Cheyenne Mountain State Park
Colorado Springs, CO
Well it was an interesting two weeks at Chatfield. Two days after we arrived we got in the car to go over to Julie's house. The engine cranked and cranked but finally started. Then I noticed all of the maintenance lights were on. We knew we had a problem and needed to get the car to a Honda dealer. Luckily there was one within about 10 miles. We took off and I immediately knew it was going to be questionable if we could make it to the dealer. I had no power steering and the fuel injectors were misfiring when I tried to accelerate. We limped into the dealer and we were told it could be Monday before they could do the diagnosis (this was Friday). We had them drive us to Enterprise so we could get a rental.
On Monday they called and said a rodent had chewed up the wiring harness and it will cost $1,300 to repair, and it will take two days to get the part...... what can you say other than OK.
We had noticed a lot of rabbits around our site and talked to the park about the problem. They admitted they had a bad outbreak of mange and the coyotes and fox have been hit hard, leaving the rabbit population to run wild. We considered leaving but there were no other parks with openings. We settled for changing sites and found one with only an occasional rabbit sighting (and no droppings). The next day I called our insurance company and filed a claim. Allstate went to the dealer the next day and approved the claim and auto deposited the funds in our bank account... now that is service. The dealer had the car ready the next day and we picked it up...it worked great.
The next three days we stayed at Julie's house (as planned). We got back to Chatfield late parked the car, sprinkled and sprayed animal deterrent all around the rig and the car. After checking for varmints numerous times that night, the next morning Marilyn saw a rabbit near the car and scared it off. I popped the hood and could find no trace of anything. I started the car and it was fine. An hour and a half later we got in the car to leave and, you guessed it, hard to start and all lights on.....
We limped back to the dealer... 15 minutes later they confirmed (and showed us) the chewed wire. This time they were able to repair the wire and $150 later we were back on the road. With 3 days left at Chatfield we split up, Marilyn took the car and went to Julie's and I went back to the rig to prep for leaving.
So today Marilyn showed up at 10:45am, we packed up and hit the road by 11:15......we weren't going to leave the car unattended long. We drove 68 miles south, back to Colorado Springs, to Cheyenne Mountain State Park.
You can see the entrance to Cheyenne Mountain just above our campsite......
Our cul-de-sac
Right after we got set up, the first thing I did was sprinkle and spray animal deterrent around everything (now we're paranoid). I don't know if we'll have animal problems here but these State Parks are the perfect environment...... only time will tell.... stay tuned.
