Land of Plenty of Danger
Four years later and 20 years after societal meltdown…
The road had been hard on my big Red One sleeper. It became more and more difficult to find fuel that would run on its supercharged diesel engine. The inferior fuel had worn the engine mercilessly for the 175,000 miles that I had traveled, barely 1/5 of the engine's normal life. Tires had become a problem as well. Even replacement tires I could find had deteriorated to the point where they no longer would hold up to rough use and I had to stop and replace them more often than I ever thought I would. Sometimes, I had to bivouac in inhospitable places to replace tires. At least the duals gave me the opportunity to get to proper facilities most of the time. Driving over 100 miles often before I found a truck shop that wasn't burned or destroyed.
So, I busied myself every winter in the workshop coming up with alternatives that would work for me. First, I modified a travel trailer with tires that were easy to change so that it would ride behind Charlie's Oshkosh MTVR military truck I started to call Charlie Brown. The old truck's engine was designed to run on inferior fuel and its tires were designed to run off road in rough conditions. I figured that it would give me longer service.
The travel trailer that I started to call home, wasn't as convenient as the sleeper, but its AC and the lights ran off both solar power and wind mills that I attached to the tops of both the truck and trailer. I mounted them on gimbals so that they could be lowered when I came upon an overpass or a fallen tree that I needed to get under. While underway, those windmills generated power both by the wind and the direction we were traveling. Fortunately, lead-acid batteries held up quite well and I stashed them wherever it was possible to store power for many uses.
I managed to install a refrigeration unit on Charlie Brown to provide cooling during the hot nights that came with every summer. Charlie would've loved it. The animals and I would not have been able to sleep in most locations without this convenience. Sleeping outdoors would put us in danger of many night predators and I wasn't going to do that.
My set up that spring consisted of Charlie's truck pulling the travel trailer, pulling the solar powered ATV. I could easily unhook the hitches on the travel trailer and the ATV and independently drive the truck and ATV around difficult obstacles and then use power winches to get the travel trailer through those spots. More and more, I was encountering landslides in mountainous regions and washouts wherever creeks or rivers ran under or near the roads. Culverts either got blocked or undermined during floods. Riverbanks eroded into road beds.
Those situations destroyed the pavement and created chasms to cross. Sometimes debris washed away bridges or backed up water coursed around bridges making them stand alone with washed out gaps in the highway making it impossible to reach them when crossing a river.
Once again, only the interstates proved passable for much of the country. I learned the best routes by trial and error. But the constant storms created surprises all the time. Some were easy to cross, some hard and some, impossible. I carried heavy steel plates that I used to cross gaps that were as much as four feet wide. They were difficult to get into place and risky to drive across, but they saved me a lot of time and difficulty winching around problems and taking long off-road detours.
I no longer had the luxury of taking goats with me and having fresh milk. With beeswax, I was able to preserve cheese for part of the summer and take it with me on my annual excursions. My cage trap was quite versatile for catching wild pigs, wild dogs and even goats. If I camped anywhere any length of time, I could catch a nanny goat or even a feral cow and get milk. Most summers, I stopped somewhere and planted a garden. It enabled me to get some fresh vegetables that I wouldn't get otherwise and grow corn, beans and cabbage. The hot weather and fallow, fertile soil made these gardens grow quickly to harvest. I gathered all the rest along the way.
By now, I had been able to capture and train six horses, two stallions and four mares during my winters at Palm Springs. They were fun to ride on good days and I enjoyed their company along with Rocky and Charlie, but I couldn't figure out a way to take them with me on my long summertime journeys, so I set them free in the summer with the hope that they would greet me at the corral in the fall when I returned. So far, three of them had. A stallion I called Lightning for his speed, and the mares, Daisy and Tulip, for their pleasant dispositions. They were the first to come when I held out exotic oats I had gathered during the summer before to bring them back to the corral.
Charlie and Rocky had bonded into a working team that both alerted me to danger and protected me from it. Charlie's eyesight was amazing, as was his hearing. He would gesture and point out loudly raptors that he saw circling or sitting on high perches even while we were driving and, whenever we had stopped, he would climb trees and do the same for any animals that he saw approaching, giving me advance warning. Much appreciated when cougars, bears and wolves were about. But even more valuable, warning me of tigers, lions and leopards… even jaguars that had moved in from the south and taken their place as part of the North American food chain. These were dangerous times. Any time I was away from the vehicles, I was in danger.
Rocky had grown into a very strong and smart mixed breed German Shepherd that I trained to stay close and to always depend upon me for his protection in the event of a superior animal approaching. He had his scuffles and scars from fights with other feral dogs and had even taken on a bobcat that wandered into our Palm Springs winter oasis.
Rocky quickly learned what fights to pick and which ones to merely warn me. No other rattlesnake ever surprised him. I believe he could smell snakes because he always warned me of them well before I saw them. Gila monsters and other danger as well. Between Rocky and Charlie, I had two very good, very loyal and very faithful companions. Warmth on cold nights and early warning alarms.
As usual that spring, I set out on known paths to known places. My first stop was the Salton Sea again. Each year that I stopped there, the fish were larger and more abundant. All the storms had increased the size of the lake twofold and reduced its saltiness where fish could flourish again. I always enjoyed this part of the country in the spring because of the amazing display of wildflowers that was only there for a few weeks but so spectacular in its color and with its abundance of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds chasing nectar.
Much of the Southwest had taken root to more cactus. The long periods of dry followed by gully washing monsoons or hurricanes up against the mountains created the ideal situation for cactus to thrive. In some areas, especially along arroyos where water flowed quite often, the soil created by the dust storms was held by trees and grass that took hold and changed the desert landscape into one of varied food and shelter allowing a variety of wildlife to move in and take advantage of the food sources. Desert in the higher elevations, and tropical jungle in the lower.
By now, many of the fast-growing trees, the cottonwoods, willows and such had reached maturity and provided a lot of cover. Palms from seeds brought there by birds and animals flourished wherever there was a consistent water source or oasis. Other tropical plants were moving up from Central America like agave, papaya and pineapple. Springtime was the best time to gather the fruits of these plants with their long producing cycles and no more freezing temperatures to kill them.
Along with these tropical plants came the tropical birds and animals like tapir, sloths, anteaters and ocelots. Occasionally, I would see colorful parrots in the trees and even troops of monkeys. I kept my eye out for capuchins, but so far, hadn't seen any. I held out hope that Charlie would find a troop and mate. I didn't know whether he would be rejected or not by them if we found one. Charlie would probably spot any well before I would and take off to greet them. If that happened, I hoped he wouldn't be hurt. Most of the other monkeys, including chimpanzees that we had seen already, would probably hurt him or even kill him. I dared not let Charlie out of the truck when we saw those.
One day, early in our journey, we had camped by the Rio Grande and I was taking in a little fishing hoping to get enough fish so that I would have very good fertilizer for my upcoming garden. I had a really good net and was pulling in a mixed haul of shad, chub, shiner, silver minnow and carp with an occasional bass or northern pike that I picked out to eat. I had one barrel full and was filling another when I saw something coming up out of the water and realized that it was a hippopotamus!
I ran for the truck, rather foolishly, because the hippo could easily have overtaken me, but Rocky came to the rescue, nipping at his legs and getting him to chase him instead of me. I grabbed a Roman candle because I didn't want to shoot it and fired away. Rocky was conditioned to the fiery display and kept up his antagonizing attack, while the hippo retreated to the water and disappeared into the deeper channel. I quickly finished filling up the second barrel and got them to the truck. We didn't camp there that night, but moved on to another place away from the river.
Parts of New Mexico and West Texas had been so transformed that they looked more like Africa than United States. Alligators had moved into those rivers. Invasive animals that had escaped from wildlife ranches and zoos had taken over much of the landscape in these, semiarid, semi tropical regions.
Each spring when I came through I would sample some of the rich variety of game animals available. I never killed for sport, but only for food. One kudu, nilgai or water buffalo would yield me over six months or more of meat. These animals were so abundant that it was very easy to make the kill with my crossbow and save ammunition. I still preferred deer or impala, but couldn't help become a connoisseur of exotic species that had just been ordinary food in other parts of the world.
This year, my destination was Fort Hood. When I arrived in mid-May I was pleased to see that it had not been nuked as a strategic target. From what I had seen, the nuclear destruction was minimal. Probably because either the country that sent missiles didn't have very many or the turmoil of the time prevented more from being launched from a country like Russia. Regardless, I was glad I only saw Houston, Washington DC and New York City destroyed. I knew there were more… perhaps Los Angeles, but I couldn't get there to find out.
Fort Hood was very large. Much of its arsenal probably gone--off to deal with all of the anarchy in the early days of the meltdown. I was looking particularly for parts and supplies for the Oshkosh MTVR I was driving. Especially tires. But first, I was able to find basic housing with solar power for light and air conditioning that I was easily able to get working again. I also got some pumps working that provided me with well water. Near that housing was what had been a large community garden, so I set to work making mine using the ATV to get the soil in shape quickly for planting. The fish, sealed in the barrels, had became quite rotten. But when I made trenches and poured the mess in to get them underground along with seeds I was assured that that old garden would be fertile.
Using some screening that I found, I made a perimeter edge fence to keep the moles, mice, rabbits and insects out of the garden as much as possible, burying the screen 6 inches deep. And then, above, I strung an electric fence that would keep the deer, goats, pigs and other larger animals away as well. I didn't bother to make a gate. I just turned off the electric fence and climbed through it when I worked on the garden in the mornings and evenings when it wasn't so hot.
There was rain quite often, but when it dried out in late June, I had rigged some hoses from my water source to irrigate when I needed to. Everything grew quickly. I had lettuce and radishes within a week or two, followed by peas, beans, cucumbers and tomatoes. I set up a canning operation and canned all the vegetables that I didn't eat when they were fresh. I found an underground bomb shelter that doubled as a very good root cellar to store my canned goods until I pulled up stakes and left for the rest of my annual journey. When the corn and watermelons were ripe and the cabbage had formed heads, it was time for me to leave in late July.
While the garden was growing, I set up shop in one of the few maintenance facilities that were still standing and then scoured the whole complex for things I would need to enhance the MTVR and my other vehicles that I didn't have in the Palm Springs shop. In that shop, I was able to rig air-conditioning making closing the doors during midday, bearable. I cleaned up one of the swimming pools making evening dips quite pleasant. Rocky and Charlie enjoyed those evenings in the water with me. It was almost as comfortable as the resort in Palm Springs.
The prairie had returned with a vengeance and the whole place was overgrown to the point of hiding a lot of vehicles. Rodents and snakes had gathered in all the vehicles providing excellent homes for them. And, the place was overrun with wild hogs and coyotes. The three of us had to be constantly on the alert as I searched for something very durable and useful for our future.
The tanks caught my eye. Although many of them had been damaged by the marauders that came after the military had left, I did find a couple that were serviceable. A tank would certainly solve my tire problem. The M1 Abrams tanks were impressive with their ability to move fast and to maneuver over obstacles, but their fuel consumption and lack of space, along with not needing that armament, had me looking elsewhere. The Stryker personnel carriers were also impressive but had rubber tires that would have the same replacement problems I was experiencing.
Fortunately, I found an experimental amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) that was in fairly good shape and had function that matched Charlie's MTVR, but was much smaller. I pulled it into the shop and began working on it to make it equivalent to what Charlie Brown was capable of. The only thing I couldn't seem to pull off was the power takeoff.
By late July, I was ready to move on. It was so hot that I decided to go straight north to avoid all the melted down nuclear plants and get to cooler temperatures.
