Boondocking again at the Penrose BLM Area - Pre-Group-Arrival

I drove out of the Metro Denver Cesspool on Tuesday and less than two hours later I was setting up camp in my favorite spot within the Penrose BLM Area.  Nice and secluded, not along the main "road" traversing the area and good cellular signal.

I set up camp and relaxed in the quiet and solitude.  Enjoyed it so much, I didn't do much of anything else the next day, Wednesday, except work on a wiring issue involving the URRV's rear lights.  The weather was very warm and lows were in the low 40s the first couple of nights.

I woke Wednesday to find the valley areas covered in a dense fog, making it look like the tops of the hills were islands floating on a frothy sea.

 Kind of looks like a fog shrouded bay or body of water eh?

A view of the valley in the afternoon, way after the fog had burned off.

Thursday, I woke to a warm dawn of 48°F (8.8°C) and soon after breakfast I was off riding the area's trails on Yagi, my 2006 Yamaha TW200.  The objective was to refresh my mind on what trails were there, their condition and whether it would be Ural-able with a passenger in the sidecar.

Passenger in the sidecar you ask?  Was Martha joining me?  Nope.

Starting Friday afternoon, I was expecting three neighborhood friends: Bob, Dale and Jim.  They were joining me for a couple of days of camping and I would be giving one of them a ride in the sidecar while one of the other two would ride Yagi.  A guy's camping weekend, so to speak.

What?!  Me mingle with others?  Me, the solitary curmudgeon?  Yep, though it was Martha's idea.  We'll see how it goes.

My wanderings ended up taking all morning and yet covering less than 26 miles.  Slow going on the trails within the BLM area and just slow meandering within the Brush Hollow State Wildlife Area and Reservoir.

I'll be spending the rest of the afternoon, after I publish this post, enjoying the warm but not hot weather and relaxing.  Retirement is hell I tell you, simply, hell.

Mods, repairs and prep for more camping

Some work done on the URRV, Uma, to prep for next camping trip....probably in the Penrose, CO area.

Finally got around to examining what had broken on the URRV's TV antenna mount system after I had stupidly driven off with the mast in the up position.  Yep, part of the checklist, which apparently I didn't follow before driving off.

In the intervening weeks after the incident, since I had to climb on top of the RV to mount the weBoost antenna on occasion; I was propping the mast up manually and holding it in place with a block of wood.

Turns out, Winegard had apparently anticipated RV Owner stupidity and the part that broke was designed to break easily instead of really damaging the thin metal components of the mast!

The above part (RP-3000 Elevation Gear) engages the "worm drive" inside the housing, and it then raises/lowers the mast accordingly as one turns the lever inside the RV.  Easy replacement, and less than $7!

While on the roof, I decided to remove the unused Winegard TV Antenna:

In its place, I mounted the Yagi Antenna I use with the weBoost cellular booster.  Theoretically, I won't have to get on the roof to use the antenna.  We'll see how it all works out in the long run.

Let's see, oh I also swapped out the shock absorbers on Scarlett's pusher wheel position as the original ones had all but collapsed when the seals involved had failed.  The "new" shock absorbers I bought from someone who was parting out a wrecked rig (I think, it's been a while).

Can you tell which is which?  :)

Something I noted after doing the shock absorber swap, the left side of the sidecar seemed higher than the right side.  Hmmmm.

I loosened up all the applicable nuts and bolts and using a floor jack and the subtle tool pictured below, managed to rotate the rear "dog leg" assembly on the sidecar subframe down to make the sidecar even again:

Speaking still of shock absorbers, all five shocks on Fiona, my '99 Ural Patrol Rig have leaked it seems.  The associated springs aren't as "collapsed" as the Sachs Shock absorbers on Scarlett so I think she's still rideable.  

The ones on Fiona, unlike the Sachs Shocks on Scarlett, are theoretically rebuildable.  I continue to await replacement seals from a fellow in Russia (Covid-19 restrictions have caused lengthy shipping delays) but once I get them, I'll be hopefully refurbishing them.

To that end, I've made a shock compression tool as outlined on myural.com where the tutorial put together by Bill Glaser will be followed by me.   LINK

source: myural.com

So, am ready to do the work, just have to take receipt of the seals and associated rubber bits:

Lastly, I bypassed the wireless setup for the backup camera and used a hard wire connection instead.  Just too much interference and loss of picture when most needed.

Hard wiring the video signal pointed out a bad ground related to the turn signals.  RichardM pointed me at the solution and now there's a new grounding wire sticking out of the left rear turn signal assembly and onto the nearest grounding point.  It's ugly but does the job till I find a better way to introduce a good ground to that set of lights.

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.

Boondocking in the Oil Well Flats BLM area and T-Dubing to Red Rock Canyon Park

Monday, April 27

After a good visit by the boy's maternal Grandfather: Richard, I drove Uma, the URRV, trailering Scarlett, the 2014 Patrol and mounting Yagi, the '06 Yamaha TW200 on the front bumper rack towards Cañon City.

I transited through this medium sized town and drove north towards the Oil Well Flats BLM area.

Though a bit sketchy in parts, I managed to drive Uma on BLM trail 6941 to the junction of 6941A and thence to Campsite 16.  I'd been in the area before so the recce had already been performed, negating the need to first check things out with Yagi.

There were other campers in the area but not too many and the sites are pretty far apart and secluded.

Tuesday, Apr 28

Did some coordination work and analysis with the realtor via emails and calls during the morning, relaxing in the warm sunshine and doing a couple of maintenance chores on the URRV.

In the afternoon, I rode Yagi a few miles north to the Red Rock Canyon Park, run by Cañon City's Park Department.  The restrooms and picnic areas were closed for Covid-19 reasons but the rest of the park was open for use.

There's basically one main dirt road that traverses the park and takes one past neat rock formations, picnic areas (closed) and a couple of restroom spots (also closed).  I rode all the way to the other entrance to the park, located by Seep Springs, a BLM area; then I turned around retracing my way.

Here's some pics of some of the rock formations.

Tonight's sunset was "OK":

The mountains in the distance are part of the Sangre de Cristo Range

Displacing tomorrow to a location 30 minutes NW of Cañon City.