A Blog About Land Rovers in Oklahoma
I was under the hood looking for my power steering leak and noticed my cooling fan was cracked. This is the third failed fan. So annoying.
As you know or may have read, if the cooling fan fails while you are driving down the highway catastrophe ensues. My understanding is it destroys most everything under the hood. I’ve even heard of a bonnet damaged so much it had to be replaced.
My options are… Continue reading “Radiator Cooling Fan Cracked Again (Post #426) 12/30/2013”
Mrs. Okierover picked Hot Springs, Arkansas for a short vacation this summer. As you may recall last year’s vacation was a 3900 mile jaunt to Glacier National Park. This year we decided to do something closer to home. Hot Springs is just a six hour drive if you pick the scenic route. Surprisingly Diet Mountain Drew made it almost an hour into the drive before he was asleep.
The drive in was not the one I planned. After a couple of wrong turns, the GPS was employed. The device had us driving all the way down to Broken Bow, Oklahoma and back up to Hot Springs. Not the prettiest drive.
As we turned northerly we watched the thunderheads rise and an impressive cloud to cloud lightning display. This only meant one thing, we would have some serious weather to drive through. It manifested itself in sheets of rain that double speed wipers were only just able to keep up with.
We followed what I figured was a local-yokel as he seemed to know the blind turns in the rain better than we. As we finally cleared the storm, we looked back to see he only had one headlight working. How he was able to see in that deluge was truly a mystery.
Our first day was a lazy day for the Mrs. and I. We took Diet Mt. Drew and his girlfriend to a water and theme park for the afternoon. We napped.
Day two we decided to rent a party barge and go tubing on Lake Hamilton.
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| El Capitan |
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| Painful for my back, Mrs. Okierover found it therapeutic for hers. |
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| Me and the Mrs. |
That was a pretty good time.
We spent the rest of the day at Garvan Woodland Gardens. There was an art exposition of glass.
It was pretty. It was humid. Think Central American jungle humid with zero wind. We wandered around and enjoyed the quiet woods and gardens until the mosquitoes started in on us.
We ended the day with Pirate Cove Mini Golf. Your’s truly won by two strokes over Sadie, with Mrs. Okierover third and Diet Mt. Drew finishing last. A good time was had by all.
We spent our 24th wedding anniversary driving home. This time I had the route planned for some scenic driving. We skirted the lakes heading west out of Hot Springs and eventually made it to Highway 1 in Oklahoma. This is the Talimena Scenic Byway. This road is most popular in Autumn when the leaves are changing. It is truly a great drive. It is very popular with the motorcyclers.
When these vast stretches of timberland came up for auction only one bid was made. The National Park Service paid 1.42$(US) an acre. The land had been raped by forestry companies for years with absolutely no conservation effort made what-so-ever. Their operations consisted of showing up and running a rail line to the milling site. A boom town almost always followed. They would cut until it was no longer profitable and load everything back on the train and pull out. when they were through, it was a land of bare eroding hills, pock marked by fires and of little or no value.
On our way into the park, we came across this road side memorial to John F. Kennedy. It seems he was there to dedicate the opening of Highway 259 in October of 1961. There is a connection to the Knights of Columbus that I’m sure has more to it than the fact they asked him to come and they paid for the monument.
We stopped at Treats and Treasures in Talihena for lunch. Its an old fashioned soda fountain with a gift shop in the front. For the little town of Talihena it is a nice little place in downtown. I could retire to a town like this.
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| Ratty old gas station. I love it. |
We got pulled over for speeding in Hartshorne, Oklahoma. It was a 45mph zone and I was probably going 60mph. I slowed down to 55mph when I saw the cop. He pulled us over and asked for my license. He said I was going “a little fast” back there. He then asked to see our insurance and asked if we were heading home. I was polite and answered all his questions with a “yes sir”. It took Janie quite a while to find the insurance form. I think he finally got frustrated with us and told me to slow down and let us go. He was respectful and very polite. I was impressed. He did have more tattoos than I’ve ever seen on a cop. If I were to guess, he saw the Marine Corps sticker, and hat and having served himself somewhere, he let us go. That’s my first pull over in over 10 years of speeding driving.
We continued on and turned north to Eufaula and then down Highway 9 to home.
It was a good weekend and we were glad to be home.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Back in September of 2005 we went out to a friend’s farm in Newcastle. We went to shoot and generally just hang out in the country. I let the kids drive the Range Rover.
We moved the seat all the way forward and all the way up so Diet Mt. Drew, then age 12 and small for his age, could reach the peddles. I was passing around the front of the Range Rover when Mrs. Okierover asked him if he was ready to go, he said yes and let off the brake and nearly ran me over.
He recovered and had a great time driving.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
Finally I have a Garage Day! The weather is cooperating and my schedule is clear. I am asking no sympathy for my schedule I do it to myself.
I took the Range Rover to Dibble, Oklahoma to watch my grand daughter play T-ball. I love the two lane highways in Oklahoma and this was an opportunity to drive on them. Specifically highways 39, 76, 74b, and 24. 74b between Goldsby and the intersection with 76 just past Cole, Oklahoma has those great “lose-your-stomach” peaks on the hills.
I rolled into Dibble and they had blocked the parking lot at one end forcing me to either drive a few blocks around to the other lot or just go off the road and turn around. Of course, I picked option two. When I turned in to the lot it was a steep ditch, the approach angle was fine, no worries there, but when I tested the departure angle I contacted the ground. No damage that I can tell, but it was enough to make a furrow in the ground as evidenced by the dirt on my hitch.
I got a picture of our number 9 on third. The weather had just turned with a cold front passing through. Amazing how many Okies attending the game were totally unprepared for a serious change in temperature. Think 81 F to 61 F in three minutes with a 15-20 mph north wind. Making windchill something like 55 F.
We had family pictures this week. We went over to the University of Oklahoma campus and took pictures of my wife’s family. We spotted this Mediterranean House Gecko on one of the columns in front of Evan’s Hall.
Unfortunately for the gecko a Mockingbird had also spotted him and as soon as we were done, the Mockingbird swooped in and had a snack. Much to the chagrin of the grand kids. As we reminded them of the circle of life. They then told us of watching a hawk destroy a squirrel. They thought it was cool.
After this year, I may attempt to see how many different species of reptiles I can see in the wild, instead of birds. I’ve also thought of a quest of mammals.
Mrs. OkieRover with RovErica. That’s her dad Grady on her right. Although he was a Navy man he’s alright with me. His sense of humor is top-notch. He served on the USS Essex back in the day. He started out with a stint with the Oklahoma National Guard at age 15. He told them he was 18. Funny how times have changed.
This is my son-in-law Justin and my oldest Lecia whom you’ve heard referred to on this site as Fireball for her propensity to throw softballs hard enough to register on the Richter scale when you catch them.
Justin you have seen in my historical pictures. Although his people are Pottawatomie and mostly “uncivilized”, he has not totally shunned me teaching Cherokee words to the grandchildren.
Here we have the grand children and my son Diet Mountain Drew. Just out of frame is the princess Prestyn in her baby bucket.
I am greatly blessed by these people and proud of each and every one of them. I couldn’t ask for better people if I made them myself…
The love of family and the admiration of friends is much more important than wealth and privilege.
Charles Kuralt
I couldn’t agree more Chuck. If you need me I’ll be in the garage.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
You can’t tell me cars aren’t important to people. Such a great video.
What a great story. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Mrs. Okierover and I’s first cars were nothing to be excited about. I guess the 1992 Ford Escort was the first car we bought together. We quickly outgrew it with the addition of Diet Mt. Drew. Our second car was the 1993 Ford Ranger pickup truck. It served us very well. Our first Land Rover? Well, we still have it. 1993 Range Rover LWB.
On a side note, I had a great weekend. I’ll have some pictures and a story up later this week.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
I thought I’d drop a note so you would know I’m not dead. I’ve been really busy with work and school. I completed the fundamentals for Lean/Six Sigma Green Belt (Strong America Now) over the last three weekends. I’ll finish my Green Belt project this summer. My SQL Server (Wikipedia) class at Oklahoma City Community College class is starting to kick my butt. Big test tonight. This is going to require more cycles if I am to be successful with it.
The weather also hasn’t cooperated. I woke up and drove in this morning (February 20) to GIANT snowflakes coming down. This is the second time this year, shoot fire, this month! I was sitting in McNellie’s Pub in Midtown OKC when it did this last. It looked like we were sitting in a snow globe.
We need the rain and/or snow desperately so I am not complaining. I hope it rains a lot more. The drought is the worst I can remember seeing it. Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t read up on the Dust Bowl (PBS) again. The days it did cooperate, I was sitting in the Carson Engineering Center at OU learning Six Sigma and Lean principles. I’m barely smart enough to open the doors of this Nerditorium, however, Scuba Seamus (Diet Mt. Drew’s friend) who is studying mechanical engineering was in my class, so I was able to sneak in with a kind word from him.
I’m at 37 birds for this birding season. I was pleased to see an American Kestrel on the way home the other day. Even more exciting was seeing the Redhead swimming in a local pond. They are migrating back to Canada and it was quite a treat for me to see one.
Grand baby #3, Prestyn, is doing swimmingly well. She is cute as a bug and we have pictures to prove it, lots and lots of pictures. Her Mimi is happy when she gets to visit. When Mimi is happy, everyone is happy.
RovErica is now engaged. She met a young man that Mrs. OkieRover and I really like. Best of all he thinks RovErica hung the moon. Bonus for us (the readers of this blog and I), he’s mechanical. And not the Fat Jack “I can fix it, I’m mechanical.” and then he starts wailing on the outboard motor with a hammer from the movie Splash (1984) either. He graduated from Wyotech while working on his Masters. Yeah, my evil plans to have him fix the ABS relay buzzing problem are already in the works. He needs a nickname for this blog…but I’m working on that.
Diet Mt. Drew is considering moving back in with us and going back to school. It’ll kill him to do it, but I think he’ll like the amount of cash in his pocket and the well stocked pantry and the free internet service and cable TV.
I’m going to the South Central Coalition of Historical Trekkers meet this weekend at Fort Gibson. I’ll take lots of pictures, not that you want to see them, but I want to take them. It will hopefully be a nice break for me. I need to let the flywheel spin for a few turns without me having to spin it if you know what I mean.
My new TerraFirma springs and shocks are in and have been sitting in the garage for nearly a month. I hope to put them on the first weekend of March. Mrs. OkieRover will be away from the house for a lady’s retreat so unfettered Land Rover mechanicing should ensue. I can fix it, I’m mechanical.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.