In which Oriole has way more fun than KW today

See Oriole? She’s orange. Her name was Betty in a previous ownership and I wanted her to be called Orange Betty but she isn’t my vee-hickle and Oriole is a fine name. That’s LEO next to her but Oriole got to have all the fun today. How? By picking up new kayaks and whatever it takes to put them on top. I was not involved. My 🐭 enlisted some help from the GG, the master of all things bote/trailer/cartop/etc.

Back when we first obtained kayaks, I was able to get one up on top of The Indefatigable, schlep down to the river and launch it. All by myself. Men used to sometimes ask if I needed help but I politely declined. We used swim noodles and a system of ropes ending in monkey fist knots and I fergit what else to put it up top. This was all engineered by the GG. I’ll have to dredge up a pic of that affair one of these days.

The Indefatigable was a 1992 basic Jeep Wrangler with a 4-speed 5-speed manual transmission and a creeper gear. You could sorta take a walk next to your jeep if it was in the creeper gear. No A/C or any amenities other than a basic radio. Maybe it had a CD, I can’t remember. It must have because I dunno how else we’d’ve played Ani or Kaya over and over when we were doing practice driving down on Huron River Drive.

When we bought The Indefatigable, the youngest beach urchin was four. There wasn’t a lot of passenger room but the beach urchins were mini-kids then and they fit in the back seat pretty well.

The beach urchins drove The Indefatigable down Miller to their high school and they got to know the “jeep wave”, which is when another Wrangler is coming your way and you both wave. I was mostly driving the POC (crappy Chrysler minivan) then and I kid you not, one day I was driving my Island Teal minivan down Dexter and did the “jeep” wave with a guy driving an Island Teal minivan toward me.

We had The Indefatigable for 17 years. When I was first working at Cubelandia, it was snowing to beat the band one day. Okay, I will drive the jeep. The problem was I felt like I was sliding around more than I expected to given the particular snow conditions. Then I decided I was not sliding. The STEERING was squirrely. All roight. I’m done driving this vee-hickle. It was all right. I also had a couple of nice new Honda sedans by then.

More about The Indefatigable some other time.

2 Responses to “In which Oriole has way more fun than KW today”

  1. Isa Says:

    5-speed! And no CD player, we listened to Ani and Kaia and whatever else by using a cassette tape adapter that connected to a Discman via its headphone jack in Jess’s car we just put a boombox on the floor by the passenger seat after the CD player crapped out

  2. Margaret Says:

    Great memories in that Jeep although squirrelly steering isn’t my favorite. “Real” Jeeps like what my husband had (CJ5 then CJ7) are VERY squirrelly and can have tricky clutches also. 🙂 Since he and I were the only ones who knew the ins and outs of the CJ7’s manual transmission no one could steal it at least! Little Guy loves Jeeps and spots them on the road, even from far away, “Jeep! Jeep!” It’s pretty amazing to his mother who knows 0 about cars. I do love that orange!