firelight musing

I am camping outside of Bradley Arkansas tonight. I had a good day meeting up with some good folk from a town called Stateline earlier today. 3 pounds of Jerky and my old brass for 50 rounds of .30-30. That Doe turned a profit for me today and she is still feeding me. Have to make sure I send a thank you to the real powers that be for her sacrifice. Information was plentiful and free. Felt good to be able to talk to someone again. Being on the road with the dead sure gets lonely.

Seems I am getting close to a world of shit. Shreveport is supposedly a trip back in time to Stalingrad during WWII. Fighting in the streets while people are still trying to get by within. Texarkana is supposedly not so bad off but still a place to avoid if at all possible. Not positive but it seems that the Texans have finally decided to use that clause in their original charter. They have seceded from the union (for what that name is worth any more) I may run into issues at the border. Pretty funny: Never thought I would be a border jumper. At least language won't be an issue.

We started hearing about trouble in West Virginia 10 months before I started on this little trip. Here we were in TEOTWAWKI and we were prepping again. This time, more hands made things a little bit easier. Our only limitations were how fast we could get the harvest done. We managed to can up most of the harvest from the spring planting, We still had quite a bit from the last harvest so no one was hurting. Having old mines around helped lots in setting up caches. None of the older ones are well documented and you stumble over them from time to time. There were three within running distance from the homestead. One, we turned into a shelter. I didn't know what to expect but having somewhere defensible to fall back to is never a bad thing. If things got really bad, bugging out was an option too even though the majority felt standing ground was more likely. We started keeping a shooter on the watch points which cut into help. Better to be safe than sorry. I had rigged up a simple bell system to the watchpoints back to the homestead. There were three bells and each on an adjacent wall to the point. We would know which direction to expect trouble. I hope that hey have not needed them in my absence.

What we were hearing about was FEMA troops going around and gathering up able bodied people and all that they could load into trucks of peoples supplies. They were leaving NOTHING behind except people over the age of 50, usually with no food or anything else.(conscription/slavery: whats the difference?) We had a couple of 'refugees' wander through. Just like a government to want to help by stealing. We had a meeting that night to discuss what our options were. No one wanted to run, we were settled in and growing. Much more than we were just before things flip-flopped. It was decided to send out two parties to see what the rest of the world was like and if we could find communications that still worked; something that we could return with. My dad and a cousin headed north to find friends he had up there and to find my sister if possible. I decided to head to Texas since the majority of my blog and forum friends were there. We had a group from another family that saddled up to probe what was going on in the east. All in all, three parties, totaling 8 people. I chose to go alone since I know what I am capable of and that its easier to hide one person than two when needed. There have been a couple of times where I wished I had brought another along. Even just for the company. Squirrels don't make very good talking companions, nor do birds.

History doesn't always repeat itself but it does rhyme. I forget where I heard that or who said it. Damn if they weren't right though. We aren't Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, or the Khmer Rouge. At least I hope this country hasn't sank that far down the list of crap. That pit in northern Arkansas may have been some evil mutant zombie biker hoard. Part of my mind prefers to think of it that way. People do strange shit when they get desperate. Maybe I shouldn't try to delude myself though. Keep an open mind since there is always the possibility of a government going that low. ALWAYS. It may take decades to reach it, but the chance is right there at the top. One thing that is also a given: The people doing what they have to, to get by. When things broke apart after the EMP's went off, people pulled together pretty quickly in my area. I can't say that is the case everywhere I have been the last couple of months, but there are pockets here and there. One given is the ethics of those pockets. They tend to be warm kind hearted people, but cautious. With reason of course. They are willing to get their hands dirty, enjoy a good laugh and the occasional 'cuttin up'. But they get up everyday and do what needs done and only ask for strength from on high, not 'help'. These people were also the ones that were hard off before everyone was made hard off. They knew how to do for themselves with little to no outside help. The suburbs on the other hand went sour quickly. I have been near some while avoiding major towns and what I have seen looks more like a mass exodus than struggling to get by. More than a few were nothing more than burned out homes. Some are just destroyed by what appears to be tornado weather. Not any real way to rebuild using the old methods now, nor is there a source for materials like we had with the chain stores.

Rather curious to see what I find on the border tomorrow.