Chaos Leaves Town

Bumped into a friend in the coffee shop across the street from where I’m staying. I knew him from my stay at Kiki’s. Turns out he’s moved out to South Beach. Has a big deserted beach, a little store nearby, he said, and the potential for a bar with big screen TVs to watch the NFL games. Talked it up quite a bit so I decided, a few days later, to take a trip out there the 12 miles or so to check it out. I’m going to stop along the highway and take some pictures of the numerous developments that are along the coast here in San Felipe. Remember this town is very close to the US, has several ‘Baja’ cross country races in several styles of off-road vehicles every year so has a boom or bust economy. When the US economy is booming, they come down here in droves and the speculators pour billions into properties. Than something happens, like 8 human heads found in front of the police station in Acapulco, and people stop coming. Leaving the condos unsold and the infrastructure unfunded by those taxes from the buildings…after the city paid to pave the road out there. So in a lot of ways, what I’m seeing here now, is only half the San Felipe story. I’ll keep coming here in future years to see what a ‘boom’ is like.

Anyway, a couple miles from my RV park is this Pemex gas station. It’s on the highway out to South Beach, parallels the ocean shoreline mostly. And we’re going to take a ride on it…dodging potholes, and stopping at a working near seaside developement or three for pictures. Note the shape the road is in.

Just a random shot just after a big roadside sign advertising a NEW IMPROVED condo site BUY TODAY that never got built.

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The Wifi here at Campo San Felipe was much, much better than at Kiki’s but there still were glitches. And the big one was my big RV blocking the signal from the people back from where I’m parked. There’s a small building shown below across the entrance road from my spot where they had recently moved the Modem/Access Point and they started getting complaints as soon as the big RV next to my spot moved in a week before I arrived. And then I moved in blocking even more of the signal so many back further from the building weren’t getting a usable signal at all. I’d mentioned a couple days after I’d moved here that the Wifi wasn’t that great and if they needed some help with it I’d be willing and more than able. So we talked about their system and the groundskeeper keeps telling me he’s got a plan to put a repeater out in the yard on top of the new building so everyone will get a better signal. I made an assumption that they’d bought the right kind of equipment. Didn’t get a request to help so since I was getting a pretty good signal, I didn’t think much about it. Heard some rumblings about poor Wifi around the park though.

And then a couple days ago I see 3-4 guys over near where I heard the new Wifi antenna was going to go, and they’re kind of ganging up on the groundskeeper about the Wifi being weak and all. I was over there listening for a bit and try to straighten out the misconceptions about Wifi and then offer to get the repeater all set up. The groundskeeper guy was really relieved and handed me the box and all the paperwork.

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I’d initially stayed free at Kiki’s for 12 days, than I paid for 3 additional days, meanwhile, I had asked around the camp to see if anyone had a suggestion for a park with better Wifi. And sure enough, I got a lead on a camp just south of the malecon. I went and visited and it’s just right for me. And they had a space big enough for my RV with the slides out, along with 50 amp service. It’s being remodeled so most everything is new. Wifi checked out too. So I reserved a spot and moved in the next day. And now, I have been here 8 days at Campo San Felipe, enjoying my stay, especially the fast WiFi that allowed using Netflix, when the situation changed. I had figured on only staying a week to 10 days here and then head on over to Ensanada. But that’s not what happened…

What happened was that the Mexican government sold their Pemex stations to private operators. This was to satisfy provisions of NAFTA. Thing is, the government had been artificially keeping the fuel prices low, below Mexico’s costs of production and distribution. And it had been that way for years. Plus they often have to buy gas from the US to keep up with demand and had been subsidizing that too. The citizens of Mexico strongly objected to the coming increases in fuel prices and started protesting. Soon there were shortages all over Mexico from hoarding, and thousands of stations ran out of fuel. Others were blocked by protesters, many were vandalized causing closures.

And that’s why I went ahead and paid for a full month here. With good WiFi, 50 amp service, and a beautiful RV park and surroundings, I didn’t really give up anything other than my wanderlust. Even then, I can wait for the fuel crisis to blow over and leave later. End of January when my monthly rent terminates would be a fine time.

Here in San Felipe, I’m told there was a small march through town protesting the higher fuel prices, and once I saw a truck load of marines hanging out at a Pemex, but that’s all that happened. Of course, all the stations in town ended up without any fuel but that lasted just a few days. I’m told by ex-pats living here that they will have fuel again today, and there’s not going to be any lines the day after. So, my plan to wait it out, worked. I still have 1/2 tank of gas in my car. And 3/4 tank in my RV. I could make it up to the border in the RV easy enough on that amount if the shortage drags on too long or returns.

And here’s a few more shots of the Campo San Felipe campground…the weather has been a bit chilly this year but the sun does come out from under the clouds on a regular basis.

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I am enjoying this area quite a bit…mostly because of the fine weather. Warm days, cool but not cold nights. And we’ve had a rain storm or two come through. I’ve gotten some work done on my RV too, here’s a link to the latest project, restringing of two Day/Nite Shades. They were in the living room and took me much longer than they should have, for a couple reasons. The article about those specific shades are below that older article of the bedroom shade I had to restring. So scroll down, or better yet, read both articles as they relate.

I also spent half a day visiting three hardware stores trying to find a 1 & 1/2″ plug for the fresh water drain. My Winnie has a drip-drip-drip from a PVC pipe in the middle of the undercarriage that slowly depletes my freshwater tank. It’s a drain that this RV has a slide valve for, used when winterizing the RV. Pull the handle, the slide valve opens, and drains the tank. Except when you close it, it’s suppose to seal. Doesn’t work very good at that. And rather than trying to find and repair whatever is wrong with that slide valve, I’ve just plugged the outlet for now. Had to drive for several miles to find the right sized plug. True value was out, Home Depot didn’t have that size, ended up at a regular plumbing supply house where I finally found the right part. Like I said, took half a day.

After I’d been here a week, I was enjoying myself here enough that I decided to stay another week. No particular reason, I just like it here. This is the area where the Coachella Concert is held each year. My brother Dan used to come down and camp in a tent every year to enjoy the concert but he’s stopped coming because he says the music has gotten too mainstream, with too much hip hop type music. He really goes for off-the-wall style music though. Stuff I can’t stand to listen to.

A couple days ago, I remembered my camera and just cruised around the area near where I’m staying for a look/see. This is the view from the end of the street I’m on.

And up the road a bit is this little store. They really need to dust in there. Not a very pleasant shopping expirience. They have a little tiny Mexican style cafe in there too. If it wasn’t filthy all over the store, I might have tried eating there.

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I’ve added another repair section to my blog. 

The new blog thread is going to cover any repairs and mods I make to my 2001 Saturn SL1. It’s a 4 cylinder 1.9L 4-door coup. I wish it had power everything like in the cars I’ve bought before but sadly, no. All it has is A/C and an aftermarket AM/FM/AUX/CD system.

When I bought it in June 2016, it only had 60,085 miles on it. It still did need some parts replaced as they were poorly designed or manufactured by Saturn to begin with and had short lives. You’ll see what I have had to do on the car so far at this link: 2001 Saturn SL1.

And for the towing story, links, info, and results click the link here: History and Setting up to Tow…

Thanks for reading!