A New Bottom for the Kayaks

I was going to title this post "Something Uncle Pink Will Be Interested In" because it features the newest piece of equipment in our livery. Before I could get any pictures of the new Land Rover and make a post on here, Uncle Pink was crowding my inbox with curious inquisitions into our latest purchase. Since he has heard the story already, it's no longer a surprise so a new title had to be cleverly made up on the fly.

See that? "Special Vehicles." Gotta be cool, right?


1997 Land Rover XD, limited edition. Only 250 were built and all were shipped to the U.S. The package includes front brush guard, roof rack, tail light covers, yellow paint scheme with black decals and a Land Rover Special Vehicles badge and sold for $35,000 new (NOT what I paid). I have seen pictures of others with a broader black stripe on the side and a large Land Rover decal under the rear window (as looked at from the angle of this photo). I want those decals but it seems Land Rover stuff is hard to come by. I will let you give me $1000 if you notice what is missing in this photo.



Front view with my upstairs neighbor walking by. I didn't get him to sign a release to allow his photo to be taken, so don't tell him you saw this. Bright fog lights for blinding these assholes in Virginia that don't believe in dimming their headlights. Really they are much worse coming up behind you with their brights on then they are about coming at you. I plan on installing a light on the rear of the truck just for that reason. The little bars that cover the headlights had to come off for inspection. According the dick at Merchants, nothing is allowed to cover the headlights or tail lights. I had to take the tail light covers off, as well. They came from the manufacturer that way, and evidently have never been removed. Louisi-fucking-anna didn't give a shit about them, even. So after 11 years of salt water and road grime, they had to come off. Most of the hardware broke, so I had to use all my military engineering training to rig some shit to get them back on. As you can see, it was a success.


Rear tailgate with detail of the ladder leading to the roof rack. I have climbed the ladder every day since I bought it. I've always wanted a vehicle with a ladder. You may be thinking the ladder is most likely obstructing the drivers view through the back window. Well, it isn't, which is OK because you can't see anything out the back window anyway. Those are the tail light covers that had to come off. I'm still pissed over that. Oh, yeah. They also broke my headlight and told me I did it! I was able to fix it, thank God, because Rover parts are not in any way affordable. See the cool Rhino spare cover. I can't figure out if it was purchased in Louisiana or Florida. I found the original window sticker and it was from a dealer in Florida, but the tire cover says New Orleans. I'm guessing it was probably sent to New Orleans from Florida as a special order. No biggie to me, because since Katrina, it's now cool to be an advocate for New Orleans and it's always been cool to support Rhino's. I'm a real philanthropist for keeping this cover on the vehicle. Don't let it fool you, though. The spare is flat.





Interior. I hope this posts the way I laid it out in the template. You would not believe how hard it was to get those pictures to set up side by side. The interior is in excellent condition. Because of the light I wasn't able to get very many pictures of the inside. There are some cool nets attached to the overhead that serve as great storage for my GPS (thanks mom!), hiking trail maps, DogYaks portable food and water dish, and other assorted odds and ends. You may be able to see in the center console picture that there are separate climate control knobs for the passenger and driver. This is an excellent feature since Mrs. Yak and I rarely agree on a temperature setting. Two vents in the console supply air to DogYak in the back seat, along with power windows so we can easily crack a window when he farts.<--Made you laugh with a fart joke. :) But, this "luxury SUV" with it's separate climate controls and air vents to the rear passengers for 35 grand has no cup holders in the back and those in the front don't fit any cups. Maybe that has something to do with why Americans are fatter than the British. Do they have smaller cups?

I haven't put the kayaks on it yet. I'm not too sure they will fit since the roof has that drop in it behind the front doors. I am probably going to have to buy some cross bars and attach the kayaks to those. We'll see.

Our big trip for this year is Ocracoke again. We were planning a trip to Key West with a night or two camping on the Dry Tortugas. But our computer died and Mrs. Yak needs one for school, so we used our Key West money on a new computer. I think I mentioned that in the last post.

We have rented a house rather than camping this year because Mrs. Yak's sister and her husband, their new baby, and Mrs. Yak's mom are going, also. Hopefully this year we will actually take pictures. More on this later.

In the meantime, enjoy some more pictures of the Land Rover and think of a name for it. RoverYak won't work because I already thought of it and it's too close to JeepYak. Bumble Bee and stuff like that is disqualified, as well. If somebody can think of a good name for it I might send you a RiverYak sticker, if I can find them. I still owe people stickers from the last contest, so don't count on actually getting anything. If I can't find the stickers, I'll be your friend for a day! How does that sound!?

I thought I had more pictures, but I don't and I don't feel like editing what I already wrote.




Fair winds and following seas...