The car

[Mortblanc]

My vehicle is much the same. I have settled on a rather unnoticeable little red Jeep Liberty of 2006 vintage. I believe you folks still called that model the Cherokee. The engine is good, a Chrysler 3.7L V6 with the normal automatic transmission you folks spurn. There is also 4WD and I just had the front suspension rebuilt. The windows go up and down and the heater works. The radio not so much, depending on the artist I choose.

I did install a roof rack and high intensity driving lights on the rack. Not that I drive much at night. I have tried to stay off the roads at night since my first cataract surgery ten years ago.

The roof rack serves the primary function of being a visual symbol that answers the eternal question "where did I park that #%$& car ?"

After all, over here the best practice for a SHTF "get home" scenerio is a trip to the grocery on Friday evening. You see, our average car park outside the Walmart covers about 50 acres, and yes, they will be nearly full on Friday night.

Every form of deviant, non-English speaking, mutant hillbilly in the area will be at Walmart in every form of dilapidated rusted out vehicle a Mad Max movie ever imagined. You dodge all these creatures form the zombie horde as you shop, then you have to find your vehicle and believe me there are fifteen or twenty in every car part that are identical to yours.

So you burst free of the zombie horde and race across the lot, dodging the "circlers" that dropped their significant zombie off at the door with the words, "I'll just drive around the lot until you come out!"

Now here is where the real "bug out" practice comes in, You now must push your trolley with one wanky wheel across the 50 acre lot to your waiting survival vehicle! God help you if you do not have a reference indicator marking your vehicle for access on the first try. If one of the circlers hits you the kids left alone in the parked cars will swarm your cart and take all your plunder!

Add to this the fact that it is winter and there will be either driving rain, freezing wind, blizzard snow, or possibly the creep of the Arabian desert and 40 degree temps due to global warming which one must endure, survive and thrive. I have not had that last part yet, except in summer when we cal it "Normal".

Many a time I have gotten to the vehicle and thought, I am nearly there, if something happens now I have milk, donuts and white bread to live on for several days.

And something could very well happen!

According to the insurance underwriters, and if anyone knows statistics it is insurance underwriters, 53% of all traffic accidents occur between 3pm and 12am on Friday evening!

I now have a 53% chance of being killed or maimed in an accident on the way home, or starving to death in the traffic backup from the closed highway due to some other poor fool's accident.

So due to that scenerio there is a large tote with goodies in the back of the Jeep, Tent, tarp, stove, food, water....

and I have measured the consumption rate of my vehicle while idling, which is just short of a liter per hour, (Aprox 75 liter tank) so if I have to run the heater all night I am covered since the Walmart also sells fuel and any sane person filed up in the crowd of fuel seekers that remind you of the 1973 fuel shortages. Walmart also increases their fuel prices on Friday evening, imagine that!

Many is the time I have dragged myself from the vehicle to the sanctuary of the bug out location, leaving the plunder of the forage intact in the Jeep, too tired to unload immediately and muttering "Never again will I go for groceries on Friday night, those people are insane!"

Now I am reminded that it is Friday, and I am out of peanut butter and spam. It looks like I must check the magazines in the AR and head back to Walmart.