Hanging around in Mexico in 2025…

Last time, I’d arrived in San Felipe, Baja with the intent of avoiding the swearing in of the dictator wanna be that somehow got the Whitehouse. A convicted rapist, felon, a guy who robbed a children’s cancer donation fund, a 5 times bankrupt casino jackass who wouldn’t know how to run a business if it bit him, a 5 times draft dodger who likes his hero of the VN war to have not been caught, who dissed the Gold Star families, who mocked a differently abled reporter. A white supremacist, misogynistic nihilist bully. Anyway, I wanted to be away from all that and the initial damage he’ll do, “I’ll only be a dictator for one day” said by the guy who had 30,000 verified lies his first time in office.

Apparently, Americans WANT to destroy the democratic republic they’ve built up over 277 years.

So, on to more fun type things. Down here I do not get US TV or Mexican TV for that matter, so I’m not following the daily issues up there. I do know about the major fires in LA and the massive cold front hurting the mid-west and east but that’s about it. I have a good streaming setup so I watch hours of Netflix and Hulu and some of the free channels. Since the Seahawks are out of it this year, no football to look forward too either. I’ve got a pretty good wifi signal and since I’m the only RV here most times, it’s fairly reliable. Does drop out occasionally but that’s not the parks fault, that’s the local system.

But first, I wanted to show you guys the nifty little vacuum I picked up at the Goodwill. I often snack or eat meals at my computer desk and the crumbs end up on the table cover there. I have it right next to my desk plugged into a USB power adapter and when needed, just whip out this tiny vacuum, suck up all the crumbs, and deposit the debris in the nearby trash can. Sooo handy. Cost $3 as I recall. A handy little tool that I just stumbled upon while browsing. Didn’t even know they made tiny vacuums. No more brushing off the table cover into my hand, often dropping it in my lap.

And than I am the only one in this RV park now. There was another Class A but he left a week ago. Now it’s just little me and the occasional Class C, B or camper van that stops in for a couple nights that parks over in a different section of the park. The water slide building has these huge flood lights on the roof that point towards my RV so my area is well lit at night. No worries about someone sneaking around interested in my bike or comfy chair. There’s an overnight watchman and handyman that’s here too.

A week before I came down here, I was looking for a new pancake air compressor for my tires. I had decided to just not worry about price. I needed a good one with over 125 PSI output. I don’t need one for air tools as I just use my CC for that kind of work these days. But keeping the tires topped off is a real bitch when on the road or leaving on a journey because so few places have working air compressors that will go to 125 PSI and aren’t screwed up or worn out from thousands of uses. Many truck stops don’t even have working air these days. So it’s a problem. I had found a pancake compressor in the give away bin at the Preferred RV park in Pahrump a couple years ago but it only goes to 100 PSI, and struggles to reach that.

Anyway, I had checked my tires and they were low. Not good, so I just decided to get a pancake that would work. Went down to Home Depot, picked out one that was $190, dropped it in my cart, and as I was leaving the tool section to go to check out, I spotted this Husky in the rack against the wall. Whaaa? Why weren’t they next to all the other compressors? Well, because they were $49, all those over in tools started higher. (I just checked and the Husky is $39 now since the xmas season is over).

I bought the Husky, brought it home and found out it’s perfect for my needs (so far). Attach the valve to the tire, press and hold the up button, it scrolls up to 125 PSI, press start and it quickly raised the tire’s PSI than shut off automatically. Very nice. I immediately took that big bulky pancake compressor over to the give away bin and it was gone within 30 minutes. So now I have this cute little compressor in my basement compartment ready to air me up whenever I need. Over the years I’ve tried to find something like this but most of them only went to 55 PSI, or were cheaply made, or had other problems like a very high price. This one is well made, sounds great, no straining, fills the tires quickly, so I think I’ve finally found the ultimate air compressor solution for RV’ers.

Several days ago, the Santa Ana winds pick up here in San Felipe. They were running 21-29 MPH. For me, all I had to do was wind up my main and over-the-door awnings so they were safe. It was strong enough wind that it would shake the RV quite a bit. And than I learned about the Pacific Palisades fires and the other fires around LA from Facebook. Whoa. What a disaster. I can stream so I did watch some of that news on CNN. And the weather news from the frigid middle and east of the country didn’t look fun either. Glad I’m not in that. Meanwhile, this is sunrise on Dec. 23rd. Before the Santa Ana winds pick up.

Nice and calm. And then on the 26th, started seeing this. Usually its blue skies. Something was brewing. And the wind had picked up a bit.

Most of the morning on the 28th is looked like this…a low lying cloud bank and coolish temps.

There were some blue skies off to the west though.

And then the winds pick up and stayed high. It’s been over a week so far with predictions of it lasting several days longer.

If you’re wondering, there’s not much near me that can catch fire. Just sand. The ocean is just a few yards from where I am and there’s no RV’s or buildings nearby. I have planned an escape route just in case on nice wide roads with few buildings on either side so even if something happened nearby to start a fire, I can easily get out of here without damage. I could also just move to the center of the RV park, yards from any burnables.

It’s turned coldish. From the low to mid 70’s to the mid-60’s during the day. Still was mostly sunny, just that constant cool wind. Yesterday I decided to eat out and had one of my favorite local Pullman style restaurants along the malecon nearby. Less the 4 blocks away from this RV park. Drove over at 4 PM and it’s cold enough that everyone is wearing coats, even the cooks. Undoubtedly the winds and the cool had kept many folks home so the cooks just loaded up my containers. There’s a whole baked chicken in there. Saute’d veggies, Spanish rice, coleslaw, a cup of refried beans, and a pile of corn tortillas. Along with bags of hot sauces and chopped fresh Mexican style veggie mix…peppers, onion, tomato, etc. This spread of food cost $250 peso + $50 peso tip which is a total of $15 USD. Right off their menu. Quite the bargain. I can literally get 4 dinners out of that. According to their menu, this is a dinner for two. Like I mentioned though, business was slow, they were going to close in an hour, and I suspect they had an over abundance of food left over so I got the benefit of that. Even so, I’ve frequented this place several times over the years, the food is always fresh and delicious, and the portions are generous. Not always this generous of course, but generous. This is a street side type business where they do their cooking on a roll around hot cart in front of their covered area. They do have a permanent building…open air…where they have some tables both out on the sidewalk and under their open air section. Most of the malecon restaurants are like that, open to the sea which is across the street and they have tables on the sidewalk fronting their business. They stack their tables and chairs when closed and just close up and lock the kitchen and bar if they have one. The main seating areas are exposed and open. Some of them quite large. There are some nice bars along this street too.

This town is packed during the summer as Mexicans and US tourists from surrounding areas, California, and Arizona come here for shopping, eating, and just enjoying the large beach in front of the malecon. There’s rental boating, guided fishing, quad rentals, a couple major grocery stores, and 10’s of street vendors roaming up and down the malecon. I’ve always found it a bit odd there’s no wind surfing business or Seadoo rentals.

Today started out a bit unusual with very light wind, and a swirl of seagulls enjoying the RV park. Flying around landing on the ground only to take off again for more swirling. The gulls going “Pick me! Pick me! I will bring you lots of fish, let’s flok!”. And a group of starlings hanging out on the rim of the trash can unperturbed by me sitting just 6 feet away as they cosied up against each other in a more sedate attempt at getting a date. The wind has picked up again and they’ve all scattered. The gulls to the ocean and the starlings downtown near restaurant row most likely.

It’s nice here.

Thanks for reading. I’ll get some shots of the malecon for next posting.