Where Will You Be When SHTF?
We took a week’s vacation on the Florida Gulf coast. It was absolutely wonderful…and exhausting. This is our third trip there in the past 15 years, and this one was really taxing for us. Getting old ain’t for sissies, folks. What should be a 7 ½ to 8-hour trip turns into 9 to 10 hours for folks who have to pee a lot. That pretty much means you set aside a day to get there and a day to get back, and at least half a day to recoup for said travel days. Whew, I’m still trying to catch up on my rest.
This trip did make us think hard about what would happen if SHTF while we were away. We carry GHBs, along with side arms, ammo, extra cash, silver rounds, as well as clothes and food for our trip. If it was anything but an EMP, we’d have a chance to get home. Granted, it would probably take a lot longer than 9 or 10 hours – and even then, we aren’t assured to make it. There was a “gas shortage” in Tennessee while we were gone. I used quotes because I’m not entirely convinced there was one, but just the hint of one and everyone goes crazy and rushes out to fill up every vehicle and gas can they have, which in turn actually results in a gas shortage. Fortunately, we had filled up the day before we left, which was also the day before the news reported the issue. If that had been country-wide, we might have had a hard time finding enough gas to get us home, no matter how much money we had with us.
In the case of an EMP, we’d never get home. We know that. We’re just too old and soft to be able to walk hundreds of miles, and we’d never be able to carry enough food and water to make it. As a prepper, you look at your preps and feel like you could sustain your family for a specific amount of time with what you have stored, but what if you were hundreds of miles away from home when an event happened? Even if you could get back home, what are the chances your preps would still be there, and not taken by scavengers or confiscated by an overreaching government “for the greater good”?
So, what’s the answer? Never leave home? Never go on vacation? Is that any way to live your life? What if nothing happens – nothing that we’ve prepped for anyway – and you die with a house full of preps, but you didn’t experience anything life has to offer? Those are tough questions, and we all need to decide for ourselves how much life we are willing to live outside of preparing for whatever said life might throw at us.
As I unpack from the trip, and shake more sand out of another pair of shoes, I’m good with this choice. We needed to get away. I’m also very glad to be back in my cocoon with all my preps in the next room.
