking the dog. We spread the table on the porch and checked an assortment of fish and shrimp tacos. Eight at three dollars each. More than we could eat for twenty four bucks.
Cathy actually came by to make critical comments about the growth of the garden on the deck, but tacos and Cheyenne won her over and she was quite polite about our growing efforts this year.
Bobskoot in Canada likes to make fun of me for not having a tachometer on my cheap Bonneville. It was known, before it was phased out, as a standard Bonneville; unlike the more expensive T100 which is still offered there is no chrome, no instrument to measure engine revs and it has a one tone paint job. I threw some luggage and a windshield on it, failed to add any chrome and chose not to modify the engine to increase the standard 65 horsepower produced by the modest air cooled 865cc twin and got riding. Bobskoot is no longer satisfied by his entirely adequate Suzuki 650, farkled and super equipped, and is looking with lust in his heart at a Yamaha Super Tenere that will cost him $17,000 (Canadian) plus delivery charges etc...etc...to reignite his middle aged love affair with motorcycling. 
In the Florida Keys the major mechanical enemy is the salt laden environment which attacks any piece of metal with airborne corrosion. You'd think the second worst enemy would be boredom- yet somehow I still love my ride to work, I revel in the fact before I took off on my spontaneous evening ride to nowhere I was lying on my deck, sunbathing with a book on the last day of January. Then I decided the other way to take advantage of the mild weather was to ride in it. So I did.
Snow? Ice? Mountain passes? Twisting curved roads? What are they?
My wife is bound and determined to save up enough to get us to Italy this summer, where my buddy Giovanni wants to take a motorcycle trip to the Alps, through Italy, France and Montecarlo. I wonder how we will pull such an ambitious vacation off in the year of living on the edge of international economic meltdown, but it's a nice dream, to imagine a few weeks in summer of riding twisting mountain roads with my last best childhood friend. Meanwhile I drift along, skirting tropical downpours watching the drizzle build up on my windshield as I ride. Rain is no problem in the Florida Keys, as I carry lightweight waterproofs and temperatures rarely get into the hypothermia range. Rain is just a little challenge to spice up the ride.
Look at this view! How could you ever get bored with this? 
I know the Overseas Highway is flat and straight, as is much of the riding for 600 miles (1000 kms) north of here, and the winter traffic is crowded and slow, but still, I cannot help but get that cheap thrill from simply going for a ride. 
Even when it's time to commute on the same familiar 26 miles into Key West I pull out onto the Highway wondering what the ride will bring. Some evenings I am feeling in a hurry for no reason and I spend the ride looking for a gap to pass the bored texting driving drones; other evenings I am feeling lazy and slow and I drift along at the speed limit or less counting the leaves on the passing mangroves, pulling aside to let faster traffic pass me by. Some days it rains, some it's windy, some it's sunny and some it's a bit of all three.
I think it's the curse of our age, a curse we are going to have to remedy somehow as money and credit dry up, that of needing fresh stimulation to retain the freshness of the experience. It's no wonder our Lords and Masters on Wall Street call us consumers, because that is all they want us to do, consume. And now, at least here south of the 49th parallel, most of us have lost the ability to consume thoughtlessly and wildly. Now we have to remember to feel and taste and enjoy with what we have, not with what we crave. Not hard to do in the Fabulous Florida Keys.
I said to my wife I wanted to "upgrade to a Triumph Sprint GT," a new sport tourer with 130 horsepower, heated grips, a sporting ride for the 21st century at a modest $13,000. She looked at me real old fashioned and I burst out laughing. She continues to get cheap thrills from riding her 150cc Vespa around town; we are not by nature "upgraders." She's not alone; I spotted this red one in the trailer park on Ohio Key but I'll bet it has far fewer miles than hers. We owe nothing on our rides and basic third party insurance only (we pay for our own damage) is $80 a year for both machines.
I have a couple of Iron Butt rides under my belt, including my raid to Binghamton, New York, in 35 hours last freezing cold October. My Bonneville and I cruised the Catskills immediately after I finished the timed ride, enjoying hills and curves and twisties. Then I finally got to see the famed Hudson River, riding it's banks on my trusty Bonneville. What a bike, it does it all for me. Some people need to own lots of bikes, one to tour, one to ride fast, one for the dirt, one for around town. My Bonneville is an even bigger bargain when you consider that like it's forebears it does everything adequately. I would ride to California tomorrow if I had the time (and it were summer, let's face it).
I hope this Spring I will get another Iron Butt ride under my belt some weekend that I have off. This summer my wife says I can go back up North and see Jack riepe my riding dominatrix who wears a leather skirt and cracks a whip the length of Pennsylvania. In the meantime we buzz back and forth on Highway One my Bonneville and I racking up the miles and not wishing for more horsepower or new paint jobs or any new shopping stimulation. 
And here I am, home sweet home, hidden by trees, off street parking under the house, the promise of more sunshine tomorrow.