On the north California Coast, picture an 'A' where one leg is on the main coast, and the other leg sticks out into the North Pacific. The top of the A points north, and a spit of sand closes off the mouth and crosses the A. But it's not an A with a pointy top: it's more of a nicely curved wishbone shape. In the middle is a calm expanse of water even when a hell of a north wind is blowing, as it was yesterday.
Near the top is the town of Bodega Bay itself, where we arrived from the north, windblown, hopeful of finding gas and propane for our little stove. We followed signs to a marina on the west side of the bay, and found to my surprise that the gas pumps were of a kind I thought gone for years: pumps without any kind of credit card reader where you always pump before you pay, where you remove the nozzle from the recess in the side of the pump, flip down the metal handle, the numbers reset, and you're ready to go. I told the guy inside how much I liked his pumps. "Ah, he said, "some things never change."
"Oh, wait," I said, as he rang me up. "I need to get some propane as well.
"Let's get some gas, dude!" he bellowed. And then, as if to explain himself, he added, "As they used to say. I mean, since you've got the VW and all." He was a jolly bull-necked fellow, with a shaven head and a tattoo on his arm, and as he lay down on the pavement to get at the tiny propane tank under the vehicle, he swore and delivered a constant commentary about how it was going.
I remembered Gabriel the Romanian saying to me during my orientation to the camper, "When you refill the propane tank, you take it to a place that does propane and you let them do it. This is not a do-it-yourself thing." As I looked at the special coupler this guy was preparing to put on, the strange double hose, and the way he was grunting over some tiny valve out of sight up beneath the vehicle (I lay down on my stomach on the pavement to look and still couldn't see it) I had to agree.
"I can't budge this thing," he said, pulling out a pair of pliers. "Don't tell me it's..."
"Aw, no..."
"Come on..."
"Hmm, OK." Getting up and turning to the main pump, he said, "Now let's see if you're going to work today," and hit a switch. It hummed to life and propane began moving.
At 2.4 gallons on the meter it went KLUNK and shut off -- which jibed well with the 2.5 gallon tank Gabriel said we had. Our man disconnected the main hose, and again fiddled with the relief valve. As he got more distressed I got down again and I could see he had it munched in the jaws of his leatherman and was either grinding it or turning it. I can't tell if it's moving," he grunted. "This is not right," he said ominously. And then: "Aw, no!"
Lying on his back he explained to me that we were at an impasse. He was unable to close the relief valve, propane was leaking out, he was pretty sure an o-ring had blown and the system would be unusable. Soon it would be empty. The pliers were not working! It was frozen: it was busted. And he was mystified why he had found plumbers tape on the base of the valve. "You would never put plumbers tape on one of these!" he said.
"And get me a pillow, will you?" he joked, since he'd been lying on the ground for so long.
For the next half hour I was on the phone to Gabriel, and, to his credit, our friendly gas attendant was on the phone to two RV repair places in Petaluma -- an hour's drive away. He was quite distressed that we had come all the way from BC and this had happened to us. But in the end Gabriel, mystified, could only suggest we buy ourselves a two-burner butane stove, which he would pay for. The gas man could find no one capable of repairing the valve on a Saturday. He bid us farewell and gave us two free postcards.
We drove away, bought some groceries while processing it all, and decided that repairing the stove was NOT our priority. (*Not driving too much* was, that day, our greatest priority.) So we drove north out of Bodega Bay, a short distance to the first park beach, North Salmon Beach, (the wind increased dramatically as we left Bodega Bay), and ate our lunch inside our camper with the window just cracked, which made everything *just* the right temperature. The steady north wind blew away the gas smell hissing from below the camper. Then we donned wind shirts and went down the path (typical California path: a steep, eroding trench through the ice plant) and walked the beach.
As at Wright's Beach, there were elaborate driftwood constructions on North Salmon Beach, and lots of hardy Californians enjoying them as shelters. There were a number of little forts built by urban castaways (one was roofed over) and the driftwood beams and posts were fabulous. One family was draping their with fabric on the upwind side to protect the children. It was so windy that each time a wave broke up the beach, leaving a pile of foam at its furthest extent, the foam would detach itself from the wave and go tearing up the beach.
We headed back into Bodega Bay to solve our most pressing problem: where to camp on a Saturday night. Bodega Dune campground was full. We tried a county park over on the west side of the A called (fittingly) Westside Regional park, and there was a site sheltered by trees. It was a great relief to know we had somewhere to sleep for the night and would not have to go a-roving over creation looking for a campsite. We parked and decided we would drive no further that day.
I got down under the camper to check the gas leak and it was still going. I decided to see what this relief valve felt like with my own hands. I found a little knurled knob. I turned it and the hissing stopped.
Huh?
Had I fixed it?
Gradually it became clear that I *had* fixed it, but not clear what had been the problem before. Once I had a pot of water on the boil to make tea and cocoa I called Gabriel and told him what had happened. He was very happy. "That is a great weight off my shoulders," He said in his endearing Romanian accent.
Off we went for a walk. There were snowy egrets in the trees by the roadside, looking at us suspiciously.
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