July has not been a good month for me so far.

First there was the ignition system wiring issue with Yagi, my Yamaha TW200.  (See previous post)

Monday of this week, on day one of a camping trip near Vail, CO, my cell phone died. I thought it had been my fault for carrying it in the trunk of the sidecar but it turned out to be a swollen battery which caused the screen to bow out from the inside!  

I canceled the trip and returned home:

I have device protection on all the phones in the family so replacing it, though somewhat an arduous ordeal, resulted in an exact replacement and I am back online.  

Truly amazing how one's phone has become such an important thing in proving you are who you say you are to anyone out on the internet.

Then on Wednesday of this week, as I was tying down Scarlett, my Ural Patrol sidecar rig onto the trailer, I found the front tire flat!  I re-inflated it before I departed the house but yeah, there's a slow leak in the inner tube.

Of course, I left the spare inner tubes at the house.  So I'll be limiting my rides to short ones with frequent checks on the air pressure of the front tire during the current camping trip.  

The nearby motorcycle shop in Woodland Park isn't licensed to work on "street" tires so while they had the inner tube, they couldn't swap it in for me.  Yeah, I could do it, even have the tools but the fact I've several spares at home make the cheapskate in me wait.  After all, it isn't like I haven't explored the surrounding area quite extensively both on Scarlett and Yagi during previous stays.

I'm back near the site I occupied in the last post near Rampart Range Road a few miles north of Woodland Park, CO.

The vrrv had been hard to start this morning so I stopped at an Advanced Auto Parts Store to have them check the chassis battery. Their tester declared the battery bad so I had to spend some money to buy a new one right then.  I guess 8 years is a good run for a truck battery.

One last thing, the left side light on the front cargo rack on the VRRV broke off again, luckily it stayed with the RV via it's wire connections.  It happened as I drove down to the campsite apparently.  I've applied JB Weld for plastic and it should be OK by Saturday.

Here's sunset on Wednesday night:

The next thing to go wrong was something I'd fixed two camping trips ago.  The accumulator for the water pump started cycling on/off when no water was being used at a faucet.  The last time, charging the accumulator's air reservoir to 30 PSI did the trick.  This time, that is not working.  I've ordered a replacement.

So why Rampart Range again you might ask?  There's a "tentative" plan to have Thing Two and friend meet up at my campsite, and we'll do some target shooting in the Pike National Forest sites nearby.

One thing that has gone right, the side shade panels for the VRRV's awning are working quite nicely:

Side panels is temporary storage mode

when awning is stowed

It's like having an enclosed patio....

So, I guess I'll just have to relax in the warm temperatures and sunny conditions.  It's warm but not as hot as back home where it's about 10-15 degrees hotter!