TheSamba.com :: View topic - "Volkswagen van that survived Palisades fire in Los Angeles..."

Sun Jan 19, 2025 1:08 pm

Im a diver and lived in Florida for seven years. When it's 95 degrees outside that 72 degree spring water feels mighty fine. Here's a coup[le links for some fun spots.

https://ichetuckneesprings.com/
https://ichetuckneesprings.com/gallery/

Most popular state park in Florida.

Here's another nearby that's on private property so alcohol is ok

https://ginniespringsoutdoors.com/

Lastly, one of the coolest things is that these underground rivers sometimes reach way offshore (20 miles). I've dove one once. Flat sandy bottom at about 110 feet and then the bottom plummets down to several hundred feet (sinkhole). The ocean water there in summer is usually in the mid 80's but you can feel the cool, clear, spring water rising up and the fish love it.

Then of course don't forget the Yucatan Peninsula. Near Cancun. Similar porous soil as Florida. There's a vast network of these underground rivers which sometimes empty offshore into the ocean. They have sinkholes in the jungle called Cenote's. Neatest places to visit.

https://www.odigootravel.com/travel-blog/cancun/ec...ichen-itza

Tue Jan 21, 2025 12:22 pm

aeromech wrote: Im a diver and lived in Florida for seven years. When it's 95 degrees outside that 72 degree spring water feels mighty fine. Here's a coup[le links for some fun spots.

https://ichetuckneesprings.com/
https://ichetuckneesprings.com/gallery/

Most popular state park in Florida.

Here's another nearby that's on private property so alcohol is ok

https://ginniespringsoutdoors.com/

Lastly, one of the coolest things is that these underground rivers sometimes reach way offshore (20 miles). I've dove one once. Flat sandy bottom at about 110 feet and then the bottom plummets down to several hundred feet (sinkhole). The ocean water there in summer is usually in the mid 80's but you can feel the cool, clear, spring water rising up and the fish love it.

Then of course don't forget the Yucatan Peninsula. Near Cancun. Similar porous soil as Florida. There's a vast network of these underground rivers which sometimes empty offshore into the ocean. They have sinkholes in the jungle called Cenote's. Neatest places to visit.

https://www.odigootravel.com/travel-blog/cancun/ec...ichen-itza

If you visit the caves & caverns in Great Britain, you will find them to be much colder than in Florida; even in summer! Sea bathing off the East coast of Scotland, near my childhood home of Dundee (close to two of the World's most famous golf courses) , is also decidedly chilly, even in summer, but the gently sloping, sandy beaches are second to none.

I know of the sinkholes in the Yucatan Peninsula, but I have never been there and don't know whether I ever will!?! The only part of Mexico I have visited, was just across the border from San Diego in September 1981.

The last time I ventured outside the United Kingdom and nearby British Overseas Territories, was in 1996 when my parents and I visited Poland, three years after we visited St. Petersburg (Russia), Karelia (western region of Russia stolen from Finland!), Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania in 1993.

Tue Jan 21, 2025 12:35 pm

close to two of the World's most famous golf courses

My oldest son played Turnberry back around 2014. He ran into the owner while having breakfast and even shook hands with him.

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sc...t%2Fm4%2F3

Tue Jan 21, 2025 2:26 pm

Unfortunately, myself and my community were hit hard by a wildfire 6 months ago. One Vanagon owned by the Jasper Brewing Company, miraculously survived the fire.

The following photo was taken yesterday.

...but my Beetle wasn't as fortunate.

Tue Jan 21, 2025 3:48 pm

I’m sorry for your loss

Tue Jan 21, 2025 9:09 pm

NASkeet wrote: aeromech wrote: California seems to rely heavily for fresh water, on a vast aquafer beneath some of the central States, which has already been significantly depleted over the past few decades and predicted to run dry in the not too distant future, unless severe water-conservation measures are introduced.

I’ve lived in California almost my whole life and 100 miles from these fires. There is no Midwest aquifer feeding us water here. If anything, we have melting snowpack some of which gets here from our neighboring state of Arizona through an aqueduct system. I believe aquifers are underground fresh water systems and you’ll find those in Florida where the soil allows rain to be filtered and feeds thousands of miles of underground rivers. Pure drinking water at a constant 72 degrees. I wish California had access to that but unfortunately we have a 12,000 foot mountain range between us.

I do enjoy your posts

PS- we have had water problems here going back to my teens. More and more people move here and in my 67 years I can only remember water rationing a very few times.

I certainly recall details on the PBS America or Smithsonian TV channel, about a large aquifer which had become significantly depleted somewhere in the USA, which was not in Florida. I also recall Florida having a porous-rock substratum which is extremely susceptible to large sink-hole formation with little warning! :shock:

The aquifer you heard about, Nigel, is probably the Ogalalla Aquifer, which underlies a strip of land to the east of the Rockies, from Texas to Montana. Yes, it has become severely depleted, but no, it has no connection to waters imported to California.

<soap_box>
And there are aquifers in the Great Basin of California that are severely depleted and after years of agricultural abuse are now enriched in selenium to the point that they can no longer be used for irrigation (looking at you, Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts!) I've done water resources modeling on these.

For Los Angeles, most of the drinking (and firefighting) water comes from the Colorado River these days. And the fights over that water between California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, México, and many sovereign nations in Indian Country are heating up. The water use is unsustainable. We have known that for decades, but no state will voluntarily make any concessions. The Federal Government will have to step in soon, and no one will like the decisions that have to be made.

But in fact all that has little to do with the current fires in LA. The problem there is that no water system anywhere is made to handle that kind of disaster. They could have improved things by building more water tanks up on the hills, but I don't imagine there are many folks willing to give up land or even allow public land to be used for that purpose. And even if there were available land, people don't want to pay the taxes necessary to build such infrastructure.

There are many similar examples of people building in dangerous places under threat of wildfires, hurricanes, floods, landslides, volcanoes, tsunami (are you listening, Portland, Oregon?), etc., but developers do not care once they have sold their developments, and governments are expected to bail out those unfortunates who bought into the schemes. Or fancy people just want their beachfront or wildland-adjacent property. Earth scientists and civil engineers have to sit by and watch these preventable disasters unfold, since no one listens to them anyway. And so it goes... We humans will squeeze every last bit of life and material from this planet until we are gone. It's our nature.. Read: Tragedy of the Commons, by Garrett Hardin:
https://ia600201.us.archive.org/32/items/green-ent...ommons.pdf
</soap_box>

And I agree that the photo of the little blue/white bus is precious.

Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:32 pm

Here’s a term I just learned that seems-appropriate regarding the previous post.

https://www.google.com/search?q=nihilism&ie=UT...ari#ebo=0i

You may be interested to learn about this. It’s one of the worst ecological disasters in America and yet gets very little attention. I took my wife there for our first visit about 5 years ago. It lies about 120 miles east of San Diego and stinks from not only dead fish littering the shoreline but the air is full of the smell of insecticides from local agriculture. The water runoff from these fields feeds the lake with fertilizer which kills the fish. The water salinity is roughly twice that of the ocean. It’s a disgrace.

Wed Jan 22, 2025 9:32 am

Indeed a sober and rational assessment of the current human condition tends towards nihilism. As my wife and I often say regarding humanity, "We're fucked."

This view stems from a lifetime of working in the fields of earth science and environmental engineering, both of which expose humanity's fragile relationship with the planet. Nihilism is the natural outcome.

But this is a VW Bus forum, so let's stay on topic...

Existential nihilism is captured by that photo of the bus in Pacific Palisades, and by the plight of the Salton Sea. We carry on while surrounded by destruction and mayhem, but in the long run (to a geologist, the "long run" is measured in millions of years) it is all for naught.

Tue Jun 03, 2025 9:40 pm

Someone sent me this today.

VW to Restore the Vintage Microbus That Survived the California Wildfires
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a64955997/vw-microbus-california-wildfire-survivor-restoration/

I thought there was another thread about this Bus with more discussion but maybe it was just buried in a longer thread.

Older stuff
https://www.surfer.com/news/theres-magic-in-that-van-vw-bus-survives-palisades-fire

Wed Jun 04, 2025 3:17 am

Very cool. I hope they learn a thing or two about how bad their parts supply is. Worst case I get another email of “can’t pass smog why” with a picture of a Weber progressive.

Robbie

Thu Jun 05, 2025 5:36 pm

airschooled wrote: Very cool. I hope they learn a thing or two about how bad their parts supply is. Worst case I get another email of “can’t pass smog why” with a picture of a Weber progressive.

Robbie funny