FIRE! And other things…

I’ve added a RV repair section for my New2Me Winnebago. A story about the shower is the first posting. Check it out!

Next to my palapa the RV space was usually empty. Then one afternoon a guy and his grown son set up camp. They were touring Baja on their motorcycles and carried tents for sleeping. They also carried backpackers camp stoves. The afternoon they arrived, they had just enough daylight to get all their camp set up with their sleeping quarters upstairs on the upper balcony and their kitchen setup on the picnic table in the lower section. Since it was dark by then, I settled in, had dinner, then did some internet surfing. And then there was the flickering evidence of a fire outside my RV…over in their section. So I get up and look out my front door window and damn, there’s a 6 foot high flame going from their small camp stove up to the ceiling (which is the floor of their sleeping quarters) in their space. So I’m watching them, there’s a 45 year old man and his 25 year old son dancing around trying to put it out, and I think, “Yeah, they’ve got it under control”. And I go back to surfing the internet. Around 5 minutes later, “BOOM“. And my RV rocks back and forth from the concussion. The 15 mph gusting winds of a few days before were unable to do that. So I run outside, and the fire is out of control. The older guy got the fuel explosion full in the face, burned off his eyelashes and eyebrows and gave him a pretty bad burn on the face.  Turned out they were new to propane gas camp stoves and had not tightened the gas tank onto the stove tight enough. It had started to leak, then caught fire, then overheated enough to explode. All the while the dad trying to contain it. The young guy had removed himself earlier and suffered no burns. They were surrounded by billions of tons of sand. Why didn’t they just bury it? It had blown itself out and when the tank exploded, that was the end of the fuel. So when I came back out, situation was under control. Burst open is probably a more accurate description than exploded.

Here’s what their setup looked like with the son at the table the next morning, with my RV in the background. Dad was still sleeping upstairs because the pain kept him awake most of the night. He never went for treatment that I know of.

There’s the stoves. The one on the right is the one that blew. You can make out where the table was damaged from the spilled and flaming fuel.

The upstairs of these palapas are big enough for a couple tents. The underside was NOT all bubbled from the fire as I expected. Nothing was charred. Strange because the flames were licking at the underside, were forceful, and lasted. Lucky it never caught fire. This damn thing is right next door to my RV! So very close…I was thinking about that the next morning.Also lucky for me the motorcycle was far enough away from the fire and explosion that it didn’t explode as well. Probably would have severely damaged my RV being so close. There wasn’t any shrapnel.  This is the RV park south on the beach just 100 feet from where I’m staying. Kiki’s is more popular than most of these places because Kiki bends over backwards to be nice to his visitors, treats them right, accommodates their needs where he can, and doesn’t overcharge.  The neighbors other motorcycle as they’re getting ready to head on north. Had some fog roll in one morning. Blotted out the distant shoreline. Here’s a couple shots of Ruben’s RV Park next door to Kiki’s. The park is owned by Kiki’s brother…they got into an argument over management years ago and the brother built a wall between the two places. Kiki’s is nearly full, Ruben’s only has 3 guests. Draw your own conclusions. It’s too bad too, because Ruben’s has/had a big restaurant and a beachside bar too. Closed now. This is a giant palapa roof covering a large area just inside the fence at Ruben’s. I think it was just for show originally, to provide shade, or an umbrella, to guests as they drove in and parked on their way to the bar.

Here’s a shot (below) of my 2 story Palapa. Right next to it is where that stove exploded.

One morning, took my usual stroll down to the beach and this day, unlike most days, there was a bunch of wildlife hanging around and inadvertently entertaining us. This seal was playing with his food. And the birds were going nuts trying to get a morsel.

Then something else showed up, see that streak in the water heading from right to left? We thought it was a bigger seal heading over to the other seal to steal it’s breakfast. Or sea lion or something. Out there near the boat, there was a whale spouting occasionally, just to the right of the boat. Must of been a big guy based on the height of the spout. I tried to get a shot showing that but I’d miss every time. It looked like there were two of them out there moving slowly.

And there were these diving birds hitting the ocean at speed. Many more than we’d usually see. Later they had come in closer to shore so we had quite a show going on. A whole raft of pelicans were sitting on the rocks…but this shot doesn’t really show them very well. Hundreds of them.And a shot of Ruben’s. Too bad it wasn’t open. A bar right on the shoreline is one of my favorite things. And right next door to Kiki’s too!

So that’s it from San Felipe. A couple days later, I headed to Mesa Arizona to look at a RV for sale that piqued my interest. Found it on Craigslist.