Grassy Key   April 26

Out as early as daylight safely allowed. Lots of cars heading into KW so my side of the road was OK.

My side was a bike path, part of the Overseas Heritage Trail System that runs up the Keys, or down depending on your perspective. These paths are generally separated from the highway by grassy swaths and occasionally rows of trees. They provide a pleasant change from the constant worry of being on heavily travelled US 1. The Heritage Trail is part of the East Coast Greenway, http://www.greenway.org/, which is developing a traffic-safe bicycle route from Canada to Key West, nearly 3,000 miles along the eastern seaboard.

However marvelous and safe a bicycle route is, weather is always a major factor on the enjoy ability quotient of a ride. Today it was the cyclist’s old nemesis—headwind. It sucks strength and spirit as quickly as an alcoholic drains a bottle.  Damnable thing. How could it be coming directly at me when I was heading north expecting to be pushed forward by warm southern Gulf breezes as they awaken the rest of the country to spring?  

A look at my map provided an answer for this fool—I was headed east northeast—due to the curvature of the Keys. Only when I reach the mainland will I begin to orient northward. So, as I did for hundreds of miles across Wyoming’s vast wind-swept sage prairie in 2010, I shifted into my granny gear (lowest and easiest in which to pedal), put my head down and pedaled.

The worst point was crossing Seven Mile Bridge between Little Duck Key and Marathon.  But here, in the midst of my adversity, I found a spirit-lifter. A blue bath towel lying beside the road. At this point my family is shouting, “No, not more roadside trash pickup!” But it is a nice towel. And I need a regular one since I brought only a camp towel me with. A little further on I picked up my first bungee cord of the trip. Perfect shape. Never have enough of those to keep everything onboard. To hell with the wind. It was a good day; I’m a towel and bungee cord richer!

Tonight I’m camping amidst million-dollar RVs on the Gulf side of Grassy Key. The massive motor homes are on the land; I’m on an island just in front of them, perhaps messing up their otherwise privileged view of the water.  

Key West      April 25, 2012 

I can’t work up much enthusiasm about Key West, at least not as much as it seems a lot of other visitors have. Or the same kind of enthusiasm they have.

They clog the souvenir shops to buy the same geegaws, gimcracks, knickknacks and crap they’ll buy when they visit South Dakota’s Badlands except these will say “Key West” on them.  The “Everything-in-here-is-$5” yell of a shop’s street barker draws them in like lemmings. They rent jet skis, electric carts, scooters and bicycles and believe they have carte blanche on the road and water ways. They jump onto jet skis to rip scars across the water. Some can barely drive the scooters they rent. And they crowd Sloppy Joe’s Bar because Hemingway hung out there. He would be appalled at what it has become. They jockey for photo ops in front of the Southernmost Point in the United States marker.

And what is this town’s lunacy with its location? I spotted signs for America’s Southernmost State Park, Southernmost House, Southernmost Hotel on the Atlantic Ocean, Southernmost Hockey Club, Southernmost Little League, Southernmost VFW and Southernmost Foot and Ankle Specialists.

This town is quirky enough without having to make claims that the rest of the nation doesn’t really care about. There’s the tribe of resident street people, wild-haired folks of the type we see in every American city. Except these people with their book-leather brown skin from too many hours in the sun look like burnt husks of what they were in some former lives.  And then there are the chickens! They’re everywhere. Why?

The enthusiasm I have for this place is in the lovingly restored clapboard houses with their   filigreed detailing shaded by massive live oaks and banyans. It’s also out at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park with its beautiful uncrowded beaches. Bird watchers flock to the fort to see the arrival of wrens returning from a winter vacations in Cuba and The Bahamas. “I’ve seen 26 different wrens in the last few days. That’s an amazing amount,” burbled a broad-hatted lady from Ohio, her chest festooned with an impressive set of binoculars and a camera whose lens rivaled an elephant’s trunk for length.

For one who loves two wheels, Key West is a glory. Bicycles are everywhere.  People ride on the sidewalks. In the streets. They weave dangerously among walkers and vehicles. Young, old, fat, thin, speedy athletes and puffing/chuffing out-of-shapers mount up.

My enthusiasm is also in the out-of-the-way places like the Blue Heaven restaurant with its sumptuous blueberry pancakes served in the backyard of an old house where chickens roam and El Siboney, home of the finest Cuban sandwich I’ve ever had.  At The Café I was served delicious conch chowder and stuffed peppers by Carl, a cross-dressing waiter with an inch and half ring stretching his left ear lobe. “Is there anything else you want from me?” he asked as he gave me my order. “Ah, no I don’t think so at this time,” I said, “but I’ll let you know if I do.”

Time to get on the bike.

Heading north.

I'm on my bike, this time riding up the Atlantic Coast from Key West into Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and perhaps farther depending on how bottom and soul feel. And once again I'll opine, observe, harrumph, pass judgement, and post all of that here . . . along with pictures.

However, this time I'm riding with a purpose other than just to experience what it's like to get from here to there under one's own power. This time I'm riding in honor of my sister Deirdre who has ALS, aka, Lou Gehrig's Disease. And I hope to raise some money for the ALS Association.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually lead to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease  become totally paralyzed. That means death. There ain't no cure for ALS.  There aren't even any meds to reduce the symptoms.

Only in the last year or two has any headway been made, albeit small, in identifying the origins of hte disease. To make a donation and to learn more about ALS, please go to http://web.alsa.org/goto/deirdresride

As Deirdre recently emailed us, "ALS is not painful thankfully, just debilitating. Slowly you lose control of your muscles which disappear with atrophy. It doesn't matter how fit, hale and hardy you were --- it doesn't discriminate. So I was forced to go from someone who often ate standing up (go, go, go) to someone who has trouble standing up. It is odd to read and watch movies all day without guilt. I'm certainly catching up on those forms of fun."

She uses a voice machine to speak for her but luckily still has enough control of her hands to be able to use the computer. Nourishment comes through a tube into her stomach. The really pissy thing about ALS is that while it destroys the body, the mind stays alert and active. Case in point is Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicst, cosmologist and author who has had ALS since he was a doctoral student at Cambridge. He is an outlier, an ALS anomaly that no one can explain. Death in ALS usually occurs within 3 to 5 years after diagnosis.

The Nicholas Sparks story of my sister.

Deirdre grew up loving horses.  She was self-taught and fairly successful showing her cheap and ill-suited little mare, Glory, to some year-end championships around eastern PA.  Deirdre and Glory went off to the University of KY where horses became an overwhelming distraction from studies.  Riding was her passion. 

In 1963 Deirdre became engaged to John Winston Dabney,  the handsome, blonde, every-girl-wants-to-get-her-clutches-into son of Lexington's leading banker who was also an accomplished young horseman.  Eventually, they parted with John remaining in Lexington and D. seeking  riding opportunities elsewhere.  They both ended up in the racing industry --- Deirdre breaking and galloping horses in numerous states and John training locally in KY.

Fast forward to Florida in 2000 where Deirdre is living while working at Calder Race Track. One day she receives a phone call: "Deirdre, this is John Dabney. We made a mistake 30 some years ago and I think its time to correct that." For the previous 37 years John had kept track of Deirdre's whereabouts via the truck drivers who haul horses from track to track. "You know where Deirdre Smith is working?" he'd ask occassionally. "Oh, yeah, she's up at Saratoga" or wherever, they'd answer. That's how he found her in Florida.

They married on January 1, 2001 and have lived happily ever after since.  Aiken, SC is their horsey, heavenly home. 



Deirdre and John several years ago with Brawler nudging into the picture.