So one of the things this olelongrooffan enjoys doing and has done in every place lived in over the years is to stumble upon some obscure roadway, drive until lost and then try to find the way back to the taj mahal. And one of the most satisfying aspects of an experience such as this is to never use a GPS. What fun is that? As a Geography major with an urban planning emphasis, this olelongrooffan spent a significant part of my advanced educational life hunkered over old school maps utilizing them for directions, growth patterns, topography, economic transitions, among a bunch of other crap, as well as trying my hand at drawing one or two. (Trust this olelongrooffan when I tell you that drawing a map is a work of art, and I am no artist.) As a member of the age group long eligible for membership in AARP, smart phones, GPSs, and all of that modern electronic gadgetry my younger fellow Hoons take for granted these days is often to much of a pain for this olelongrooffan to decipher. And know this my fellow Hoons, a GPS is only as good as the person who programmed it. Yeah, a tried and true old time road map just suits this olelongrooffan just fine.
Anyway, many of the roadways this olelongrooffan traverses round these here Ozarks tend to look a lot like the one in the lede image, although this one has a few more lines on it than are usually seen. My fellow Hoons, please feel free to click on through to see what was seen as soon as I snapped this image through the windscreen of my longerroof that day.


Yeah Hoons it was a bright yellow pupil transporting machine just flashing those bright red stop or you’ll get a ticket lights at this olelongrooffan. Gladly, those hopefully learned kids had completed their dismounting from that shuttle and were heading home up the roadway intersecting with my main thoroughfare. I had previously been contemplating exiting this striped macadam mountain road but, with the presence of those kidderoos, performing that exit onto this intersecting road was not in the cards that day. And with the sighting of this buster, this roadway was just too damn populated.
And where was this olelongrooffan? Hell, I don’t know, merely lost out in the wilderness. Just the way I like it.

A tad bit down the way, this olelongrooffan did find another non-striped roadway upon which to slowly cruise through these hills and a turn to the south (north, west, east?) was executed by the longerroof that was piloted that day. As that road was traveled on, it got narrower and then even more narrow just prior to the pavement ending and turning itself into a white gravel roadway, albeit well maintained.
As is always the case, checking out what is along the sides of these types of trailways is almost as important as what is traveling on those roads. Just about the time this olelongrooffan decided to whip a Ueee (need to preserve those shoes and gravel roads aren’t all that friendly, no matter how well maintained) I spotted some interesting bits and pieces, at least to this olelongrooffan, loitering just off that crunchy trail barely hiding in the adjoining woods. While not as well versed in old flat fenders as my brother thejeepjunkie, based on the grille leaning up against that upturned tub, this olelongrooffan is venturing that this here is an old Willys flat fender of an indeterminable year. It sure brought back some fond memories of thejeepjunkie and his addiction to all things CJ related.

And just a ways away from that ole flat fender, I spotted a near fully disassembled General Motors Task Force truck. I mean to tell you, there were parts and panels of that old truck spewed far and wide in those woods. As these woods dwellers were literally miles from any part of civilization, this olelongrooffan to this day can’t quite figure out why a Hoon would disassemble these buggys and then just leave them to rot in those Ozarks woodlands. And this is a mystery this olelongrooffan will most likely never solve.

Nevertheless, after spotting these old time vehicles, the thoughts of thejeepjunkie and his flat fenders led me to that Task Force truck and my older brother, Bus_Plunge. Now as this olelongrooffan has previously documented on these here pages, Bus_Plunge prefers the previous Advance Design offerings from The General over the Task Force but that mental connection was made that day. And as I was subsequently cruising those timber lined byways, my thoughts drifted on to the many vehicles Bus_Plunge has owned through the years. I remembered one of them he owned during his “military truck” stage of life was a Dodge M886 he used to use while camping with his kids back when the thought of doing that kind of stuff was not “to much work.”

So this olelongrooffan can imagine that my fellow Hoons will know the joy I felt when I spotted this yellow M886 lingering in a field filled with all sorts of junk just off a roadway with to many stripes. Yeah, visible through those leafless scrub trees was this survivor of a truck that, I would suspect, could relate quite a multitude of tales, if only that were possible. While it most likely started out as a member of our military armed forces, at some point in its life, this old truck made its way to Van Buren, Missouri to hang out at the old Big Spring State Park, now a part of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Big Spring is tucked in the side of Conococheague Mountain and discharges an average of 286 million gallons of water a day. And based on this olelongrooffan’s distant memory, at 58 degrees Fahrenheit, that water is cold.

So anyway, this olelongrooffan was pretty joyed to catch sight of this truck as I knew Bus_Plunge would get a kick out of its sighting and I thought possibly my fellow Hoons would as well.
As I turned off that roadway into the field filled with junk and possessing that old ambulance, I spotted a couple of youngsters up on the front porch of a tin sided, tire and wheel bearing home on what appeared to be on the adjoining lot. Well, as country folk do, once those boys caught sight of my longerroof they jumped off that porch and came a running to see what was up.

We got to chatting it upand I quizzed them on the origins of that old truck. Well, they had absolutely no idear of its origin or history, “It’s always been there,” the older of the two expressed. Well, that’s a bummer as this olelongrooffan could determine more about it than these two kids. Ah well.
But what did get their attention was the assortment of “Matchbox” cars hiding behind that state inspection sticker on the dashboard of my ride. The younger of the two mentioned he thought they were pretty cool and I agreed.
“Would you guys like one,” this olelongrooffan queried?

The older one said no, “Got any Star Wars stuff?” Ha.
But the other youngster appeared to be thrilled to have gotten an in the package Mercury Eliminator from a total stranger just for letting me check out that cool old truck.
Yeah, what kid doesn’t need another Hot Wheels?
Image Copyright Hooniverse 2017/longrooffan