Category: Oklahoma

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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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Planning Random Jobs on my Range Rover Classic Overland Rig (Post #715) 8/18/2025

It’s the Dog Days of Summer.

From Wikipedia: The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius (known colloquially as the “Dog Star”), which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. They are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

Actually we are a week outside the OFFICIAL Dog Days of Summer, that’s okay Oklahoma is behind in a lot of things.

In 2024 Oklahoma was 49th in Education among the states. Thanks New Mexico!

We are 37th in crime…

48th in Healthcare! West Virginia and Mississippi are still worse.

On the good side!!!!!

2025 US News ranked Oklahoma City was named #1 Big City to live in!!!!

When it comes to food, Oklahoma is #1 in Onion Burgers and probably chicken fried steak. I’d say we are top 5 in BBQ too.

When it comes to oppressive heat we are rocking it on that too!!!

It’s too hot to work in the shoppe. I’ve tried to get out in this hell-scape but my 60 year old body is not my 40 year old body and I’ve had a mutiny. My brain still thinks I’m 40 so my body chronologically aged is 60+.

I’ve got a few things I’ve been putting off fixing. They aren’t all that important individually, but necessary.

Zip tie some wires. I’ve got a bunch of failed zip ties underneath. I bought some special for this and I need to get under and get this sorted.

Rear brake line bracket. I cut the bracket off so I didn’t have to deal with the brake lines. Now it’s just hanging and needs to be reattached.

Rust. I bought some rust converter. I could use it very judiciously to make some stuff look better and to stop the rust.

GMRS Radio. I need a solution for my GMRS radio that would make it portable. Was thinking ammo can… haven’t decided exactly.

Not in the video. I have to seal up the floor of the passenger side footwell where I welded and it melted off the stone chip coating.

That’s about it. Like and subscribe, hell drop me an email or comment on the video. Share it with friends at parties…

May the wind take your troubles away….Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Working in an Oven (Post #620) August 25, 2023

In my last post I told you it was hot outside. That’s a no brainer to 1/3 of the country right now living under the heat dome. I didn’t take a picture of the thermostat on August 19th but Oklahoma City set a new highest temperature for the date. At the weather station in the neighborhood behind the house, it measured 107.7°F (42°C) around 1:00pm on Saturday the 19th and a similar 107.6 for the following Sunday the 20th.

Historical

If you’ve never been in this kind of hot outside, its hard to describe. Dangerous is a good word. Dangerous like, if you screw around and exert yourself too much you could die. Heat Stroke and Heat Exhaustion is hovering nearby. I’ve had both, my Yelp review, 1 star, would not recommend.

So when I got home from the Evil German Dude’s house, I went out to the shoppe and the needle on the thermostat was about where I indicate on the pic below. Let’s just call that about 125°F (51.7°C) so I decided it was going to be a “make and mend” day [Wikipedia]. And it was going to be spent in the cool air conditioning.

125

The good news for this weekend is it looks like the heat bubble popped and the temps will come down significantly this weekend. Back to a range this old fat man can manage.

forecast

I’ll try to bust out another welding video Monday or Tuesday. I’m disappoint I couldn’t keep up the momentum of publishing a weekly video. If I had worked in the shoppe last week you wouldn’t have gotten a video anyway, because I would have likely been in the hospital.

Thanks for visiting and Happy Rovering.

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Door Handles That Last (Post #611) 6/5/2023

If you were to rate the most annoying things on a Range Rover Classic at the top of that list would be the Questionable Use of Paint and Seam Sealer to Prevent Rust. I think we could all agree with that. The second item has GOT to be the Door Handles.

At some point in owning a Range Rover Classic or a Discovery 1 you will have a door handle fail. I’m not sure what specific material the door handles are made from. I’ve speculated in another post that they were made from Play-DohTM. I’m pretty sure they are made from some kind of aluminum mache’ and hope. You might as well say they were made of Unobtainium [Wikipedia] because finding a set of new/old stock (ran out decades ago) or on a rig in a breaker’s yard (aka junk yard in the USA). I haven’t seen a Range Rover in a junk yard since 2016 [Okierover.com]. The odd one may have snuck past me in that time…suffice to say they are getting rare. Spotted one in 2015 and 2011.

It was quite frankly a surprise to me that it took so long for some smart guy or girl to machine their own. I am surprised no longer. A gentleman right here in my home state of Oklahoma is making them. This is the best of all possible situations, Made in Oklahoma, Small Business, genuinely nice guy, and almost certainly better than OEM.

Chris McCune‘s [Facebook] handles are made from 6061 aluminum. I am but a simple caveman and your systems of measurements of specific metals frightens and confuses me, but when I get in my Range Rover Classic and drive to the mall through the outback, I want to open the doors with the handles and not crawl in the window like psychopath.

(Apologies to the, now deceased, genius of Phil Hartman for the paraphrase above.)

You are more likely to pull the entire handle assembly off the door, than to have one of these break like the OEM handles. He’s so confident in his design he is offering a Limited Lifetime Warranty. Basically as long as you aren’t using the handle as recovery point when you get stuck, he’ll make it right if one of his handles fail.

This is an unsponsored product recommendation. I have not been compensated in any way to promote Chris’s products. I’m just helping out a fellow Okie with his small business in this niche market.

The next time you tear your door handle remember Chris and order some handles. I would publish the price, but prices of metals change and I don’t want someone in the future who may be reading this post to get the wrong idea about what the handles cost. At the time of this post (June 2023), they are fairly priced. I’ve seen them for sale for more than this and have purchased some crappy OEM ones for this same price. Click the link above and send him a Private Message.

I looked up my previous posts on door handles, check those out too. One contains the instructions for replacing your door handles.

Why Children Should Not Drive Your Toys, Part 2 (Post #283) 1/21/2012
Weekend Repairs (Post #358) 6/21/2013
Door Handles: The Trapeze of Opening (Post #342) 5/24/2013

Thanks for Reading and Happy Rovering.

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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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Among the Gourds and Gravel (Post #574) 7/3/2017

In all my 50+ plus years of living in Oklahoma I have never been to the top of Mount Scott. So this past weekend, I took off to see it. Mount Scott is located in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma. It rises to 2,464 feet above sea level and towers over the surrounding area. There is a three-mile long road that takes you to the top.

Continue reading “Among the Gourds and Gravel (Post #574) 7/3/2017”

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