https://www.audible.com/pd/Lone-Star-Odyssey-Audiobook/B07XRXKQHV?asin=B07XRXKQHV

LONE STAR ODYSSEY: First Steps

LONE STAR ODYSSEY: First Steps

https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/hz/subscribe/ku?ref_=dbs_p_ebk_w0m_pbcb_diupu0&passThroughAsin=B07RJP6XK1&_encoding=UTF8&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

LONE STAR ODYSSEY: First Steps – IndieReader
— Read on indiereader.com/book_review/lone-star-odyssey-first-steps/

Sorry I have been away but I’ve been working on finishing the first book in my new series, Lone Star Odyssey – First Steps. It’s on Amazon in the Kindle store. Take a look.

https://www.amazon.com/Lone-Star-Odyssey-First-Steps-ebook/dp/B07RJP6XK1/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 (Disclaimer/Warning: All of the scenarios and events below are based upon the entire nation being in a state of chaos with no active civil authorities.  Some of the things I discuss requires license, i.e., trapping/snaring.  Please, abide by all state and federal laws while learning any hunting or trapping skills.  Get some training prior to attempting anything I discuss in this article.  Hunting, trapping, and gathering are skills.  Be sure you know what you are doing before you eat any wild game or wild plants.

No “one” skill is the golden answer to survival.  I have always viewed skills as tools in a toolbox.  You don’t carry around just one tool in a tool box.  The same goes for skill sets.  One skill compliments the other.  So in this article I’m going to cover hunting/fishing/trapping/and scavenging for food and potable water on the move.  First we are going to assume you have planned your route with care, but just to make sure we are on the same page, let’s do a little knowledge check. What is the most important item that must be taken into consideration when planning any route by foot?  If you stated water sources than you are correct, everyone else just died from heatstroke/dehydration way, way before they starved to death.  Fact is water is heavy, one liter of water is almost exactly one kilogram (in fact the whole metric system is based on just that).  Second we are going to assume that your goal is to get home as quickly as possible, bearing in mind that home is over 1400 miles from your starting point, and the last assumption is that your only means of transportation is walking. So I don’t want to hear, why didn’t you buy/find/borrow/appropriate a bicycle or an older model car or motorcycle and ride home?  One, yes it is faster, but riding a bicycle at 15 to 20 mph greatly reduces your situation awareness, limits your choices of routes and allows you to get into a bad situation faster.  The idea of an older motorcycle or late model car is good but let’s worst case this, bottom line you are on foot. 

So let’s set the stage, a middle age male, about 38 years of age, married with a wife and three kids that live in Texas.  He goes to the gym (on average) once a week.  He has his get home bag and some equipment with him in his vehicle.  It is around the end of July (so it is hot and humid) and he is on the road heading up to the Washington, DC area for work.  He has stopped for the night at a hotel in the Northern Virginia area.  When he wakes the following morning around 6:00 AM all the electricity is off, all vehicles and electronics are dead.  He realizes immediately that something like an EMP attack or CMP/solar flare has happened. Anyway you get the idea it’s a SHTF moment.  

So now our stranded traveler must get home to Texas from Northern Virginia.  He is fairly well equipped, not going to get into individual gear in this article as this is about food.  So our stranded traveler has about 12 – 15 days of prepared food at around 1800 – 2000 calories a day.  Here is a list of food he has on hand:

5 x Mountain House meals

Spices – various, a must have, some of this stuff is going to be bland

2 x Greenbelly meals

½ pound of mixed nuts – peanuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, pistachios, walnuts

1 x 16 oz of peanut butter

6 x Individual packets of SPAM

6 x Individual packets of Tuna

12 x Individual servings of Instant Oat Meal (I prefer Brown Sugar and Maple)

2 jars or packs of bouillon cubes (one each of chicken and beef)

4 x ramen packs (crushed to take up less room)

1 x quart zip lock of protein powder

1 x 6 oz bottle of oil

12 x green tea bags

12 x instant coffee packets

2 x MIO squeeze flavor drink bottles

6 x Energy gels (various flavors)

12 x individual packets of honey

Time to make a couple more assumptions.  First our guy is in fairly decent hiking shape, so we can assume he is going to be able to maybe average 12 to 15 miles a day given the terrain (starting in NE Virginia) and some luck.  That is as long as he does not have to scavenge for food or water or twist a knee or develop blisters.  I know, I know, you are thinking that’s not very far.  Backpackers on the AT often average 20 miles or more a day.  Well wake up and smell the roses, this isn’t some pleasure hike with a box of supplies waiting at the next post office, or a store where you can resupply.  But let’s say this is Burger King and you want it your way, so 20 miles a day it is, even if we go with the best case, our person is only going to cover approximately 220 – 240 miles before he is completely out of food.   It is approximately 1400 miles to Houston, TX.  

Also, it is worth mentioning, our hiker must find water every day.  Sounds easy, there are a lot of streams, rivers, lakes and ponds in eastern Virginia, right?  But it really isn’t about finding the water that is the easy part; it is how you handle the water.  One drop of the wrong water could end your trip, forever.  Pick up the wrong bacteria (read cholera), or amoeba (dysentery), or protozoa (giardia), by drinking contaminated water or absorbing through a scratch or cut and you will be down for the count without the proper medical treatment.  Four-fifths of all illnesses in developing countries are caused by water-borne diseases, with diarrhea being the leading cause of death among children.  With no power, where do you think all the sewage is going to end up once all the pumping stations stop.  If there is one item you do not skimp on that is your water equipment.  At least one stainless steel water bottle is a must in case you need to boil water, along with at least one method to filter water, and as last resort, have a back-up bottle of water purification tablets or a small bottle of beach. 

Please bear in mind you also have to take into account the mental agility and toughness of our person. The short-term effects, let alone the long-term effects, of coping with extreme stress can be completely disabling. Those of us that have had to spend long periods of time away from our families might handle the stress better, but that’s not to say it will not wear on us.  Anyone dealing with situations where they have very little or no control or are going through an experience that involves physical hardship, psychological trauma, and/or deprivation of what is normal can react or lash out in other than normal behavior.  There are a couple of different ways of coping with high levels of stress, emotion-focused (passive avoidance-based coping strategies use denial or disengagement from a problem, or attempts to evade difficult circumstances and the associated emotions) and active problem-focused (approach-based coping strategies use active engagement with stressful problems or circumstances, or attempts to actively problem solve when presented with a difficult situation) but that is a complicated subject for another day.  Those whom choose to use passive ^[1]avoidance-based coping strategies will more than likely become victims during a SHTF situation.  Why may you ask is this important?  It should be obvious, denial of problems solves nothing, and it’s just kicking the can down the road.

As far as food goes, let’s break this down a little more; the Harvard Health Publication states that men should consume a minimum of 1,500 calories a day unless supervised by their doctors.  Even at 1,500 calories a day a man conducting normal activity will lose weight.  To maintain current body weight, most adult men will need to consume 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day.  According to another study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, a 160-pound person spends about 511 calories per hour while hiking with a pack at a moderate pace.  That works out to burning about 4,088 calories over an eight hour period of hiking (2.5 mph x 8 = 20 miles).  That sounds like a lot of calories to me.  I am not a medical doctor, but I don’t think anyone could survive or keep up this pace on taking in ½ the calories that you expend each day.  Just for clarification, the study did say “there was many other variables involved that may increase or decrease the number of calories burned, like muscle mass, age, fitness level, and height”.  This might work if all our guy has to do is travel 250 miles.  But multiplying that distance to 1400 miles, you have nowhere near the amount of calories to sustain your body let alone maintaining 20 miles a day.

I will say up front that attempting to keep up a 20 mile a day pace is almost impossible if you are having to hunt, trap, and fish along the way.  First you have no way to preserve the meat for any length of time (yes you could dry the meat, but that takes time) and hunting, trapping, and fishing takes time not even counting the time to clean and cook your success. Additionally, you would want to start immediately supplementing your food with game and/or edible plants. There are many rivers, lakes, and ponds in the Eastern United States.  Water means animals and fish and with some knowledge and a little bit of luck you can easily supplement your supplies with fresh meat and edible plants.  But all of this takes time.  The key to the success of being a hunter/gather is that you get more calories from your hunting and gathering than you expend.

So what supplies would our guy need to survive or at least prolong his ability to make this trip?  Let’s take a look at what our guy is currently carrying in his get home bag.

1 x .22 pistol (never leave home without it in your get home bag)

A ¼ roll of 14/16 gauge wire 

1 x pair of heavy duty set of pliers

1 x digging tool (a small garden hand spade will work, I carry an E-tool)

1 x small spray bottle of scent (more about that later)

1 x small baby food bottle of bait (more on this later)

1 x Redman wire tool (used for planting the wire support to hold the snare open)

1 x dozen Dakota Line Ghost Rider Mink Snares (about 20.00 a dozen, good for mink, squirrels, and rabbit)

6 x Dakota Line Versatile Snares, (about 18.00 a dozen, good for coon size animals up to coyotes)

3 x Dakota Line Wolf & Hog Snare, (these work well for deer, or so I hear, in a SHTF situation, about 25.00 a dozen).

6 x YoYo fishing reels

1 x small weighted net (3 feet by 3 feet) for crayfish

50 yards of 5/50 cord (some of which you will make into a fish stringer)

1 x roll of heavy duty tin foil (off the tube and folded)

3 x tree taps

1 x small nylon mesh bag

1 x small box of fishing hooks, sinkers, bobbers, etc.

2 x sour apple bubble gum packs (very good for catfish)

1 x small jar of fish bait (I carry fish eggs, but any type of smelly bait with do) 

1 x pair of thin leather gloves (to handle any snares and bait.  Would recommend you store these in a heavy duty gallon zip lock bag.)

Keep in mind the types of animals/game you can realistically handle.  Do you really need to snare or shoot a deer or a bear?  Let’s face it, most of you will be making so much noise you will be lucky if you see the back side of a large mammal bounding off in the distance, let alone have an encounter with a large, mature animal up close and personal.  OK, maybe you do see a deer and your month is watering, it depends on the situation, mainly how much food are you carrying or have you already been on starvation rations? Not saying you have to wait until you have nothing else to eat to shoot a large animal, but know that much of the animal will go to waste.  Not really an issue if you are starving.  Do you have the knowledge and ability to dress out a deer and smoke or dry the meat? Or are you going to hack off a hunch and keep trucking down the road.  Again, guess that comes down to how hungry you are.  In a real SHTF moment I would take the best cuts and keep trucking.  I know I would have to be pretty hungry before I would eat a rabbit in July, mostly due to some of the diseases they can carry during the warmer months of the year. But on the other hand, would I, damn right I would if I was on short rations.  In fact here is a list of the more common animals that might make an appearance on the menu (east of the Mississippi).  Bear, deer, feral hog, mountain lion, alligator, otter, beaver, nutria, fisher, feral cat, feral dog, bobcat, coyote, fox, opossum, armadillos, raccoon, muskrat, squirrel, rabbit, groundhog, chipmunks, weasels, mink, voles, mole, shews, mice, rats, cattle, horse, and skunk.  I will clarify that some of these I would have to be mighty hungry to stop and roast, but I have never been actually starving either.  Yes I have been hungry a couple of times, like during SERE school, put starving, no.  Then there are several types of birds that can contribute to the frying pan such as; dove, pigeon, tame ducks, grouse, wild ducks, tame-geese, wild – geese, pheasant, quail, crow, raptors, owls, gulls, song birds, etc.  Most of these you target area (for eating) is the breast of the bird.  Note: be very careful handling any type of carrion birds, the bacteria carried in their guts are extremely dangerous.  Just about anything that flies can be eaten, other than buzzards, I would leave them as a choice of last resort.  Next on the menu are the fish, crustaceans, and reptiles such as; fish (almost anything you can catch on a hook or by fish trap/net), crayfish, eels, crabs, clams, mollusks, fresh water mussels, frogs, terrapins, turtles, and snakes.  After that come our insects, such as grubs, earthworms (be sure and down the worms in some potable water for several minutes to clean out their systems or don’t if you like the taste of dirt), crickets/grasshoppers and scorpions.

Last but not least are our edible plants.  Most of the time we are surrounded by edible plant life, we just don’t realize it. There is no way I am going into edible plants right now.  I could write a couple pages alone on Cattails, which by the way is one of the most wildly spread and useful plants in the eastern US.  Or Black Walnuts, again widely spread and so many medical uses and the hulls can be used to stun fish in a pond or still water.  But overall plants can be a little tricky and some even deadly.  Please get some training before experimenting with wild edible plants.  One word of caution, do not mess with mushrooms unless you are 100% sure you know what you are doing.  There are just so many edible plants east of the Mississippi and this is a skill set you must learn.  There are many good to excellent books on this topic.  Get one, read it, study it, than stuff it in your get home bag so you have it when you need it.  Another excellent example is Pine needle tea.  Easy to make, easy to identify the correct tree, the pine is one of the most numerous trees on the right coast.  Pine needle tea is rich in vitamins, it has little nutritional value but it is high in vitamins.  It will keep you from getting scurvy if you are on a starvation diet. 

So we have a few days of food, some snares, and some fishing gear, now what do we do with it in a SHTF situation.  First order is to get outside the populated areas, the longer you hang around the more likely you are going to get into a problem situation that will at least delay you. You already have a route picked, right? Be prepared to not make your goal for the first few days.  Depending on what shape you are in and how accustomed you are to carrying a load will dictate how far you go on those first few days.  Be extremely careful about taking care of your feet. Immediately address and fix any hot spots or blisters.  At this point your feet are your life, take care of them.

So you are up before daylight that first day, grab your pack and security items (rifle, pistol or both) and get on the road.  If you are planning on setting any snares or fishing or both that evening you need to stop earlier than normal to get everything set up.  So let’s say the sunsets at 8:30 PM this time of year.  I would recommend stopping no later than 6:30 or 7:00 PM and find a campsite.  Once you have identified your campsite, hopefully about 100 yards from a river/lake/pond and with good concealment, than begin looking for places to set your snares.  I would first take a walk along whatever water source you are nearby.  Do not walk right along the edge of the water source. Stay 10 or 15 feet back from the bank and look for animal sign, tracks or worn down paths leading to the water. Pay particular attention to any structure (downed trees, large rocks, large or thick brush right along the bank). If you still don’t see any animal sign move down to the edge of the water and look for paths or areas that raccoons or other animals have used to gain access to the water.  Look for slide areas from muskrats or beavers.  Any of the above mentioned places are good for snare sets.  After you have determined several places to set your snares, now is the time to use your scent marker.  Pull up a double hand full of grass and tie it into a small loose bundle with 5/50 cord. Put a little of your scent marker on the grass bundle and start about 20 yards away from your snare site and drag the bundle all the way to the edge of the water.  Do this on each path leading to your snare sets.   I’m not going to explain the details of setting up a snare set, other than remind you to use items within the immediate area to help channelize the animal to the snare and to remember to lay a small branch or piece of wood across the trail or slide to make the animal pick its head up so it will be cleanly snared.  Use a large enough limb or stick that the animal will have to make a small hop to clear the obstacle; this will also facilitate engaging the snaring action. Do not use a rock for this; most animals will walk around a rock vice stepping over one.

Squirrel sets are fairly easy, if you observe squirrels in the area, find you a downed tree about 3 – 4 inches in diameter at the base.  Drag it over to a large tree you have seen the squirrels running around in. Take 4 of your smaller snares and set about two feet apart.  Once you have them set, take a small bit of peanut butter and smear a little (doesn’t take much, about a marble size piece) between each set.  Lean the downed tree with you sets against the larger tree and go take a nap.  If you have never cleaned a squirrel, than again do your self a favor, so shoot a squirrel, watch a you-tube, and get to skinning.  It is not building the shuttle for space, but it is harder than you think. Please video and post, you might not get a laugh out of it, but everyone else will.

I will warn you that if you are trapping/snaring around the water and there are beaver in the area, pay attention to what you are doing.  You do not want to get bit by a beaver; I have seen them take huge chunks out of a paddle before.  They are easy to catch, simply make a small break in one of their dams and bingo you will catch a beaver.  However, there is a big difference to catching one and holding or drowning one. You must practice your drown sets. The beaver’s instinct after hitting the snare is to get away, most of the time they will dive into the water and head to the bottom.  It is fairly simple to set up a drowning rock.  If done correctly the beaver will drown and you have food for a few days, if not done correctly you will more than likely have a very angry beaver waiting for you to come back.  If your snare is gone than you probably have a beaver in it.  They are very hard to see in the darkness.  Carefully get hold of the wire and pull the set to you.  Do not go into the water after a possible live pissed off beaver.  A lot of time they will tear up the bank as far as the lead wire will let them. There will be no doubt; it will look like a bomb hit the area.  Sometimes they will dig out under the bank and just lay there.  Do not step off the bank anywhere near where the snare was set. Pull the beaver out into the open and wait for him to pop back to the surface than take your .22 pistol and shoot him right between the eyes.  I would not advise trying to club a beaver to death, just save your self a lot of grief and shoot it.

After getting your snares set, pull out your YoYo reels and get those set into the water, I would recommend at least two, but set up as many as you want.  If you set four and get four large fish than you can always release those you don’t need.  I’m going to assume that you know how to clean fish, I know I’m wrong to do that, but come on, get out there one weekend, catch a ½ dozen perch, clean them and cook them on the river bank.  It will save you some grief down the road.  I suggest that you check the YoYo reels every hour or so.  If you are lucky and catch enough fish for the evening and the next morning, I would recommend you go ahead and take up your snares, as you no longer need the meat that day.  Always be careful when you are packing away your snares, as you do not want to tangle or twist the cables.

Both meat animals and fish are easy to cook over an open fire or a small camp stove.  I actually prefer to cook fish in aluminum foil.  I first gut and clean the fish, rub it down with a little bit of oil (oil goes a long way, don’t over use, season heavy with salt and pepper and spices (your choice), wrap in tin foil, scrape back the fire, lay down a bed of coals, lay foil wrapped fish on coals, and finish by covering up the foil wrapped fish with coals.  Cooking time is about 20-30 mins.  Just make sure it is completely cooked before eating.  For most meat you may either fry or boil the meat.  It is amazing what a few spices and a couple of bouillon cubes can do.  Never eat wild game raw or rare, always make sure it is cooked well done, sorry, I didn’t make the rules.  

So with a little luck, some skill, and a can do attitude you can stretch out your provisions to double, even triple the normal time your food would last.  It might slow down your planned rate of march, but it also allows you to stay off the beaten path.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

---

^[1]Journal of Traumatic Stress DOI 10.1002/jts. 

This article on bug out bags comes from my own experiences and discussions I have had with a wide range of so called subject matter experts (SME’s) on survival.  The group I normally discuss these types of topics with consist of a few experienced US Army Special Forces (18B), our lone Air Force Load Master and several USMC senior enlisted and Warrant Officers.  I will preface this article with, there are normally copious amounts of alcohol involved during most of the conversations, but ultimately the opinions expressed in this article are mine and any mistakes are mine and mine alone.  I will also state that I tend to think in military terms and will do my best to keep from using military terms as much as possible.  I also want to clarify that my bug-out bag is actually a get home bag as I travel a lot and for weeks at a time.  I will also be addressing this article to individuals, not couples or small family groups.  Anytime you have to prepare and plan for more than your own survival it becomes way, way more complicated in some ways and simpler in some ways.  We will discuss group survival at some point in the future.

So I was beginning to feel left out as everyone with an opinion has written an article about Every Day Carry (EDC) and Bug-Out Bags.  Some of the articles are fundamentally good and others are just trying to sell one gadget or another.   I am not going to cover EDC bags today, as I can’t even agree with myself on a single EDC bag.  As I write this I have no less than three EDC bags in my vehicle.  Just one of many things I irritate myself with, I can never just change out items from my EDC bag(s), I always start another one from scratch kidding myself that I will replace my current bag with the new one.  Doesn’t happen, I just add the new one to my vehicle, telling myself I will hand down the old bag to one of the kids.  I really don’t know where I picked up this bad habit.  After spending over five years in Afghanistan and over three years in Iraq (after I retired with over 20 years in the Marine Corps), this is how I turn out.  I’ll have to spend some more time thinking on this subject as I never had this problem while in-country on assignment.  Oh, I would occasionally change an item out of my EDC for a new or better piece of equipment, but I digress, no EDC discussion today.

As with almost all subjects, the phrase “it depends” tends to come up a lot when discussing bug-out bags.  Several factors first need to be addressed prior to selecting your actual bug out bag.  These are a few of the main factors you must first address with total and complete honesty; mental preparation; physical condition of the person carrying the bag; what type of terrain you will be carrying the bag over; season of the year; and what individual survival skills the person has.   We will discuss each of these factors in detail.

First, are you mentally prepared for this?  Do you have the common sense, mental agility, determination and adaptability to survive?  Of course we have all thought about it, we all read or watch a video and say “I can do that”, but have you trained both your mind and body to actually do those things?  Simple everyday things become a major production.  Let’s be blunt, when was the last time you had to use the bathroom when you were out in the woods?  How vulnerable did you feel, squatted down with your pants around your ankles?  Trust me this only is made more difficult with age.  Normally this would only take a few minutes most of the time, but with all the equipment you are now carrying, taking it all off, tearing your pack apart to find your TP.  Now try this at night, in the rain.  Having fun yet?  All of these normal small daily chores must be thought about and prepared for, both mentally and physically.  If your travels tend to be to the same areas this makes planning easier, not easy, but easier.  When was the last time you picked up your fire kit and went outside and started a fire in the rain or slept on the ground or made a cup of dandelion tea?  If you have done any of these, you are in a class almost by yourself.  But at the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter how much you have trained or what causes you to bug out, once the situation or event reaches up and slaps you across the face, do you know what to do first or second?  If you are in a rural area you might (maybe, it depends) have a little more flex in your time table.  But if you are in downtown Washington D.C. or New York City, minutes count.  The nature of your operational area (where you are when the event takes place) will help determine how much and what type of training you need to do before the actual event.  Way before an event you have to make preparations (this includes education, training and equipping yourself), than you need to have a plan (a plan is not to make two marks on a map and say I’m going to walk from point A to point B), without a plan you won’t last long but someone will come along and be able to use your gear, thanks, I prefer high end titanium, so please only buy the best.  Last but not least, you have to know when to execute your plan.  Educate yourself on the key indicators (another topic for another day), be mental prepared to recognize the key indicators and act accordingly.  Or you could sit around on your ass for the next three days thinking the government is going to fix the problem.  You could do that, I would not suggest this course of action, but chances are that if you are at day three of an event and you haven’t moved yet, than you need go no further than the first patch of grass and begin digging your grave.  Oh, I’m sorry, did that hurt your feelings.  Suck it up buttercup, get your shit together or don’t waste my time.

Second, you have to be honest about how much weight you can carry on a given day.  Sure I can throw 100 pounds of stuff into a pack, and I can even carry it for at least 15 to 20 miles on a fairly flat, good surface if I have decent weather and a tail wind.  But can I do it on the second day?  After sleeping on the ground, after exhausting myself, after treating all the blisters?  Nope, the second day even given the same conditions I’m down to half that distance, maybe.  It would depend on many factors, such as; did I drink enough water and take in enough calories the previous day; did I take care of my feet; do I have to stop and replace water used on the first day; did the weather change (get hotter or colder); or am I just wiped out and exhausted from over doing it on the first day.  So the bottom line is first try and be in the best physical shape you can be.  Second, be realistic on how much you can carry and for how far.  If you have not recently carried a pack for any distance than you are not going to get very far that first day or the second or third.  Know your limitations and don’t push yourself over the edge.  Trust me, get off the beaten path and slowly build up, it will take you a couple of weeks to get into a rhythm.  I know, you need to get where you going as quickly as possible.  If that’s the case than you need to begin training now, not after the event occurs.  Also, your boots (well broken in) should always be attached to your bag/pack.  One is no good without the other.  Of course that means you need two pair at a minimum as you need a hot weather and cold weather pair.

Third you need to know the terrain you are going to be traveling.  I currently travel far from my home on a weekly/monthly basis.  Depending on how long I will be in the area dictates if I take my own vehicle.  Normally, I will drive my own vehicle if my work location is in a state that has ccw reciprocity with Texas.  An example of this is I do a lot of work in the D.C./Maryland area, but when I do I always stay in northern Virginia so I can have my bug out equipment. (I even took the time to get my concealed carry permit for the district.)   Anyway, I always have a broken down large scale US Rand McNally in my vehicle and attempt to set aside the hours required to map out return routes by foot or by water (water routes are another subject for another day).  It helps pass the time while I am away from my family and it allows me to tailor what I bring in my bug-out/get-home bag.  So you might be wondering what some of the advantages are of knowing the terrain you might have to survive in.  This can be very confusing if you are in a built up area.  I’ll use the area between Baltimore, MD and Washington D.C. as an example.  Let’s say you are working at or near BWI when the event happens.  All motorized transportation is dead.  Your goal is to get south of D.C. into the Virginia countryside.  Do you stick to the highways and walk, buy, barter, or burrow a bicycle and ride the roads to safety?  How long is it safe to be out on the road with a pack on your back once the power goes out?  Do you always travel with your EDC weapons?  Think before you say yes, Maryland is death on illegal weapons.  So stay on the roads, use the railroad beds, use hiking trails, head west to the next crossing point of the Potomac River?  Without prior planning this is all guess work.  What is the shortest route?  Where are the choke points if there is civil unrest?  Most experts agree that there will be a small window of normal response to a major event.  Everyone will be in the wait and see what the government is going to do.  However, in major built up areas that window might be very small indeed.  Major built up areas are not your friend, but without putting some time into what we would call area familiarization, you greatly reduce your chances of survival.  So let’s put the major built up areas on the back burner for now.  Assume you can wing it and survive getting out of the city and now you are in the Virginia countryside.  From this point on it is a piece of cake.  Right?  A much less population density, good back roads, plenty of wild game, rivers and lakes just teeming with fish.   Again, it depends, do you have the skills to scavenge, hunt, and live off the land.  Do you have any snares or yoyo fishing reels with you?  You must be able to collect resources using the least amount of energy possible.  This is only common sense, if you use more energy to collect than you gain, it is quick way to starvation.  Do you actually know how to set a snare or skin a small animal or clean a fish?  If you do, than knowing the types of plants and animal life could greatly contribute to your ability to do more than survive.  Almost anyone can survive for a long period of time barring freezing to death or the lack of potable water.  There is a big, big difference between surviving and thriving.  If wildlife and vegetation is plentiful, than anyone can survive, but can you hunt, trap, or scavenge enough food and water to restock your go-bag and get you back on the road to your planned destination.  Again, if you expend more energy collecting the supplies than you gather than you will never reach your destination.  If you have not pre-planned your bug out routes out of a place like D.C., LA, or New York City, than your chances of surviving civil unrest or a disaster (be it natural or man-made) go way, way down.

So you made it out of the city into the countryside.  You can finally relax and get a good night’s sleep and lo and behold you wake up around 0400 in the morning, freezing and find a heavy frost had fallen during the night.  Damn you think, I didn’t pack my under blanket for my hammock, or change out my summer weight clothes for my winter weight stuff.  You will be ok for a couple more weeks but what about when the weather really turns cold.  Again, choices, you can push on and leave it up to chance that you will find someone that you can trade with for some heavy winter stuff, or you can alter your route to the nearest town and attempt to buy or trade there. Remember prices for items are driven by the law of supply and demand.  It will cost you more for some long johns standing on a farmer’s front porch in 20 degree weather than in 50 degree weather.  Cold weather zaps your strength and endurance, it also calls for more calories and more water, that uses up critical resources, shorter days means more traveling in the dark or just less time you can move during the day.  Are you familiar enough with your gear to set up camp in low light or complete darkness?  So far you have not built any fires other than in your small cook stove, now with cold weather truly happening, you will need to make or find shelter ever night.  Truthfully, when was the last time you took your poncho, some 5/50 cord and constructed a shelter.  For me it has been over 28 years ago while attending SERE school in Brunswick, Maine.  Again more energy and resources used.  Now I always travel with a Warbonnet hammock with a Superfly tarp.  Light weight and all the comforts of home, but that’s a topic for a different post.  Anytime you have to build an open fire you are increasing your risk of unwanted visitors and fires can be dangerous to you and your equipment unless properly constructed.  If your gear has no fire damage than you haven’t been using it much or not at all.  Smoke and the light from a fire can be seen or smelled for a very long distance.  Again, contact with locals should be done with the utmost care and only if you really, really, need to.  Contact with refugees should be avoided at all costs.  I know it sounds harsh, but you can get sucked down a rabbit hole really quickly by trying to help other people.  You must remain focused on your mission, getting home to your own family as quickly as possible.  Making contact with locals or refugees is another of those topics we will discuss on another day.  So what are the most important skills to have and really know?  I tend to rely on the basic needs from Maslow’s hierarchy, food, water, warmth, rest, security, and safety.  Only after the basic needs are met do I worry about the higher level psychological needs.  Don’t completely disregard the psychological needs, as being cut off completely from your family will definitely have a hand in the game.  No one is exempt from worry and worse, depression.  The more difficult time you are having just covering 5 or 10 miles a day could become depressing to the extreme if you have not prepared your family and yourself for handling such an event.  Just one more topic that I cannot do justice to in this paper but will cover it in more detail in the future.  Let’s begin with the first topic, food.  This is where you have to be totally honest with yourself.  Pick a normal three day period and keep track of every single thing you eat and drink.  I would bet there is a large percentage of you that do not drink a single cup of water every day.  Oh, you drink, but it is a cup of coffee, sometimes several a day, or one or more sodas, or a couple of Red Bulls, maybe a glass of milk or juice at breakfast.  Next let’s talk about how many calories you inhale each and every day.  Come on, don’t be bashful, most of us take in about 2200 to 3000 calories a day.  A single serve package of SPAM has 230 calories.  A packet of Quaker Oats Maple & Brown Sugar Instant Oatmeal has a total of 160 calories.  I picked these two products because I carry both in my bag.  Now it’s time to get serious, if you are carrying a bug-out pack that weighs about 40 pounds and a rifle or pistol or both and are walking up and down small hills all day, every day, 2200 calories is not going to do it.  Be honest, how many of you have ever skinned a squirrel or a rabbit and cooked it over a fire, much less eaten one?  A quarter pound of squirrel meat will net you about 173 calories, broken down into about 31 grams of protein and almost 5 grams of fat, not much depending on how much energy you spend getting, cleaning, and cooking the squirrel.  Back to my point about your 40 pound pack, so just how much food do you think you can carry?  Three days, five days?  Why am I asking?  Well that seems to be what everyone recommends but the way I look at it is that’s great if you know it is only going to take you three or four days to get to your location where you have other supplies.  But if you are like me, far away from home and it will take at least a month to get home than three or five days of food is not near enough.  I’m not going to get into too many details on my own plans for getting home but I will talk a little about the food situation.  The eastern U.S. is teeming with wildlife.  But I do want to warn you, very experienced deer hunters come home a lot more days without even seeing a deer than they do with a deer in the back of their truck.  However, here is where a little bit of knowledge can help out in a huge way.  Know your plants and trees, always at least have a small book that has pictures of plants and trees that are useful, also have a tree tap, it is amazing how much sugar you can get from tree sap, sugar equals energy.  Small things like bouillon cubes can make a huge difference at the end of a long day walking.  Protein powder can go a long way, be caution you can’t live forever on it, but once a day or so as a pick me up is fine.  It is fairly simple to establish small food caches on planned routes.  Amazing how a little bit of planning can make life so easy.  Mile markers and exits rarely if ever change.  A properly developed cache can survive for several years.  We will discuss caches in detail on another day.

Before you can even think about running out and buying a Bug-out/Get Home Bag, you first have to decide what is going into that bag.  If you have time and space, gather all the stuff you think you need for your bug-out bag.  Once you have it all together, do a detailed inventory of every single piece.  Put some thought into it and if you are missing critical items, work those into your budget and get them.  You should have at least a primary and a backup of important items.  I know the old rule, that one is none and two is one, and for the most part I agree with this.  Organize like type items and separate your primary items from your backup items.  The backup items will go into the bottom of your bag, these backup item can go into heavy duty zip lock bags or stuff sacks.  Clearly label each bag.  Once you have all your gear and supplies, put them into a large trash bag and weigh them.  I am not one of those types that dictate you can or cannot exceed 40 or 50 or 60 pounds.  What I am going to say that this technique will give you a baseline to train for.  If your gear and supplies (don’t forget to fill your water bladder) weigh 60 pounds than you need to be able to carry that amount of weight.  Trust me, I don’t care how much planning and training you do, once you are carrying your pack everywhere with you, you will find out real quick what is really important in your pack and what isn’t.  History show this to be true.  The Oregon Trail was easy to follow due to all the discarded items along the trail.  Do not let the size of your pack dictate what you can or cannot carry.  If you think you need that much gear to get you to where you need to be than by all means go for it.  But be smart about it.

So another prepper blog.  Really, do we need another one?  Maybe not but vice writing on someone else’s blog I figured it was time to for me to quit talking about it and do it.  I kind of look at it like carpooling.  I hate to carpool, I believe it is because I do not like to give up my individual control of what happens in the event of an emergency.  That is why I believe we need at least one more prepper blog.  I’m sure someone will ask about the name.  First, my wife is not totally on board with prepping, but she does not overtly attempt to stop any of my preparations.  Well, other than a sarcastic comment now and then, like “How many bathroom bob’s do you need?” when she runs across one.  Second, we live in a very nice neighborhood (read target) that is not defensible in any way in the event of trouble.  And third, both my wife and I have to travel a lot for work, normally having to leave the kids with the in-laws or a nanny.  So you can see why I’m irritated when it comes to preparing for any type of emergency.  Anyway, that’s why I’m here and I’m looking forward to hearing from anyone with solutions and/or problems with the topics I’m going to be writing about.

A little about myself, I was raised in the country, grew up hunting and trapping since I was big enough to walk and carry traps for the Grandfather.  Joined the U.S. Marines at 17, starting in the grunts, than moving over to counterintelligence.  I retired after a total of twenty years, ten years enlisted and ten years as a warrant officer.  I have spent some time deployed in Iraq (4 years) and Afghanistan (6 years) between the Marines and contracting.   I’m not going to go much deeper than that as I’m still active within several of the three letter agencies and enjoy my work.  I am married and we have three perfect children, all under the age of seven.

My bottom line is, my work keeps me on the road, as does my wife, she travels as much or more than I do.  We have young children, which not only complicates our prepping, but adds a great deal of stress when either my wife or I (or both) are traveling for extended period’s time. Thankfully, my in-laws are great people and are relatively close by.

So welcome to my world.  I will have my first post up this weekend and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone and hearing your comments.  Thanks!