My greatest Rover adventure to date is from another country altogether. I was a wide-eyed and bushy- tailed third-grader, adorned in my wide-brimmed floppy hat, poking out of the window – well, at least as far as I could get out a window that only goes half-way down. Through their Land Rover experiences, they created a truly wonderful life for each other, and for us. He would pick her up in his AA yellow topless 90 for countless chilly dates. Little did she know she would one day be trekking up the sides of trails in the Uwharrie National Forest with two toddlers. She would help put on graphics, hand him tools, bring him cool drinks on those blistering summer work nights when his hobby became his vocation. He had no clue she would later be in the passenger seat in the middle of Belize, with 2 kids in the back, reading an English map and looking for Spanish road signs. He didn’t realize she would be playing a real-life game of Pictionary trying to ask some Mexican gentlemen for tools, or helping push-start the car each morning. Neither of them knew what they were getting themselves into. Two years later he met a fellow nurse, Renee Griffin, who later became his wife and my mom. In 1993, at age 39, he purchased the first NAS Defender 90 sold in Charlotte, NC. It would take 30 more years for his dream of owning a Land Rover to come true. Our Land Rover story started almost 60 years ago. As a kid, every Sunday, night my dad, Dale Knepp, would huddle around the TV with his family to marvel at the Series Rover on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. You may get sick and tired of everything going ‘wrong.’ The parts never seem to fit – nothing works how the Green Bible says it will. But, this is what makes Rovers so fascinating. Without this there would be no room for creativity, no sketching the design out to customize it to your taste. You would never learn the lessons you receive from Land Rovers if everything went as planned. Many of my earliest memories of these vehicles came from the moments that messed up our whole day. There would be no memories of “hold the flashlight straight.” No feeling of pride when the guy at the Post Office asks my dad, “Where’d you get that thing, Bo?!” No holding hands because there’s not enough heat – again. No friends made with that guy at the gas station who shares your passion. No seeking out hills to make a possible push-start a bit easier. No fun. All of these things make a Rover a Rover, giving each one an undeniable character – just as peoples’ quirks give them their character. So, every time you try to do something and it isn’t a 5-minute ‘fix,’ every time that plug and play part has to be drilled and cut to fit, every time you lose the ½ inch wrench and the holes won’t line up, remember – if it always started when you turned the key there would be no adventure, no romance, no light in your eye when you hear that engine purr. Every hammer-driven rivet, every hole drilled by that guy who never could get them centered, every wire that’s over-crimped by a fun-loving, left-handed enthusiast. People are made up of flesh and blood old Land Rovers are made from aluminum and steel.
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