Camera troubles and displacing to a nearby site

Thursday, Jul 9

Went riding on Yagi, my '06 TW200 to further explore a  set of trails located near the southern end of the dispersed camping area within the Pike National Forest within which I'm boondocking.

Nice set of trails, with further stuff to explore at the end of the main trail within but I ran into technical problems with my camera.

I had been taking pictures of possible future campsites when I got the "camera error turn off power" message on the LED screen.  Dammit.  I tried removing the battery, waiting a few and then reinserting the battery but no luck, same error.

I didn't have good signal where I was at so I packed things up and headed back to camp where I did have a good signal.

I noticed, back in the URRV, that the shutter screen was down when I took off the lens.  Hmmmm.  Some googling later, it turns out to be a pretty common problem.  One suggestion before I tried a system reset was to shake/tap on the camera body to get the shutter to release from whatever obstruction was keeping it from moving.

I tapped the camera from the bottom and top, nothing.  But then when I re-inserted the battery and turned on power, the shutter screen retracted!  Yay.  I shot many test shots and everything seems to be working fine.  I guess all the dusty conditions I ride in at times finally took their toll?  

Must come up with way to shield camera from dust I guess.  Closing up the zippers on the tank bag would surely help eh?  Such a PITA sometimes though.  Oh well.

I was relaxing outside in the shade of the URRV's awning in the afternoon when I heard truck engines coming nearer.  I looked around and saw not one but two trucks with travel trailers in tow, parked near my campsite and looking like they wanted to settle in!  WTF.

Given, my campsite was at the eastern end of a rather wide open field suitable for group camping but dammit!  So I kept an eye on them and after some discussion, I guess they decided to leave me alone and headed off elsewhere.  Good riddance I thought but after a call with Martha decided to displace to a different site.  The weekend campers were coming you see.....

I'd seen the site empty during my morning riding so after confirming it still was with a short ride with Yagi; I hurriedly broke camp and claimed the smaller site.  Its clearly a one camper site but not cramped.  It's even farther from the main road (Rock Creek Hills Road aka CR39) and I think has a better view of the mountains to the west.

 Shot from access road which parallels the area's main road
(FR392A)

 Some nice trees for shade

Pretty close to the view I had before, but more of 

Mount Boreas is visible; its the rightmost peak.

Did some light riding on Yagi in the afternoon to check out my neighbors.  The place is indeed starting to fill up.  Still, breathing space remains for now.

Had a visitor come by, got as close as perhaps 50 ft from the URRV.  He munched away at the grass nearby, mauled a tiny pine tree using it as a scratching post and finally meandered away.  

Then, the Golden Hour started:

A clear skies sunset: