Category: camping

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A Late Winter Drive (Post #322) 3/6/2013

Sometimes the best drives are the laziest drives. I was able to sneak away to the South Central Coalition of Historical Trekkers winter gathering at Fort Gibson. The weather was dreadfully cold Friday night but there was a glimmer of hope it would warm up at least during the day on Saturday so off I went.

The drive out was uneventful as I was in the dark most of the way. I’m trying to preserve my annual leave so I left after work on Friday and made the 2.5 hour drive. I still have the dash apart looking for the relay that is buzzing and thus the lights that illuminate the gauges are disabled due to a missing rheostat. The Range Rover was really humming along and I thought I’d check the speedometer so I flipped on the map light under the rear view mirror. The indicator was hovering around 92 miles an hour. “GOOD GRAVY!”

I thought as I slowed her down, but realized, this Rover can still run.

I got to the Fort and made the customary greetings, observing all the protocols of a 19th century gathering and unloaded my stuff. The frost was already settling but as fortune would have it, my mates had us in the north end of one of the dog-trots on the site. Sleeping indoors even when it is cold is a blessing. Having a roaring fireplace was a godsend.

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I put my dinner on and will now give you a recipe to try. This is an OkieRover first on this site. Perhaps I’ll share more of my culinary secrets in the future.

Pan Poached Catfish
Heat a cast iron skillet on coals. Insert two half pound catfish fillets. Add a cup of apple cider. Poach the fillets until the liquid begins to evaporate. Allow to crisp just a bit for texture and serve.

It was a happy accident that the apple cider was in the coffee pot and not just water. Everyone had already eaten so I enjoyed the pound of catfish alone except for a small part that David wanted to try. We all went to bed with bellies full of wine and food, and with smiles on our faces from our palaver.

We woke in the 19th century and went about our day. We took a walk down to the Arkansas river. We spotted several birds among them black vultures, red-headed, downy, and red-bellied woodpeckers. We returned to the dog trot and cooked two hens on our squirrel cookers over an open fire while the flocks of ducks and geese headed to their nesting areas. The troop of pelicans was a nice treat to see as well.

Saturday night was more of the same as Friday and we all had a great time. As Sunday began we were all back in the 20th 21st century. With the Range Rover all packed and my salutations offered I headed home.

My intention was to do a little birding on the way home and to generally wander westerly until I got home. I added a half dozen more birds with a barnacled goose being probably the most unusual of them.

This a view of the fort from the road which passes to the north of the fort. 

This is the bridge that passes over the Arkansas near the fort going North. A great relic of the 1930s. Passing to the right you can see the railroad bridge. A mile up this road is the site where Sam Houston built his cabin and lived while with the Cherokees (Wikipedia). There is only a rubble field and a mound where the cabin once was.

Oklahoma does a pretty good job of telling the story of our state in road side markers. I had never heard of the Nuyaka Mission nor of the Green Peach War (RootsWeb). It was a civil war between two factions of Creeks in the 1880s.

My good friend Mike Segroves often seeks out the Dairy Queens while on his travels. I spotted this one in Okmulgee. My Great-Grandparents on my father’s mother’s side of the family, the Fishers lived in Okmulgee.

Okmulgee State Park and Dripping Springs State Park are found just past the outskirts of town west of Okmulgee. It was nice to wind through the parks at a leisurely pace.

Oklahoma, before integration was fashionable, had white towns, Indian towns, and black towns. I’m not going to regale you with politically correct terms here, it was what it was. There were many prominent men and women in each that from the surface were exactly the same as their counter parts in the other races.

One of those towns was Boley, Oklahoma (Wikipedia). To say it has seen better days is an understatement. But where many dozens of towns are just a burned out building here or there, Boley is still in the fight.

I would have loved to have seen this town in its hey day. To be there when they fought off Pretty Boy Floyd and his gang in 1932 would have been epic.

I ran out of places I’d never been just after Boley. I made my way to the more traveled of highways and made up some time to get home before dark. The leisurely pace was good for the pocket book too. I averaged 16 miles per gallon on the way home. Not bad! Imagine what it would have been if I had a transmission that didn’t slip in fourth and some new oxygen sensors.

This was another lengthy post, so first thanks for hanging in there with me this far.

I’ve received a few emails from folks this week looking advice and help finding other Land Rover services. I am always happy to help when I can. I’m thinking positive thoughts for Casey in California and Tom in Maryland, I hope you both can get your Range Rovers back on the road in short order.

And lastly, Land Rovers USA contacted me about a picture I posted to their Facebook page. They were very keen on it and want to use in an upcoming project. Keep and eye out for it.

Thanks for reading, thanks for writing, and Happy Rovering.

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Wish me luck next week (Post #176) 5/7/2010

We are going after one of these. Its an M101A1 3/4 ton trailer. I have thought about getting a trailer for a couple of years, as you regular readers know. I have looked at all manner of trailers, every thing from Sankey to M105s to M334 ammo trailers.

I have recently been trolling the GOVLIQUIDATION.COM website again for a trailer. Long gone are the days were you see a M416 on the site. Seemingly everything on earth is available via surplus from our government. I have dreamed about buying all manner of things from the site. I would love to have a Boston whaler. Or perhaps even a 26 foot whaler. How cool would that be tooling around the lakes of OKLAHOMA in such a craft?

Pretty damn cool, I’ll tell ya.

Look through the site. There are a million things on there. Some have a really high cool factor. I know if you are like me you can imagine buying the stuff and just “playing with it”. If I ever do choose to get a boat you know I’ll be looking at those Boston whalers first and hoping I can get one with a weapon’s ring already mounted.

Today though, we are talking about trailers. Specifically an expedition quality trailer we can outfit for family camping. So lets get on to the candidates.

You can be sure that as the U.S. military begins to phase out its use of the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, also and better known as the Hummer, you will begin to see these gems come up for sale.

Behold the HMMWV trailer.

That is sexy. No really, that is very, very cool. I don’t have to tell you how sweet that would look being pulled behind the Range Rover. It will be interesting to see how much these bad boys go for at auction the first couple of years they begin being available. Pitfalls? Other than cost, they might be too wide. As you know if you have ever been in or near a Hummer, they are wide. Really, really wide. The trailers are no exception. You will not have trouble finding it in your mirrors as you plod along. If you are wondering if there is a version with tarps, yep they got those too.

Okay back to reality, what are our options. What are the pros and cons as I see it.

The Sankey trailer is obviously perfect for my situation. First, it is British. It would look great behind my Defender (well when I get one). But the problems with it are 45 mph top towing speed and they are EXPENSIVE. Try more than a thousand dollars (US) expensive. And lastly, they are rare in the United States.

Along those lines we have the Jeep trailers. These, as you might imagine, are more or less plentiful. There have been three basic versions of this trailer over the years. (From WikiPedia) The first trailer was called the “Trailer, 1/4-ton, 2W, cargo, Amphibian”. The second version which was built for the M38 jeep, was called the M100 trailer, and the third version, for the M151 MUTT was called the M416 trailer.

I remember the M416 from my Marine Corps days in the early 1980s. They will float, it is light weight, and it would be perfect for my needs. But the set backs are similar to the Sankey. In good condition they are expensive. I saw one at a State of Oklahoma surplus auction that eventually sold for 250$(US). It was beat up and in terrible condition. It would have taken three to four hundred dollars to get it right. It is not uncommon to see a trailer in this good condition  top two thousand dollars (US).

The next logical candidate would seemingly be the M332 Ammo Trailer. Hey, its the right size. It looks sturdy. It has a lovely storage box already built into the tongue. They are fairly plentiful in the United States. What could possibly be wrong with these? Well I’ll tell ya. First they weight a ton. No, seriously, they weigh a little over ton. This trailer is capable of carrying 1.5 tons of ammo over rough ground. It was built to take the punishment and as you can see it is beefy. As far as costs go, these are cheap. You can get them starting around 300$(US). I thought about getting one and at the time of this post there is one on eBay in Central Alabama for 250$(US). It would cost me 250 dollars just to fetch it home so I’m looking closer to my hacienda for a trailer. 

At first I thought about getting one of these and taking some weight off of it. You could change the springs and loose the stand on the tongue and yeah…never mind. I don’t know that I could get it down to an acceptable weight. Next!

There are a couple of options when we start talking about this style. They have different nomenclatures M103A2, M116A2, etc. They are mostly used with generators. I saw a few of these in OKC at ARS. He wanted 450$(US) for them. At the time that was my entire budget. They did have a bunch of jerry can mounts on them. That was a plus. And if you get the ones with metal tarp frames the options open up pretty well for roof tents or what have you. There are a few negatives. They are rare. They don’t have sides. I talked to the fellow who uses this one with his classic Toyota FJ. He loves it and had big plans for fitting it expedition style.



There is one more I felt like mentioning. The tool trailer. On the M116 platform they placed a tool box and boom shaka laka you have pure genius. The first time I saw this I thought, “I have to have it.” Perfect for what I want to do. I had all kinds of ideas for it. Flip out or slide out kitchen, television, lockable storage, seriously it would be great. There are a few set backs though. One of the uses I have for the trailer project is utilitarian. I intend to haul stuff in my trailer when it is not out fitted for camping. I don’t have a pickup truck any longer and I miss having a bed to haul dirt and lumber and firewood and appliances and all the stuff you use a pickup for. So while the tool trailer would be perfect for camping it is not so much for all the other things I want to use the trailer for. 


I had a few problems with the tool trailer I felt I had to mention. They are rare. There was an government auction in Missouri a year or so ago. They had a few dozen of these. Since then I haven’t seen but one or two available. A fellow out in Binger, Oklahoma who has a few military vehicles for sale had a couple parked out there on his makeshift lot. He wanted 600$(US) and told me they go quick and are hard to get. I don’t know how much salesman talk that was or how much fact that was. They stand a little too tall. I know with regular size Rover wheels and perhaps a different spring setup they would ride lower but those are modifications that cost money. And at the time 600 dollars was way over my budget.


This all brings us to the last two candidates. The M105 and the M101.


The M105 is the big brother to the M101. With the major difference being the capacity. The M105 is capable of hauling 1.5 tons and the M101 has a 3/4 ton capacity. So with that you can imagine the construction of each trailer is built for those tasks. The M105 unloaded weighs 2,650 lbs. The M101 unloaded weighs 1,340 lbs. So you can see the major difference right there.

My friend JagGuy has been building bobbed M35 trucks of late. I believe he is on his third one. He uses the M105 bed to replace the ginormous bed that comes with the M35. It and the removal of a set of axles that give the M35 the bobbed look that is so popular today.

The M105 is perhaps the most plentiful trailer on the market today. Prices range all over from 200$(US) for a beater to past a thousand for a nice one. Any price close to 600$ is fair and what you might expect to pay for one.

The M101 is also a plentiful trailer. But my research does make them as plentiful as the M105. I think the hauling weight and the overall weight along with the price I hope to pay at auction, make this TODAY my ideal of a trailer for the combined hauling of camp gear and work around the house.

If my finances in the future allow me to have another trailer I would look strongly at the tool trailer again. It has more of the features I was hoping to have in an expedition trailer.

At one time I entertained ideas to build a trailer. I have lots of ideas floating around in my gray matter but I really don’t have the funds or space to build right now. I have to also say that camping is new to my family. We have never been camping together, not in this century any way. I am a historical reenactor and have camped in many centuries through my hobby. That style of camping does not appeal to my wife in the least. So with that being said we may or may not even like camping as a hobby.

My children are getting older as well. This camping thing evolved from a thought that my wife and I might like to begin RVing. But I imagine myself a more rugged individual. I thought I would like camping out in the wilderness more than on a concrete pad in an RV park.

Camping recharges my batteries. I’m not sure it would recharge me as much if I have to deal with Billy Joe Redneck next door to me listening to Lynard Skynard all day and night and his Rottweiler chained to the nearest tree while his 3 kids run around terrorizing the area. So I’m looking toward the west. I’m thinking off the beaten path. Hell I’m pulling whatever trailer I outfit with a bloody Land Rover. I SHOULD be off the beaten path. The spirit of Solihull demands it!

Wish me luck, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Posted on

June 26th, 2007 (Post #76)

June 26th, 2007


Not much going on
I haven’t been on to post in a few months. Mostly because, there hasn’t been anything going on. The price of fuel is outrageous. RovErica is driving the Range Rover now. She is quickly learning that like a Sherman Tank, it’s not far to empty in a Range Rover. The sunroof is no longer going back. You can still vent it. But it is jams on when you try to retract it. I’ll have to take it our of the truck I fear to diagnose the problem.

She also reported a screeching sound. But cannot reproduce it. I think it’s brakes but she says it
is not. We also heard a strangle thumping sound under her when we were driving around 50mph on Sunday. Sounded like a tire with a bubble on it. But the tires are still perfect.

The Disco is still going strong.
I think I’m getting a little bit better gas mileage of late. I’m
not sure what to attribute it to though. Could the summer formula of gas make any difference?

I’m still looking for a trailer.
I’ve run into some interesting possibilities. I know where two M116A2 and one M105 trailers are for sale in OKC. The owner wants 450$ each and 650$ if I want the tarps. The M116A2’s formerly had 10kW generators on them. I have looked through the government surplus site at Government Liquidation and see them for sale there but usually with a generator on them. Now I’d love to have a generator on my property. Especially one I could run the whole house on. But I don’t have the money for that type of project.

The M105 trailers are plentiful right now. They have sides and a tailgate. They are also very high up. I’m not sure lowering them is possible. These things are really big too. I used to pull them behind my M554 Kaiser when I was in the Marine Corps. We put the powder for the artillery rounds in them.

The Tool Trailers will probably escape my purchase this time as I don’t have the money right now to do this project. But for an almost ready to go storage trailer/camp kitchen I don’t think you can get any closer than these Pioneer Tool Outfit trailers. They are selling right now for under 400$ on the auction. I’m not sure how high these would go.

Of course the perfect trailers are these Ammunition Trailers. I would like one of these for the pure utility of them. For the most part the adventure of camping is just getting your stuff to the site. And they don’t make trailers this tough.

These sell for around 300$. I know they are available at Surplus stores in North Carolina for this advertised price. Some people put frames on trailers like this and mount their roof top tents on them.

The possibility of getting an M116A2 is still in the works. A fellow here in OKC has them as I mentioned before. M116A2. These trailers have definate potential. The bows are
steel and would support nicely a tent for the tent over style of expedition trailer. Boxes for the kitchen and storage of other stuff would need to be bought or made. This and fact that the two I see will need a few hundred dollars of paint stripping and painting make them the more expensive of the possibilities. You can see they sit pretty high too. That picture is of a lifted Toyota pulling it. The front stone shield would have to be fabricated. But it could be built to hold the spare and the fuel cans and the jacks and the Hi-Lift jack.

Tents are easy to come by. There are several out there. Most of them start around 1500 and go up. I recently found an outfit on eBay that was selling a rooftop for under 800$. I will probably get one if I go that route. I still haven’t ruled out getting a pop-up camper. But the same deal applies there. How cheap can I get one and how much will it take to get it in shape and fixed up to use? Something tells me I should probably get a pop-up if I want the wife to go along with me on these trips. But who knows, we haven’t even been out yet.

You can see the possibilities are nearly endless. With a budget of around 2000$ you could make a pretty nice outfit. But, sadly, I don’t have 2000 dollars right now.

Blogging
As this is a “blog” by definition. The possibility of moving this to the Blogger website has come up. I currently blog on Devil Dog’s Daily News. It would be much easier for me to post things up if I used this format. And easier for you to look up items and subjects.
So look for that soon.
Posted on

December 27th, 2006 (Post #68)

December 27th, 2006


My first grand-baby is coming tomorrow. I am totally excited about it too. Cadence Marie. I will update later with the details.


Restoring the Rangie. Got a butt-load of parts in yesterday. Gotta sort through and see what all I have and order the brake caliper refurbish kits. And get started on that as soon as I can. Then it will probably be paint and rust removal time.

Disco Headlamps
Replaced the head lamps in the Discovery last night. I’d blown one last week. And I was wondering if I needed to have my eyes checked as it was getting darker at night when I drove. My wife told me I had a headlight out so that was a relief on the eyesight bit. Changing the headlamp was dreadfully simple. You have to remove the grill to get to some of the access screws. But it was very easy. Instructions were in the on-board manual. And after glancing at them it was evident that this was child’s play.

I can’t remember the last time I replaced a headlight on one of my cars. It’s been a really long time. I replaced the lamps with Sylvania H7 lamps from Atlantic British.

I intended to buy the IPF bulbs but Atlantic British had discontinued them. I was placing a large order and didn’t want to research where to buy them so I just switched to the Sylvanias. I drove a bit last night with them and they look good.

The real test is how they look when it’s raining.

Been interested in a thread on the DiscoWeb forum.
Camp Kitchens
I’ve been thinking about a trailer for the camping and this has lots of ideas in it. I also read on a forum about getting a military trailer instead of making one from scratch. Also lots to consider there. For now I think I’m going to consider the military trailer first. There are a few on eBay every week. Affordable considering the time involved setting up to build a trailer. With a restore project in the garage it is not really feasible to build a trailer.

Driveway replaced.
The builder finally came by last week and replaced the concrete on the driveway. It was poured with too much water and crumbled under the ice and snow. I am very happy about this now as I can get on the driveway and look under the Rovers without digging concrete out of my back afterwards.
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