Category: camping

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Southwest Oklahoma Adventure (Post #731-733) March 2026

Southwest Oklahoma Adventure Day 1 (Post #728) 3/30/2026

Day 1.

Day 1 of our trip started with us heading down the blacktop toward Sandy Sanders WMA in Southwest Oklahoma. Our first stop was a the Dinosaur Space Rocket that Larry and Mark named Sticker Dinosaur Space Rocket due to the amount of goat heads in the yard in front of the site. You can find it on Roadside America. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the camera working for this attraction.

We took a hard right at Rush Springs, Oklahoma and took to the Wichita Overland Adventure Trail. I highly recommend this route. We drove around and looked at some neighborhoods down there in the Wichita Mountains.

We also stumbled on Mountain Park WMA. This is a wetland and famous for its hunting. It should also be famous for being a wetland in basically a desert. At some point during our chatting I mentioned Cry Baby Bridge in Blanchard, Oklahoma. 35.174555, -97.635488

A list of the “other” Cry Baby Bridges in Oklahoma.

We mapped out a path to “Devil’s Canyon” but we didn’t have a route to travel it in our vehicles. We kept going to Sandy Sanders.

We arrived and drove through the park. We were dealing with 35mph winds with gusts in the 50mph range. There were no camping areas with any kind of break from the wind.

We drove through experiencing some extremes we were quite frankly surprised our crew cab pickups could handle. We did a down angle of 22 degrees on one plunge. We had some off camber turns at 13 degrees. We also had some climbs in the 17 degree range. All in all we had fun.

With temperatures at 100°F (37°C) it was what I consider… SUMMER CAMPING.

I do not “Summer Camp”.

We decided to head to Lake Hall to try and get out of the wind. We were successful, but the temps were still too high for comfortable sleeping. It was 80°F at 11:00pm. Winds were still 20-30mph from the south.

At 0300 the wind changed direction and blew from the North at the same speed as the earlier winds that day. That cooled things off quite a bit. Down to 44°F with a windchill making it feel like 37°F. This was debated as the most extreme weather change our hapless group had ever experienced.

I took the lead for the second day and headed us toward the Antelope Hills and our final destination for Day 2, Packsaddle WMA.

Day 1 Wrap-up

I found some video on the B-roll camera I thought I’d also share. We just BS about the day’s events and take a look at our camping accommodations.

https://youtu.be/pnf9IE0GhBw

Day 2

We headed north to Antelope Hills. That was pretty great find. We did not see any antelope but deer were prevalent. Along with the wind…

Apparently the Texas Rangers had ventured there in the 1850s to battle the Comanches. Here are a couple of links to what happened.

Oklahoma Historical Society and Battle of Little Robe Creek.

We then headed straight for Packsaddle WMA. Again, the winds were silly strong. We hit all the roads we were allowed to travel. This would be quite the driving park if the roads reserved to the oil companies were open to the public. This was pretty disappointing. I get it, no one wants anyone messing with well heads. But this was a very unique site.

It also did NOT have any locations out of the wind. We finally found a site on the east side that offered a little and I mean little bit of wind break. The good news for us as the evening winded down so did the winds.

A negative for the site, all the camping areas were overrun with goat heads. Everything that touched the ground became covered in stickers. I’m not sure anything could be done about that, but wish there was.

We found an old school on 1890 Road, but I could not find anything online about the building. It could be Lone Bell school. It was an obvious school and may have served as a home in it’s later life.

We settled in to a chilly night with a moon dominating the sky and coyotes howling all night.

https://youtu.be/sSjCMUJyqEk

Day 3

We got a late start, on our third day. We are just three over 60 fellows. We are low-drag and never really in a hurry. Breakfast is our first thing each day and we take our time getting it done. Can we move faster… sure, but why? Part of the fun is not living by any agenda. Hell we barely prepare where we go, let alone keep a daily schedule.

We head east to close the distance to home. We headed to Burns Flat to check out the Oklahoma Spaceport. First and foremost, I bet your state doesn’t have a spaceport! So shut it. We have a spaceport, but it wasn’t without its controversies. Cost overruns, lack of any “real” progress, visitors from outerspace showing up without invitations, no cool yard art like rockets, or piles of debris from failed attempts to reach the stars. In the video I called it a “boondoggle“.

We then hit the blacktop to make some time to our final campsite. We stopped in Bessie (my adopted maternal grandmother’s moniker), Corn, Colony, and Sickles. Corn had a cool museum on the main drag. I got some video of that. It also had an old Jeep pickup like fellow former YouTuber and Okierover subscriber Tumbleweed Garage.

We pulled into Red Rock Canyon for our overnight camping. If you haven’t visited this gem, you should. First and foremost it is family friendly. It also has bathrooms and showers, perfect after a few days on the road. Campsites are everything from primitive to powered to rentable Yurts! What?!?

We were able to have a fire so I harvested some downed wood and we enjoyed a fire. Fires were IMPOSSIBLE at our other campsites due to the winds we experienced. We ended our trip here and headed back home to loved ones and civilizations and schedules.

Thanks for reading and Happy F150ing?…. Happy Rovering too…

Video coming.

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Footwell Repair Part 12: Wheel Well Panel Assembly (Post #659) 6/23/2024

It was a rare week that allowed me to work on the Big White Bus two days in a row. I was able to install the panel I built from the last video and post. I was also channeling my inner Christopher Walken from The Dearhunter (1978) wearing a bandana with my hair doing it’s own thing up there.

I started the day by painting the panel. The humidity and the heat kept the paint from drying quickly. So while I waited I checked out a package I ordered from eBay. I watched a video by Steve Winkelman where he had a  Camp Chef Griddle on top his Coleman 425C camp stove. I HAVE A Coleman 425C! So I ordered one. I got it for something like $25.00(US). It was a steal and accomplishes a goal I’ve had. I don’t need a Blackstone…I just needed to find a griddle that fit. What luck!!!

Camp Chef Griddle FTW!!!!

It needs some clean up and will need to be re-seasoned. It came with a bag with a zipper, but the zipper was crunched. So I split the zipper with a box knife. This is going to be awesome to make fajitas on and breakfast and burritos and….

I also learned this week that I’m going to need to replace the hubs on my F150. On the advise of a friend at work, I ordered some Timkin hubs and I’ll need to replace the brake discs and pads.

My plan was to weld the panel into place with plug welds. I saw a video on Eastman where they painted everything up and then used a special drill bit to take the paint off on JUST the part you are going to weld.

I thought this was a good chance to practice for the rear floor panel. So I took a broken drill bit and ground it down to mimic the tool. Good news, it works great! Bad news, I had no way to hold these panels together while I welded them. So I decided to punt on the welding and went to the hardware store and bought some stainless steel self-tapping screws.

So the paint finally dried (enough) and I began installing the panel. I had some trouble with the holding of the panel and the driving of the screws. See my 5/16th driver didn’t have a magnet so the screw continued to fall out. It was very frustrating.

I put it together and then realized I hadn’t installed the seam sealer. So I had to take it all apart and do it twice. Also I got the seam sealer ALL over me. I had to clean up with mineral spirits.

I have the panel in place. I’m not happy with it. I also took a few minutes to look at putting all this back together. I may or may not have forgotten where everything goes. Soooooo… This is going to take a little while to get this back together. Lots of trial and error.

That’s about it. I’m going get the floor put together THEN I’m going to reassemble everything. I’m hoping this coming Saturday I’ll be able to start the floor. The shape of the panel is going to be big challenge.

Like and subscribe, and as always Happy Rovering.

https://youtu.be/G6JN5VOZt-I
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The Eclipse (Post #650) 4/12/2024

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Unless you just crawled out from under a rock or came down from a cave in the mountains you probably know there was an eclipse on April 8th, 2024. I told Mr. Fisher and our newest add on Mark Obermiller that we had to go see it. So…we did.

Let’s talk a little about comms first. All three of us got our GMRS licenses prior to the trip. Mr. Fisher splurged and bought several radios.

First was the Midland GXT1000X3VP4

My personal experience with it? Battery life A-. We used them while we were driving for 6 hours. The knock on it was the battery life indicator showed full, right up to the moment it died. That’s pretty disappointing. Sound quality, B-, they were scratchy at the beginning of each transmission. We didn’t really test how many “far’s” it would work but a mile they seemed to work okay. Three pack for $99.00(US). That’s an inexpensive option.

The Second was the Rugged GMR-2 Plus

Mr. Fisher used this one when his other died. It took him a bit to program and his main complaint was getting it setup. We also were broadcasting on Channel 19 privacy 19. But on this radio the display showed channel 19 privacy 10. Not sure about that. Two for $150.00(US)

We’ll have more to say about these and others as we get further into GMRS. Almost all the options for GMRS radios are made in China. There are some made in Japan.

I did fiddle-fart around a little bit and didn’t bother to secure a campsite. Thankfully my friends at Fort Towson were hosting a Eclipse Watch Party. They consider me family, mostly because I visit them with my 1820-1840 Cherokee living history presentation.

We started out on Saturday morning. Mr. Fisher had plotted our route and I fell in behind him and Mark. Our first stop was Lexington Wildlife Management Area. This is a public hunting and fishing area in Slaughterville, Oklahoma. If you watch my videos, you may have seen a sign in my shoppe. Look for it next time. I have a creepy Slaughterville story, so ask me some time we are around a campfire.

We saw some fun stuff along the way including this moderate sized snapping turtle. Which apparently I can’t add a photo of right now. Thanks Google Photos, good work.

Big Snapping Turtle
About a foot across the shell.

We drove around visited the Lake. My camera didn’t record while we were at the lake. Bummer cause we had some fun stuff to say.

Mr. Fisher’s remainder of his route had us weaving through to the Atoka Wildlife Management Area.

The wind was blowing pretty hard 20-25mph with gusts to 30mph. We looked around a bit to find a campsite. We started where you see above but also went down to the lake shore but the site was too windy. With Mr. Fisher and Mark in tents, that wasn’t ideal. I went around to the opposite side of the lake but there wasn’t a suitable site over there either. We’ll be back to this site another time.

We setup camp and had some delicious sirloin steak, fried potatoes, and yeast rolls. Dessert was cookies. We had some adult beverages and started a small fire. We were expecting storms and they did not disappoint. We had a nice gust front hit us and then the rain started. I ducked into the F150 and they to their tents.

We rode out the weather which turned out to not be all that impressive. Considering I’ve slept through two near misses with tornadoes, once outside Kansas City dressed for 1750s living history where I slept in a wickiup and the second I was in the back of the Big White Bus at American Horse Lake, this one barely rates mention.

It was my turn to lead so I used Gaia to map out a route. I didn’t have as much trouble mapping as I did when I tried to use the PC. At this point, if it doesn’t get better I’ll probably cancel. I need to try the Overland Bound app.

We had a mostly uneventful second leg. That is until we were traversing what we call a “jog” in the road. This one made a right and then an immediate left all on a 10% or greater grade. There were some brick-sized rocks. Mark must have caught one just right because it separated and cut the tread on one of his Wrangler SR tires. Not necessarily rated for “trail” running but I didn’t think they would fail.

Without a spare we got back on the pavement to avoid another incident. We didn’t have another tire and it was a Sunday so better safe than sorry.

We arrived at Fort Towson and setup came while I found my friends and said hello. We cooked dinner and got setup for the night. They had a nice spread and we had some delicious food. Homemade cinnamon rolls really finished the night off right.

We were tasked with parking duty. We had a good time and welcomed everyone. I shared some fort history to those who hadn’t researched it themselves. All in all we parked around 75-100 cars and roughly 375 people came to watch.

The clouds were sparse early but built up more and more as the day went on. It was looking like we weren’t going to see the eclipse. But just as one of the guest said the parting of the clouds would occur and just in time.

There are no words to describe the eclipse. It was in the top 5 events I’ve ever attended. The light right before the eclipse was eerie. It was like an old Argon street light. Such a special event. Seeing the ring, seeing the solar prominence, it getting dark right in the middle of the day. Birds stopped singing, a tree frog croaked, basically nature thought it was night. I said “so cool” about a dozen times during my video. Like I said, there were no words.

The fort staff set off a cannon during the totality.

They say the next one is in August of 2045. I’ll be 80 years old. The path will go right through Oklahoma. If I’m still residing in Newcastle, I’ll only need to drive 75 miles to be in the center of the totality.

I hope you enjoy the video. I know it is a bit long, but it was a big weekend.

Like and subscribe to the blog and the YouTube channel if you see fit. I would really appreciate it.

I have a Patreon account setup if you would like to help with the cost of keeping this website up. Okierover Patreon.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering (of F150-ing if your Land Rover is in a shoppe).

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Southwest Oklahoma Expedition – January 2021 Part 2 (Post #591) 2/2/2021

If you missed Part 1, jump over to that post and catch up (the link is after the break). Or don’t, this is still a free country, more or less, depending on who you ask. What follows is Day 2 of the Great Southwest Oklahoma Expedition! See there, this trip just got more awesome the more we drove!

Continue reading “Southwest Oklahoma Expedition – January 2021 Part 2 (Post #591) 2/2/2021”
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More Bears? (Post #578) 5/9/2018

Bears?

When did bears become a thing in the first place?

Actually I’ve known the bears were back for a few years. We were down in southeast Oklahoma around 10 years ago and all the trails had bear warnings.

These aren’t grizzly bears, they aren’t even brown bears, they are black bears. Think of them as smaller man-sized bears that, like there ferocious cousins, will kill you if you are stupid. Imagine the scene from The Revenent but the bear is smaller.

When in bear country, read that as Oklahoma and Arkansas, you should always take bear precautions. As always keep your food up high, make plenty of noise when hiking trails.

Apparently there are many misconceptions about bears. Some people think taking a selfie is a great idea. There was a recent news story about a bear enthusiast who was killed along with his girlfriend while trying to take a selfie with a grizzly bear. I call that natural selection at work. It’s just dumb.

“In the unlikely event a bear charges to attack, you should aggressively fight back against the bear, according to the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Do not attempt to “play dead” during a black bear attack, the agency says.“

Good to know. I’m pretty sure after fighting a bear for 5 to 15 minutes I might appear to be “playing dead” but trust me I’m laying down because I’m out of shape and need a rest. I may have also run out of bullets. Maybe I will give a class on defending yourself from a bear attack by fighting like a rabid ninja turtle.

That quote from above is from KFOR who posted a news story about the increasing population of bears in Oklahoma. The heat map is a good start but be aware if you are on a river bed you can encounter bears.

Mountain Lions and Big Cats

I for one am much more afraid of our mountain lion population in Oklahoma. They have been seen all over the state, even in semi populous areas like the South Canadian River south of Norman and north of Newcastle Oklahoma. I recently saw the carcass of a small mountain lion in the median of highway 62 a mile and a half north of the river. I emailed the Oklahoma Wildlife Department and it was gone the next day. The OWD has had a stance in the recent past the denied the existence of big cats in Oklahoma. It’s hard to deny when you hear one at night.

So if the ice storms, tornados, earthquakes, prairie fires, bears, and mountain lions don’t get you, feral hogs just might.

Don’t even get me started on Bigfoot!

To wrap up,

  • bear selfies are a “hard no”
  • take bear precautions when camping east of I35 and up near Black Mesa
  • while less likely to be encountered, mountain lions are out there and they will mangle you too
  • feral pigs have a mean streak a mile wide and there is no daily limit

I feel better that I have provided this very valuable public service announcement.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering

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