The New Normal
Charlie, the goats and I stayed the winter in Palm Springs. And what a bizarre winter it was. As I recalled from the travel hype of my past, Palm Springs was an oasis of the stars. A place where one could relax in the winter with warm weather, beautiful days and not a care in the world. That world was gone.
Not only did we experience the first hurricane ever to reach the valley, it snowed five times that winter. Each time ranging between one and two feet of heavy white stuff that melted away in a couple of days as the sun came out and 85° golfing weather reappeared. Near spring, the snows turned into gully washing torrents that transformed the pool and courtyard into a flooded area that thankfully, drained off quickly down the ancient creek bed.
All that rain and the dust that had fallen during the two winters of the meltdown had turned the entire Southwest into a wooded green oasis where wildlife flourished and it stayed green until mid summer when the heat and lack of rain turned the new growth brown with drought and created a tinder box for new fires. But even the drought of summer was often reversed by not only the seasonal monsoon but hurricanes that traveled well inland from the south so that the natural weather pattern of the westerlies was interrupted and water came to areas that rarely got water before. I hadn't been there yet, but I imagined that Death Valley was now a lot like the area around Palm Springs. Green following rain and dry for the rest of the year. Perhaps turning into a steaming jungle at its lowest point.
The only thing sure was the hot spring served the resort and my needs very well. A solace and warmth during the cold nights and a soothing bath to drive away the melancholy of loss. Still, I felt confined and couldn't wait for spring. Left as early as I could. Once again, I traveled Arizona and New Mexico finding that in spite of the wildly fluctuating weather, those dry states were now transformed into a semitropical paradise with trees and cactus growing side-by-side from either the sand and rock subsoil or the new topsoil of enriched dust.
I traveled slow this time, spending more time in places remote and beautiful. But I found it difficult because invasive species from zoos, sanctuaries, animal safari parks and private animal lovers were everywhere, especially when I got to Texas, rapidly turning into grand prairie again. Only this time, the grizzly, the cougar, and the black bear were being challenged by other top predators like lions, tigers and leopards. Their favorite food, Impala, Ibex, giraffe, gazelle, wildebeest, warthogs, elephants and even cape buffalo were also released on this new savannah, carving out their own niches of survival territory and migration. I had to be wary for the goats every time I let them out. I was so grateful for having Charlie with me because he was like having an early warning system for any danger that appeared.
To gauge how far the oceans had risen, at San Antonio I traveled southeast to Victoria. The Gulf of Mexico waters had already flooded the city. There was no beach anywhere. But I expected there would be again in 100 years or so. In the meantime, all the flooded area that had not been marshy swampland, now covered over completely, created a snag filled morass of still rooted dead trees and floating debris that would make water landings by boat very difficult. This floating debris piled up sometimes, stories high in places like Victoria. Lightning strikes in the late summer would set this piled high debris containing building materials, trees and plastic, along with oily residue from flooded refineries and industrial sites, on fire. Creating some of the largest bonfires that no one ever witnessed ever set on the earth.
I surmised that much of Greenland and the South Polar ice caps as well as most of the glaciers, had melted, leading to at least 60 feet of ocean rise. The addition of cold freshwater from Greenland had probably upset the North Atlantic conveyor that brought warm water up from the south and gave Europe a relatively mild climate. The same probably was true with the Pacific conveyor that warmed China, Japan, Korea and Alaska. I wasn't sure, because I wasn't there, but I had read the scientific predictions, apparently coming true .
The increased carbon in the air didn't seem to affect my breathing, but it was probably responsible for the way the plants, everywhere I went, were growing at record speed wherever they had ample water and heat. A whole new climate had evolved that I expected would stick around for a very long time. North America had probably not been this warm since the age of the dinosaurs, 65 million years earlier. But I recalled that birds, small rodents, insects, and even familiar creatures like alligators, turtles, rats and possums had survived from that time, nearly unchanged. Others had evolved into ever more diverse creatures. Nature had no trouble evolving into the new norm. Some animals would benefit and prosper, while others would lose and die off like fragile humans had in the two terrible winters. Humans just weren't genetically prepared for such harsh conditions to last for so long.
But the world still turned on its axis the way it always did. The tradewinds near the equator blew westward and the prevailing westerlies east in the temperate zone, no longer so temperate. The seasons came and went, and animals either adapted or migrated to deal with them. I was no different. But I was aware of one thing that all of the creatures weren't. That the melting down reactors would continue to spew out radiation for a very long time and the radiation in the dusty soil, the rain and the vicinity of the unnatural disasters would speed up mutations in animals. Perhaps even creating new species at a record rate. I hoped to be around long enough to see it happen. I wasn't afraid. I had already seen much death caused by the process of genetic trial and error. Scavengers and predators gain from all the death.
I found myself traveling familiar roads and places where I could get fuel and repairs if needed. In spite of my travels, the truck only had a little more than 50,000 miles, about one twentieth of its life before major overall. Peterbilts like that often put on a million miles per year. Those roads were also open and cleared by me. But all of the storms and occasional earthquakes were even making some of those roads impassable, requiring me to scout out new routes occasionally when the road was washed out or blocked by landslide and there was no way around. Fortunately, the interstates were holding up quite well because of the way they were built.
Fuel was becoming a problem because even diesel was breaking down. I found an ATV trailer and a four wheel ATV for side trips and for scouting around obstacles along the way. I also acquired a couple of chainsaws for cutting wood to make bonfires and to cut through a few places where trees had fallen across the road and I couldn't push them out of the way. Both the ATV and the chainsaws had two-stroke motors that required a gasoline, oil, mix.
Whenever I came upon a place that had a lot of fuel and other oils, I experimented with different mixes and solvents trying to come up with fuels that would run efficiently on those devices. The ATV was particularly useful. I was in good physical shape from all the walking, but the ATV allowed me, wherever there was a wide enough trail not overgrown with young saplings, to go far off the main roads to find possible places where there might be people, more game or fishing. Sometimes, just to places of beauty that I wanted to see and photograph. I had gathered a number of rechargeable cameras that I was using to take videos that I narrated to show myself during long winter hole-ups with a lot of boredom. My solar panels held up very well and replacements were easy to find.
I could tell you the many encounters I had with predators, but mostly at night in the sleeper, I avoided encounters. I made videos of eagles trying to get the goats and mountain lions sneaking up on the goats and even Danny effectively driving off a bobcat that thought he would get an easy meal but got badly injured by Danny's horns instead. My trips were adventurous, but so was staying at home while growing crops for two months somewhere or staying the winter in Palm Springs and its familiar routine.
After two years I was passing through Boise and remembered that I needed to go back to that place where I was driven off by somebody with a machine gun. As I approached the property I noticed that the road ahead had a track on it. An old track, perhaps two months or more. It could have been the people that lived there, so I paid it no mind. They would have to scavenge like I did in order to continue to live long term in that place with limited resources.
When I got to the road going in, I dropped the ATV off its trailer, let the goats out to graze, and, for some reason, let Charlie go with me. Perhaps because if they saw the monkey on my shoulder they might think I was more friendly. I couldn't tie him up because he couldn't escape predators that way and he was used to riding with me on the ATV wherever I took it. Once again, I had my rifle with a scope so that I could get a good look at what was going on up ahead.
Right away, as I started down that long driveway, I noticed that the warning signs were even more shot up than before, and almost all of the cameras and their solar panels were shot as well and destroyed. And then, when I came to the gate and electric fence, the gate had been destroyed by something like my 18 wheeler driving through it at speed and ripping it all apart and tangled by the side of the road. It was a little later in the year than before and the ripened wheat field was mostly burned, either by someone setting it or natural lightning like so many burned the grassy areas that I saw in my travels.
At the gate, I stopped and pulled out the gun and scope to take a look. The pickup and car were in the same place, but looked like they had burned. The door to the mine looked partly open and there was no other activity to be seen. Still, I proceeded with caution, my noisy ATV motor giving loud notice, and stopped often to take a look again with the gun and be ready to shoot, if necessary. Each time I looked, the view got worse. The place was all shot up by some heavy artillery.
A stillness reigned over the homestead like so many of the small towns I'd seen. The machine gun, set on a high mound of dirt on a swivel, had been destroyed by something like an RPG. So had the door of the mine. I looked for human remains but found none, not even bones. The numerous solar panels and two tall windmills were badly damaged and inoperable. Inside, the well equipped living quarters with a water source that came down from the mountain above looked to be quite well-planned, but was completely destroyed by whoever ransacked the place.
In a couple of places I noted the rusty brown of dried blood, but there were no rotting bodies or evidence that animals had cleaned the bones of what was left there dead. I worried about that woman I saw and children and wondered if they had been abducted. Or worse, food for cannibals. I put that thought out of my mind, but it kept creeping back in. After all, there were plenty of wild animals to eat for anyone with firepower like that. Maybe they were what was left of military. But I was only speculating. Their tracks were too old to follow.
I left there with a heavy heart going north with an attempt to reach Banff and Lake Louise. If Canada 1 was open I would try to make the coast at Vancouver. Landslides prevented me from getting there. I retreated back through central Washington again, observing several volcanoes on the Cascade Range still quite active and returned home in Palm Springs again for the winter.
