Exploring Mountain Property near Cañon City, Colorado

This is another "Bus to Abilene" posting.  For those of you unfamiliar with this paradox, it's something I learned in the Army while attending staff school for Captains. 

BLUF: (Bottom Line Up Front):  No, we didn't buy land near Cañon City, but it was a close thing!

Between myself and Martha, we embarked on the "Bus to Abilene" this past week or so, thinking we should look at some property located NW of Cañon City, CO.  The idea being it'd be a retirement community for us.

The realtor that was listing the property we ended up almost buying was very helpful and I'd highly recommend her if you're seeking property in this area.

She even got permission from the owners of one of the candidate properties to let me boondock on their land to give me ready access to the two properties!

The property where Martha and I camped was nice and quiet.  The only noises being the gobble gobble calls of turkeys as they wandered back and forth near the URRV:

The properties were part of the Delilah Peak Ranch  Community, a gated development, in hill country about 30 minutes from Cañon City itself.

We were shown Game Camera pictures of a black bear, a mountain lion, turkeys and deer.  There were a lot of deer all over the place! 

On the property we liked best, I even got to try out parking by and in the big barn that was on the land.  Maneuvering room was a bit tight as it's mostly a bit of flat land with the rest of the 35 acres being hillside terrain.

 There was a 50 Amp power outlet on the side of the barn and

a sewer dump for the RV next to the small wooden deck

Uma fit nicely inside the barn.

The owners of the properties we looked at were nothing but accommodating.  There was even 4G cell signal at the above property where with a booster, I could stream movies! 

I rode Yagi up the sometimes steep and mostly very rocky (loose rocks, the worst) trail to the top of the mountain.  I had to dab a couple of times on the way up and no issues on the way down.

Here's some of the views from the top:

 Atop a nearby mountain, on BLM land, which the 

development provides private access to.

 Above and below, views from atop the mountain on

BLM land

 That's Pikes Peak in the distance

View from near end of Delilah Road

Still, after all was said and done, we decided to not pursue mountain land property for now.  We learned a few things, even when there's a barn, shed and septic tank already installed on the property its considered vacant land by lenders.  At least in Colorado, that means the buyer must provide 30% of the sale value!

This was a surprise to us and once we crunched numbers, clarified goals and assumptions, we effectively got off the Bus to Abilene and decided not to purchase the property.

So, we'll just continue using the URRV to go camping whenever possible, and shelve plans to move elsewhere for now.