Category: road trips

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The Eclipse (Post #650) 4/12/2024

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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A Visit to the Air Defense Training Facility (Post #629) October 29, 2023

Half track

I was invited by my friend Correy Twilley to come to Fort Sill and participate in a WW2 living history event. The plan was to take the M3 Half Track and a Jeep with a Pack 75 howitzer out to the field and and have students and family come by and learn some history. Unfortunately the weather for Saturday would be pretty nasty. For dedicated living historians that’s not a big deal but the purpose was to have visitors. Not likely to have many visitors when the north wind blows in the 20mph range, rain falling, and temps in the middle 30’s Fahrenheit (1 to 5 Celsius).

World War 2 is not one of my current periods. I would have had to borrow my entire kit. But Correy said not a problem, so I said, “let’s do it”. When he cancelled I told him I still had the day off and would like to come down and visit the training facility.

If you are following the news, they are deploying some anti-aircraft units from Fort Sill to the Middle East. So I was at first concerned I would be in the way. Turned out not to be a problem as most of the troops were already getting their trashed gather up for deployment. Correy taught a class that morning and had a meeting but the afternoon was available for us to tour the displays.

Friday was pleasant with sunny skies so I toured the gun park. There were several examples of weapons I trained on in the park.

I trained on the M101A4 at artillery school. Fort Sill is home to the Artillery School now, but when I served there were two schools, Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune. They sent me to Las Pulgas, Camp Pendleton.

After school I was assigned to 5th Battalion, 14th Marines, Oscar Battery. We were using the M110A2 howitzer. This beast was a very accurate system and nuclear capable.

In the infinite wisdom of the Corps they sent our M110s to California changed our unit designation to 2nd Battalion, 14th Marines, Fox Battery. These towed behemoths required modern trucks (M939) to pull them. I was not a fan.

When Correy was finished with his classes he gave me a tour of the training facility. As you will see in the video, they have an amazing collection. Several of the systems are 1 of a kind or there are less than 3 of these known to exist. Several of the trucks and Jeeps are near fully functional and could be taken out if a little work was done on them. Several of the systems are demonstrated for students with live fire exercises.

As promised, Correy said we would take the M16 Half-track out for a spin. It is an M3 based Multiple Gun Motor Carriage equipped with the Maxson M45 Quadmount (specifically the M45D) with four M2HB machine guns. Our first stop was to drive it to the gas station and put in a couple of gallons. The looks on people’s faces when you roll up to the station is pretty fun. After that we took it over to Medicine Man Bluff and then around the old post and finally back to the museum.

I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to go down to the base and to go out in the field with my friends. The weather has turned cold. Seems like we skipped Fall all together this year and went from 90’s to 30’s Fahrenheit in two days.

Thanks for your patience while we went to St. Croix for a week. We needed the break and took a lazy week to recover from work and life. I did manage to see 5 Land Rovers on the island. You can see them on my Instagram account.

I’m working on the backup fuel pump and plan to get the BWB started and turned around in the shop. That will allow me to tackle the rust on the passenger (starboard) side. I’ll have another video up next week.

Like and or subscribe to the Youtube channel, every little bit helps. As always, I’m happy to see comments and will comment back as soon as I see them.

Thanks for visiting and Happy Rovering.

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Capulin Volcano and the Northwest Passage 2016, Part Three (Post #571) 1/23/2017

Day Three

We woke in Picture Canyon. Erik and his team planned to return to Oklahoma City. We made a big breakfast cooking everything we hadn’t eaten so far on the trip. By the time we finished cooking eating and packing up Mr. Fisher and I had to change our plans too.

The trek up Black Mesa and back takes at least 5 hours. We had 7 hours of driving to get home. We had an hour and a half to get to the trail-head. The math put us in Norman around 11 PM or even later. That wasn’t really an option as I had to go back to work on Tuesday. So we skipped Black Mesa. I’ve been to the Black Mesa area three times and I haven’t made the hike yet. My next trip to the region Black Mesa will be my primary goal. I’m doing that first.

We headed to Campo, Colorado to get some fuel. We found a garage there with a mechanic, that’s something to put in the memory bank just in case. We fueled up and struck up a conversation with a local gentleman who heard we were overlanding and gave us a great suggestion for a route home. We headed south out of Campo looking for Road C. We headed east and soon found ourselves out on the wide open grassland.

Along the way we found a historical marker and stopped to check it out. Turned out it was a short cut for the Santa Fe Trail.

Santa Fe Trail Aubry Cutoff

You can find it by clicking this map.google.com link.

GPS coordinates

“Santa Fe Trail Marker with Stone Posts”
37°01’05.7″N 102°27’42.3″W
37.018258, -102.461744

The markers were for the Aubry Cutoff. From the sign, it was a way from the Mountain Route to the Cimarron Route on the Santa Fe Trail.
The sign was well weathered and really hard to read so I translated it for you.

“Francois Xaver Aubry was born December 3, 1824 near Quebec. In 1843 at 18, he left his home and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he began working as a clerk for a French Canadian merchant company.”
“In 1846 lured by the talk of trade making money and adventure on the Santa Fe Trail, he gave up his job as a clerk and became a full-time trader. By 1850, Aubry had traveled multiple routes with the goal of finding the shortest sand-free path that provided adequate water and wood. In 1851 he found it establishing what became known as the Aubry Cutoff.”
“From 1846 to 1854 Aubry was among the business most influential merchants on the Santa Fe Trail. His caravans were usually large and his speed and reliability in getting goods to the right market ahead of others was legendary. The average length of Aubry’s trips was 37 days while other merchants would take up to 90 days to deliver their goods to Santa Fe.”
“Along with this mercantile reputation he developed a talent for individual travel. Aubry’s 730 mile trip on horseback from Santa Fe to Independence Missouri in the **** days…”

The rest of the sign is indistinguishable.

The grassland was amazing. I’ve never been so far away from everything. It is a truly wide open place.

A panoramic view.

Such a great road.

There were other markers laying out the Santa Fe Trail.


We crossed in to Oklahoma.

Mr. Fisher stands in Colorado and Oklahoma at the same time.

We decided to head to the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site. I’ve never been but have wanted to go several times. The shortcut through Texas was really terrible. We battled the 18-wheelers hauling pre-hamburgers and pre-steaks at mach 2 on the roads throughout the panhandle of Texas. I’m pretty sure most of them should be arrested and thrown into jail for the speed they were traveling and the absolute utter disregard for other drivers. Seriously we were nearly rammed by two 18-wheelers going well over 80 mph. There’s no way they could have stopped if something happened.

We stopped in one these cattle towns and made some sandwiches and ate lunch. Every town had a silo like this one.

Cow town with a silo.

The Washita Battlefield National Historic Site is a real nice museum and was free! We stopped and watched an informative video about the event. We looked at the artifacts and read some of the interesting perspectives of the times. There would be a recollection of a white person and a recollection of a native person showing the two sides of the same event. Very informative.

We then went down the road to the actual site. The river has moved since the original event but with a little imagination you can put yourself there that fateful winter day.
We took the two lane highways home. I can tell you as we came back into civilization I actually longed for the wide open spaces of the plains. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we managed to get home without dying.

Part One.
Part Two.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

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Capulin Volcano and the Northwest Passage 2016, Part Two (Post #565) 1/19/2017

Day Two

This is part two of the Capulin Volcano Northwest Passage. We went to meet Fall and were not disappointed. She was in full force on the Volcano with a North wind putting a chill on things.

Warning this is a huge post with tons of pictures.

We drove to the Volcano. We stopped and took the obligatory picture with the National Park sign for Capulin Volcano. We headed on to the visitor center and paid the admission fee to the cute Park Ranger. We then drove to the parking lot near the top.

We hiked to the top. You can see a mountain range in Colorado and Black Mesa from the top. There are well marked signs that explain the lay of the land. We were woefully unready for the active Cougar area. It was a relief to find out they were warning us about the big cats and not 60 plus year old women.

We left the volcano and headed to Folsom, New Mexico. We stopped for some pictures at the Folsom Hotel and felt the call of the old west in the sleepy little town. A picture in the hotel window alerted us to the fact the Hole in the Wall Gang once frequented the area.

We headed toward Des Moines, New Mexico to pick up our gravel road to the state intersection. I feel like now is a good point to caution you about the availability of gasoline in these remote towns. We knew there would be few options and keeping a full tank was a priority. We even brought extra Gerry cans and filled them when we thought the chance to fill up might be in doubt. If you are planning this trip keep in mind how many miles you have planned to drive. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to know what kind of range you can get on a tank of fuel when you are driving 20-40 miles per hour. This is where I learned the fuel gauge on the BWB is not very indicative of the amount of fuel in the tank. It is weighted a little heavily toward the lower end. That will need to be investigated again.

We stopped for a pit stop in Des Moines and then out on to the plain to see what we could see. What we learned about electronic maps and how they are incredibly incorrect. There were several times where a road was named wrong or didn’t even exist.

Erik remembered there was a more scenic route and we made our way to find it. Turned out to be a very beautiful canyon to drive through. The roads were labelled like highways but were made of gravel. The driving was not technical. If it had rained the night before it might have been much more challenging.

We made Oklahoma and turned toward the corner of the state’s monument. We found it up the road from the Black Mesa trail-head. We hung out a while and took pictures. We also planned our next stop. In lieu of Black Mesa State Park we opted for Picture Canyon in Colorado. I’m so glad we did.

We left out of the Black Mesa area turned North at the “dinosaur bone” and headed toward Picture Canyon. On the way we stopped to see a rather large tarantula. He became very friendly and crawled up the leg of one of Erik’s friends. Whole lotta NO in that for me.

We also turned back to see where another apparent overlander had taken an unmarked trail. By the time we got back to him he was already headed back to the road. He said there was nothing to see up there except a windmill. I didn’t want to seem like we were following him or wanted him to feel uncomfortable so we kept it short and went in different directions.

If there hadn’t been signs telling us there was a canyon we may have never found it. It is literally a canyon in the middle of the Comanche National Grassland. You drive on rolling hills and out of nowhere there’s a canyon.

Panoramic view of the top
A panoramic view above the canyon.
We then took the hiking trail around the inside of the canyon. The history is awesome with several petroglyphs and an abandoned settlement. Pre-historic man used the canyon probably as a kill site for the millions of herd animals. They also most likely lived there. In the early 1900’s settlers tried to make a go of it by living in the canyon. Their rock house and most likely barn are still visible.

There are also caves. The caves are now caged off. The bats in the area are struggling to survive. The white-nosed fungus is basically Ebola for bats and scientist are trying to figure out what the cause is. Humans are one of the first culprits thus the cages at the entrances to caves throughout America.

We saw all the petroglyphs listed on the displays at the trailhead. It was a nice walk. We returned to camp and started dinner (seasoned chicken tenders, potatoes, rolls with honey butter). We ate and had some beers waiting for the big show. The big show was a completely dark sky with no light pollution. We could see the Milky Way and a bazillion stars. The meteor shower did not disappoint as well. We saw so many satellites we stopped even mentioning them.

We settled in for some much needed sleep after a long day on the trail.

I hope you enjoyed the galleries and I’ll post up the third day soon. Thanks for the retweets and forwarding the post.

Capulin Volcano Part One Here

Capulin Volcano Part Three Here

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering

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Capulin Volcano and the Northwest Passage 2016, Part One (Post #564) 1/17/2017

Load Out

I really wanted to get out on the trail this fall and I felt like it was my turn to plan and lead a trip. I looked for a non-OU-Football weekend and found two one in September and one in November. The initial inspiration for the Capulin Volcano trip was seeing a similar trip in OutdoorX4 magazine. We had some interest in the trip from several people in the Oklahoma Land Rover Owners group but in the end only two of us made the commitment to the overland adventure.

Day One

Mr. Fisher and I got the Big White Bus loaded and started out on a pleasant Saturday morning and headed to our rendezvous with Erik O’Neal and his Discovery 2 in Okarche, Oklahoma. Continue reading “Capulin Volcano and the Northwest Passage 2016, Part One (Post #564) 1/17/2017”

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Oil Sump Gasket Replaced (Post #552) 1/10/2016

nogasket

If you follow me on the Okierover Facebook Page you read that I needed to replace my oil sump gasket. And as I predicted the weather did NOT cooperate. It stopped snowing at 1030 that morning but the wind was blowing 20-30 mph all day. It was very chilly in the garage.

If you are from Oklahoma or drive a domestic automobile (Chevy, Ford, Dodge, just kidding no one drives a Dodge) you can translate oil sump to oil pan.
I had trouble with the term too. Try Googling “oil pan gasket” when your British motor car has all their parts listed as “oil sump”. The same thing happens when you are searching the RAVE manual looking for an oil pan. Thankfully when I ordered the part from Rovah Farm it was easy to find.

Back to the leak, the Big White Bus has recently been leaving a nice puddle of oil when she comes to a stop. I know all the jokes about British cars and leaks. If you don’t see a leak, it’s probably dry. Well, I don’t care for leaks. I do my best to find the leaks and eliminate them. Like the steering box, it leaks like a sieve. I should have a rebuilt unit next week. And I will have it installed by the end of that Saturday. That will be the last of the petroleum based fluid leaks. It only took me 3 (three) years!

sumpoff
The sump dropped away from the block. Labeled for your reference.

The source of the leak? the oil sump gasket or to be more specific, the LACK of a gasket. I am the second owner of this motor. As you can see below, someone used Permatex Ultra Gray for a gasket. First, Ultra Black should be used, not Gray, and there should be a cork gasket completing the seal. If you have done this I’m not criticizing, I’m just pointing out now you probably know why it’s leaking.

badseal
That is a bit too porous to hold oil back.

My oil pan sump had to be removed and serviced. There was rust and chipped paint and what was left of the “gasket” had to be removed prior to putting a new one in. I was surprised that something that has had so much leaked oil on it could rust, but it did.

pittingrust
The oil sump with a bit of the rust removed (on the right).

I got the trusty angle grinder out and hooked up a wire wheel and scraped off the rust and the factory paint (black). The challenge was getting the oil and grime off. I used brake cleaner, a lot of rags, and in the final stage before painting I used some pre-paint grease remover.

stripped
Ready for paint.

While I had it off I cleaned some of the grime and muck out of the sump. I used a flat razor scraper. I was careful to make sure I left no “chunks” in there. Short of a sand blaster there was no way to get all the baked on muck out of there. My sand blaster cabinet is not big enough.

The sump was ready to be painted. I got the Mar-Hyde Self Etching Primer from inside the house where it was being stored at a temperature that allowed it to be used. I painted the pan with the first coat and then brought the pan into the house and into my office to dry. I gave it an hour to dray and when back out to clean up the underside of the motor. I also swapped out the last poly bushings on the radius arms.

painted
I don’t know why WordPress won’t let me rotate this picture. Fresh paint looks good.

I put the second coat of paint on and after some waiting I started to put it all back together. The first thing that is required is getting the Permatex Ultra Black gasket maker on and letting it set up. I did this in my office. I wasn’t even sure if it would setup in my garage at 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Once it set up I put the cork gasket on and lined it up. The Permatex acts like an adhesive at least enough to secure the gasket from moving during install.

The next challenge is to get the sump back in place and bolted up to the block. Take your time and don’t rush. The cork gasket can slip and if you break it, you are done. After it is in place you bring the bolts up to snug. The manual calls for you to tighten it to specific torque settings. The idea here is that you don’t crush the gasket.

torque

From the manual you can see that is not a lot of torque needed. I don’t have a torque wrench that I could get my 13mm sockets on. You have to use narrow walled sockets, etc… in short my tool chest is inadequate for this. So I was careful when I was tightening them. A note here, the rear bolts are not labeled but I assumed it was the ones on the row nearest the transmission tunnel.

I finished up the oil change and and then the moment of truth came. I got the oil up to temperature and watched for leaks. None were found. I drove the Big White Bus to church the next day and still no leaks. I’m going to mark that down as a success. I will of course be watching it for the next week.

On the Okierover Difficulty Scale this job is a 2 (two). You will have the oil sump off, you will get oily and dirty (and not the good kind). You also have to remove the sway bar to get the sump out. If you aren’t going to clean it up you can skip the removal and just clean it up while under the engine.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

PS the Oklahoma Land Rover Group is still on track to #Hibernot and take on a section of the Oklahoma Adventure Trail. If you are interested check out the details on the Oklahoma Land Rover Group on Facebook.

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