Category: Mrs. OkieRover

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#Hibernot (Post #439) 1/28/2014

What a great bit of advertising. I love the dog not moving when called with that, “I’m not getting back in the truck” defiance and little girl at the end trudging on behind her mum. Where do I get a #Hibernot bumper sticker? I’m all in.

I first saw this video on the Hooniverse website. I snagged this snippet from Land Rover UK’s website explaining Hibernot (Land Rover UK).

Winter. Hibernate? No Chance. #Hibernot

#Hibernot is about embracing the British winter, about enjoying winter in all its glory.

Explore what other people have been getting up to, tell us what #Hibernot means to you and search #Hibernot trails in your local area.

Doesn’t that make you want to go out in the 30 mile per hour winds with 48 mph gusts and experience the -10 F wind chill of the southern plains circa January 26th? Well no. But it does make me want to take my Land Rover somewhere remote and get out and enjoy, if only for an hour, the crisp clean air of winter and the sting of winter cold. The sting that reminds you of February, 1987 the winter that you stood in knee deep water running barbed wire for Dr. Kammerlocher. The sting that reminds you of the weekends you stood on the back of a M110 howitzer in freezing rain while serving your country in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. The sting that reminds you of camping with your friends (just for the fun of it) in period clothing from the 1750’s on the the Javine Farm near Barnsdall, Oklahoma when it dipped to 12 F overnight. The sting that reminds you of the cold air and snow down on the river below the dam at Bull Shoals Lake, Arkansas when you took Mrs. Okierover on her first camping trip in 2013. Simply, hell yes.

Hibernot means not shunning exposure the elements, but embracing them. You would not know winter if you did not have summer. If sweat had never run down your brow while you were standing in the 120 F heat of the high desert of 29 Palms, you could never appreciate the winter blizzards on the southern plains.

We will never be as “hard” as we thought we once were back in our youth. We will never be as foolhardy again either. So get out and enjoy the winter. Get out and let the snow or cold rain fall on you with a “devil may care” (Idiom) attitude. Then get in your Land Rover, turn on the heater, and if they still work your heated seats, and drive to a coffee house or diner and get a warm drink, then drive home remembering the good old days.

Toby Keith said, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” (Youtube video)

Get out and enjoy your old self.

Thanks for reading, Happy Rovering, and Hibernot.

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Garage Day: The Long Awaited Electric Fans Post (Post #433) 1/15/2014

The electric fan conversion is complete!

Over the weekend I employed The Evil German Dude and the newly named Paparazzi Ford (Butch) to assist in the install of the electric fans. As this will be a somewhat lengthy post let me start by saying, thank you Frank. Without you this project would have been completed but would have been no where near as freaking awesome as it turned out.

Butch, thank you for taking WAY too many pictures photo-chronicalling this project. Butch said we should do some video blogging. I think he is on to something. He was none too happy about being relegated to the camera for this project but he cheerfully took pictures through out the 8 hour event.

If you don’t get together with your friends and do projects like this, I feel sorry for you. You are seriously missing out on some of the best stuff you can experience with friends. I’ve known and worked with these two guys since June of 2000 and their friendship is something I cherish deeply. We always have a really good time together. Man Bonding Time or as the Evil German Broad says, “babysitting Frank so I can watch football.” is some of the best stuff in the known universe.

I’d also like to thank the Evil German Broad for preparing us the delicious meals and reporting the scores in the Seahawks/Saints game for us. Mrs. Okierover was actually a little put off when she offered me breakfast that morning and I declined because as I said, “I get to eat breakfast at Bettina’s.”

Evil German Broad

Not only are Garage Days at the Evil German Dude’s a culinary treat they are educational. EGD’s education in Germany and his experience in fabricating make projects like this an educational event. I don’t think there has been a Garage Day where I didn’t learn something from him.

This is a Huge Post

This project started at 0930 and didn’t get wrapped up until 1830. We took three breaks, one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one to weld up the exhaust leak. Butch and I mostly watched the whirlwind that is the Evil German Dude. It is his shop and only he knows where all the entrances to his secret earthquake generation lab tools are located. Overalls are not required but highly recommended. Two of the three of us (the smarter ones) were wearing them. So sit back and put on your reading glasses, you are going to need them for this one. Continue reading “Garage Day: The Long Awaited Electric Fans Post (Post #433) 1/15/2014”

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Honey Springs 150th Anniversary, Going Home – Part 3 (Post #412) 11/13/2013

Having thoroughly enjoyed the weekend and after bidding adieu to my friends it was time to turn the Range Rover west out of Rentiesville (Wikipedia) and get home to my 21st century life. It was the day of the 238th Marine Corps’ Birthday and Mrs. Okierover told me she had baked me a cake. What an awesome wife.

I told her I was going to take the long way home. I new the leaves were turning and I wanted to see Dripping Springs State Park with the leaves changing. But before I could get out of the Honey Springs National Battlefield site a quite unexpected surprise made me stop. Continue reading “Honey Springs 150th Anniversary, Going Home – Part 3 (Post #412) 11/13/2013”

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Where is everyone? (Post #407) 11/6/2013

This is the 42nd block of North Western in Oklahoma City. If you are a familiar with this block you have Beck’s Garage on one side of the street on the other you have VZD’s. I eat lunch at VZD’s every Monday. FYI: If you want to talk Land Rovers look for me on a bar stool between 11am and Noon.

I have never pulled up there before and seen it so empty. Not a single car in the parking lot or on the street in front. Very odd. So I snapped a picture.

Next door to VZD’s is a “salon/day spa”. So normally there is at least one or two cars parked there for the women who “do” salons/day spas. And normally Teresa Wall is parked out front as well. Teresa owns 42nd Street Candy Company. This is where I stop and pick up those fancy chocolates and candies that gets me nominated for Husband of the Year by Mrs. Okierover. I highly recommend you stop in and say hi to Teresa and get some bon-bons. You won’t regret it.

This neighborhood is known as Crown Heights. My biological mother lived at the corner of N.W. 39th and Western before I was born. How do you know that? Good question! I looked her up on the old Criss-Cross directory at the Oklahoma City Public Library. I was probably conceived in the apartment there above the house. (You probably didn’t need to know that.)

I’ve always loved this neighborhood and the great old homes found between Shartel and Western. One house on N.W. 41st street has a terracotta dragon sitting on top of the chimney.

Back to the Range Rover. I’ve got a very noisy left front spring. I think I’ll need to get it up on a lift and look at what’s going on. It’s annoying and since I just got those springs under there I should find out why it’s making those noises. Every thing else is going well so far.

I am going to the Battle of Honey Springs this weekend. So the Range Rover is going on a long drive Friday after work. I’m going to take the “Blue Highways” instead of the interstate. I’ve been listening to William Least Heap-Moon’s Blue Highways from audible.com. I’m enjoying it very much and thinking of a similar trip for some day in the future.

I used the roof rack as a platform to take a picture of our Halloween Block Party. Paradigm Church has had a trunk-or-treat set up each of the last two years. We set up games for the kids and hand out candy. We are getting quite the reputation for our “carnival”. We even have a competition between the bible study groups who theme their trunks each year.

My team has won both years. Last year we had a panel of judges, this year we let the kids/parents decide. We decorated as pirates the first year complete with a cardboard pirate ship and this year we had a Despicable Me (2013) themed trunk. We built a Gru-mobile and the shrink ray from the movies.

Everyone had a great time and the weather was perfect.

Good grief that post was all over the place! I could have made it two, perhaps three different posts.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Guthrie and Beyond October 2013 (Post #406) 10/30/2013

I loved the lines.
High on a hill east of Guthrie.

Mrs. Okierover and I love a good road trip. So when our oldest daughter (Fireball) told us our oldest grandchild (Pistol, aka Tater) was cheering in Guthrie, Oklahoma, we had to go. Guthrie holds a special place in our family’s history. Fireball was proposed to in this city by our now son-in-law J-man.

From our home in Norman, Guthrie is a solid one hour drive on the interstate. The first grade football game began at 0830. This meant both Fireball and her brood would need to roll out of their racks around 0630 in order to be more or less on time for the game. It’s no small task to haul a 6, 4, and 9 month old anywhere let alone at 0630. I’ve done it, alone, with only 6$(US) in my pocket, so I know. (A story for another time.)

I am not fond of “rolling out” at 0730 on my only “sleep in” day of the week. Add driving an hour on the interstate on a OU home football game weekend. Not fun. So I ponied up the money for us to stay in Guthrie over night. The grand kids had never stayed in a hotel so we knew they would have fun. Continue reading “Guthrie and Beyond October 2013 (Post #406) 10/30/2013”

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My New Rover Buddy (Post #375) 8/9/2013

I was privileged enough to take my grand daughter, we’ll call her Pistol, to her first cheerleading camp in Newcastle. The lack of an air bag in the 1993 Range Rover affords her the ability to ride in the front seat. She cheekily borrowed a pair of sunglasses to complete her look.

Her mom, Fireball, was none to pleased about her riding position when I posted this picture to Facebook. +Mrs. Okierover  had to point out that it was safer than when Fireball was riding on the armrest in her grandpa’s 1984 Ford LTD. The only thing holding her from going through the windshield in the LTD was grandma and grandpa’s arms as they instinctively went up when they had to brake hard.

Looks safe to me, wink, wink

Pistol was perched on her booster seat in the Big White Bus and belted in. I remember the days before I was married to Mrs. Okierover and little Fireball was learning about safety in school and we had to all start wearing our “belt seats”. So we made a game of it to see who could get their “belt seat” on first. Before this I NEVER wore my seat belt. The legislature eventually would get around to passing a law requiring seat belts. Our youngest two children do not remember a time before mandatory seat belt wearing.

I had to remind Fireball that if we were going to discuss dangerous and unsafe behavior, that it was illegal for six year old kids to operate motor vehicles in the state of Oklahoma. She drove my 1974 BMW 3.0s on at least two occasions. I would let her drive the car across the field that served as the softball field for a women’s softball team I was helping coach. She’d drive us up to the gravel parking lot behind the Indian Hills Steak House (as of this posting it is now a bar called Mooney’s (Maps.google.com street view) . There she would stop the car and we would swap places.

I wish we still had this car

So as far as safety goes, Pistol was as safe as a bug in a rug in the front seat of the BWB. And comparing her riding position to our habits just 20 years ago she was about as safe as you could ever expect to be. Besides, the air conditioning works better if you are sitting directly in front of the vents when it’s 106 degrees outside in Oklahoma.

I also posted on Facebook that RovErica was out and Pistol was in, as my new Range Rover buddy. This brought much scorn from RovErica and many sad and mad emoticons were exchanged.

I’ve had a quiet month of correspondence with Land Rover owners this month. I have made contact with a fellow Range Rover owner in my home town. We are trying to arrange a meeting to talk Range Rovers. More on that later.

The maps came in for a new trip I’m planning. I plan to drive across Oklahoma on all gravel and dirt roads. More on this later as well.

Buckle up, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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