I'm going to fix that.
Starting today, I'm going to try to give you, my loyal readers, at least one blog every week that's full of pictures of the weird, scary, ironic, lovely, and hopefully sometimes funny stuff that I see on my recovery rides. This should be a breeze, since I see this crap all of the freaking time down here. The hard part -- which will hopefully be the easy part eventually -- is slowing down and/or stopping and/or actually turning around to go back and take a picture of the thing.
Of course, there are some things that I just won't get, probably because I'm not fast enough pulling out a camera. For example, yesterday I was riding long and I saw a Dad out riding with his two kids to school. They had their backpacks, and we're working their way down the multi-use path along Imperial Drive, and I tried to get the picture but missed it. Could I have gone back and gotten it? Yeah, but I wasn't doing that kind of ride. Thus, a scene went un-captured that I would really like to see happening more in this increasingly unhealthy world.
My noodling this morning took me into a neighborhood on the northern edge of Port Royal. The road dead-ended here, and you could see that there was a nice pink classically Florida house back there, and the grounds included a dock with a cabin cruiser, a pool, and tennis courts. At first, I read the sign as "House of the Dog," but then realized that would be "Casa del Perro." This, instead, is "Dog House."
I would love to know the back-story on this place. I want to see the human's house, and know what transgression it would require to be sent to such a nice dog house.
This was just around the corner. The neighbors had the same sign stuck in their yard, and I do have to give them props on their unified front. Of course, the area is about the demographic that you expect for this kind of thing -- affluent retired white Protestants who don't want to pay taxes on their hard-earned money (well, Grandpa worked hard to earn it), don't believe in free health care for anybody (although you better not touch their Medicare), and hate all immigrants other than the ones that keep their yard so nice.
I was hoping that the rope was something they hung up for the grandkids to play on, and not part of the political statement. Gauging by the height of the thing, it would only work for hanging midgets ... but these are the kind of people that might do that, too.
The other interesting thing about this picture is the little addendum that they taped to the bottom of the sign, which reads "You're on Video!" I think that they've had people defacing their signs. Not that I would ever condone trespassing, and as an American I personally believe that everyone has a right to voice their opinion no matter how wrong-headed, but it does give me hope for south Florida when I think that someone is willing to dick with this moron's sign.
Finally, these trees. They're blooming like this all over down here, and I think that they are just gorgeous. I took a picture of this one near the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club, but there are even bigger ones up and down Bayshore and Crayton.
About five minutes after taking this, I was on a road that didn't have a bike lane for about 100 yards when a big new BMW got behind me and honked. He believed that I was slowing him down, and wasting his time (which is, of course, more valuable than anyone else's). There was no shoulder, and we were going into a roundabout, so I slowed even more, and flipped him off on the other side of the roundabout, just before the bike lane returned. When I got into the bike lane, he finally zoomed passed, not even looking at me.
That's the other thing that I like about rich people: They'll bluster and make a scene, but they won't run over a cyclist if there's a chance of any witnesses. Contrast this with a good old redneck up in LaBelle -- if they honk at you, it's a message to get the hell out of their way. If you flip them off, then that honk counted as a warning shot.
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