Planning for the Inevitable

That winter was my last in Palm Springs. I spent most of it in the shop working on projects that would keep everything electrified and adding trailers for Charlie Brown to pull. I was going to move everything to Fort Hood where I would plan my last move to Canada. I knew the roads would eventually disappear and the way would get very narrow and difficult if there weren't good game trails available to follow.

I tried out horse-drawn wagons, but abandoned those because I felt that a horse, as useful as one would be, would too easily attract predators at night. I couldn't have that. I tried out bicycle driven rigs pulling sleeping quarters, but that was just too difficult, especially if I was off road in the wilderness. I realized that I would have to go back to some kind of travois that I used twenty years before for the last stage of my journey north. I wasn't looking forward to it, but I knew it had to be done. All things were geared to that last push to Hudson Bay.

In early spring, I left Palm springs. My rig consisted of Charlie Brown, a travel trailer, two small trailers, and the trailer carrying my trusted solar powered ATV. The diesel was hurting on old Charlie Brown but it was still capable of pulling that menagerie of vehicles over slides, across crevices and washouts including fording rivers, if necessary.

With heavy snow one day, and tropical heat the next, I either drove on or waited out the storm making steady progress until I got to somewhere between Fort Stockton and Ozona when I heard a knocking sound that grew until there was a very loud, bang! I knew that I had cracked the block and the engine was dead. Fording a near dry arroyo that had washed out around the I-10 bridge in a flood, I had knocked a hole in the oil pan. Before I knew what happened, the engine was gone. A rod came through the block wall. I was screwed.

I was cursing and Charlie was scolding me as I tried to figure out what I was going to do. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I had a long lucky streak with Red One and never needed a Red Two. Charlie Brown was military and should've had extra protection for that oil pan. Probably did. At least all the trailers were back on the highway again when it happened. It was still a long haul to Fort Hood, but I knew the way because I'd already cleared it and made the trip before.

I found two suitable cedars growing nearby and cut two poles to make a travois that I lashed to the trailer hitch on the ATV with wire. While I cursed and wished that I had a trailer to pull. The small trailers were just too big. From Charlie Brown and the travel trailer, I gathered essential supplies. With a piece of plywood, I formed a base for the travois and a large tarp to put over everything. I left all the food that I had in the refrigerators and made sure that the solar panels and electrical systems would work while I was gone. If I wasn't sure that they would be kept cold or frozen, I would've thrown that food away far from the rig for the scavengers to take. I did just that with the remainder of a kudu I had killed with the snowplow the day before and hadn't had a chance to fully carve up.

I still had sunlight and the ATV was fully charged, so I set out for Ozona at 50 miles an hour and made the city by nightfall. I made camp on an overpass placing the large tarp over the ATV and tying it to the highway rail. Both Charlie and Rocky bedded down with me between the ATV and the curb ever watchful for intruders. Although I heard wolves howling and coyotes yelping in the night, with Rocky shivering and growling softly every time he heard those calls by my side, I got some sleep before morning.

It took until about 10 am before there was enough sun and the ATV was sufficiently charged so that I could take off for another 50 mile run the next day. Approaching animals along the road with the ATV was not the same as with the big trucks where I felt safe. So I had my arsenal of animal deterrents with us stored right up front where I could reach them quickly.

Midday on that second day we came upon a herd of elephants where a river ran through. A bull elephant, deciding that we might be a threat to the others, decided to charge us, I tried the airhorn before my rifle and it worked. At the shriek from the horn, he turned tail and ran like he had seen a mouse. Charlie was a bit spooked by the sound, too, and jumped out of the ATV momentarily, only to quickly jump back in and upon my shoulder again. Rocky only growled like he always did, until I ordered him to go into action. I didn't. There was no tangling with an elephant.

When I couldn't find a bridge for a suitable overnight bivouac where predators could only come from two directions and scorpions and snakes are less likely to be, I would find a high spot where the road was on a steep hillside. Then I would park the ATV up against the usually, rocky, high side and, once again, generally only have two routes for predators to come in on the road. It meant for sleepless nights. I recall scaring off packs of coyotes most, two mountain lions that nearly got to us before Rocky alerted me. One jaguar that really scared me because he came within 20 feet before I hit him with bear spray. And there were the inconvenient intrusions by skunks, possums and raccoons. Determined to get some of our food, but easily scared off when Rocky chased them. Thankfully, he didn't get sprayed.

It was a foretelling of what travel might become. It took us 10 days to get to Fort Hood, encountering some herds that delayed our travel because we couldn't push through them like we could with the truck and had to wait until they passed. I was behind schedule when we got there, so I immediately began preparing and planting the garden.

Once I got drip irrigation going from a cistern system from previous years, and the garden started to sprout, I went to my shop there and looked around for a suitable vehicle to go rescue my trailers. It didn't take long to get a Humvee with air conditioning from Iraq and a diesel engine running and ready to go. We left the next morning after making sure the garden would be watered. This time, it only took a day and a half to get to the stranded trailers and get them hooked on. Another day and a half to return. Three days in all. I felt so lucky to retrieve all that I had gathered to transfer from Palm Springs to Fort Hood. I felt I needed it, but was beginning to think that I would have to go with a lot less baggage in the future.

While my garden grew, I tended to what I might use for vehicles in the future. While there were plenty of Charlie Browns around, many were very old and worn out. I found that I needed something smaller, lighter and more agile. There were many M113A3 amphibious tracked combat vehicles around that were promising because they floated and were lighter than most of the military trucks because they were aluminum. Their only drawback was they weren't air-conditioned and their range was only 300 miles at 40 mph, a snail's pace from what I was used to with Red One.

And then, I happened on one building where I found two ACVs, a brand-new combat amphibious vehicle with air conditioning, a turbodiesel, more space inside, sturdier alternating wheel and rubber tracks, giving it a range of 500 miles at 70 mph on wheels and 40 mph off-road on tracks. I immediately began working on one for future journeys.

First, I removed all unnecessary armor, greatly reducing its weight. And then, I removed all armament including the 50 caliber machine gun mount. No need telegraphing aggression when I was trying to find friends. I then mounted solar panels and added a battery pack to give me more electrical power than the engine could provide or when the engine wasn't running. I mounted a trailer hitch and winches on both the front and back to be operated by the solar panel batteries.

Finally, I tackled the interior by removing the troop carrying seats. Providing a bunk for me and one for my guys who were a big help most of the time getting in my way while I worked fore warning me of imminent danger when a jack rabbit was seen passing the open door. I worked through the heat, sometimes over 120° in that shop without AC. But I did get some large fans blowing to help out as I sweated inside what I began to call affectionately, my Tin Can. It was bear and lion proof for sure, though.