Getting anywhere in 2019 is a real challenge…and a lot slower than it used to be. It’s more similar to 1880 than it is to 1980, and we are certainly something like a wagon train.
For one thing…a lot of the time we have to make our own biodiesel. We have a portable mini-refinery which is towed behind one of the trucks, and about every 500 miles or so we have to stop and make more fuel. We have one truck that tows a 1000-gallon tank trailer, and everyone carries extra jerry cans. Unfortunately, the process takes several days, at least.
First thing we have to do is stop in a town and make nice with the locals. I find that having gifts to give certainly helps the process, which is why I have a stock of cigars, cigarettes, whiskey and a few nice pocket knives.
Once we have established contact, we will attempt to barter for feedstocks for making the diesel. Usually this is used cooking oil, which many towns save in tanks now. A lot of time it is the waste from farming, which takes much more time to deal with. But once in a while we get lucky, and there is an abandoned gas station, and we find some old gasoline that has degraded, but which we can re-refine into usable diesel. Most of the time, the town will have some need for our services, which we trade for the feedstocks.
Today, we’re in Truckee, CA. This place used to be mostly a vacation town for weekend skiers, but that pasttime is no longer feasible. Now, it is an important way station on the difficult trek across the Sierra Nevada. Being nestled at the top of the mountain pass, this is where you will find some of the most hardcore and able people, who have managed to survive winters with forty feet of snow and sub-zero temps. But they are not stupid, either. They make us camp well outside of town…an threaten to shoot anyone who breaks camp without an escort. ReDS is all too real here, and real help is days away.
But the whiskey is a big help. The local “big man”, Jack Waters, is a tall, lanky guy of about 70 with the requisite western blazer and wide-brimmed hat. Jack and about 10 mean-looking guys with shotguns showed up last night with a local doctor. They were very fidgety. Apparently, there’s been rumors of some nastiness in Reno. Terrorists there showed up at the Peppermill Casino (gambling still thrives, can you believe it?) with lots of explosives and basically took it over, ordering everyone out. Meanwhile, their buddies went around in armed bands and rounded up all of the ReDS patients they could find. Forced them right out of their homes, supposedly. They brought all of the infected to the Peppermill and quarantined them there. There’s rumors that they threaten to blow up the whole building with the infected people inside! There’s no way to know if this story is true…but doc is here to make sure that we aren’t carriers, and the others are here to make sure that we aren’t terrorists!
Anyhow…after a night of drinking and negotiating, we agree to do some work on the town’s one satellite internet relay in return for access to enough raw vegetable oil to fill half our tanks with refined diesel. They are flush with “veggie” as we usually call it…they stockpile the stuff specifically for trading with passers-through. It’s one of the main ways that they make a living here…similar to mining gold in the 1800s. These “gleaners” travel the backroads trading with homesteads and prospecting abandoned sources of oil. The Gleaners’ main drop-off point is Truckee.
It’s amazing how these crises seem to bring out the best and the worst in human ingenuity…
[This post is part of SuperStruct: the global forecasting game. Come invent the future!]
Tomorrow, I leave Clayton for good. I have to say…I’m quite nervous. I’m joining up with a group of people that I don’t really know all that well, to go on a journey which may show me things that I’m not sure I want to see. But what choice do I have? Staying here really isn’t an option anymore…not since last year’s earthquake destroyed the last bits of infrastructure that we had out here.
Our community was an unusual collection of wealthy suburbanites and down-to-earth horse ranchers. The last few years saw the wealthy people, one by one, move to the city or back east, as gas prices rose and suburban real estate collapsed. In many cases, it made no sense to try and sell their houses, there was no one to buy them, so they simply left the houses to squatters and others. The horse ranchers didn’t really fare too much better, there being very few patrons to support the buying and selling of prize horseflesh. Some of them consolidated and stayed, while others left.
I stayed longer than most, because of a unique situation. The owner of the townhouse I rented had vanished in 2017. He was a Korean dentist, and had been living abroad for many years. He rented the house to me because he was unable to sell it after the real estate collapse of 2010. There was some rumors that he had died from an early form of ReDS, but there was no way to know for sure. When no relatives contacted me to claim ownership, I simply stayed on, rent-free.
Even with the declining situation all around me, and $10 gasoline, I was able to hang on due to the fact that I could work remotely. As long as I had the Internet, I was OK. For the time being, the utilities stayed on, and there was enough food to be had at local farmer’s markets to keep things tenable, although I had to deal with more and more frequent power outages.
The earthquake was the final straw. It just so happens that Clayton lies on top of both an earthquake fault and an (until recently) active oil pipeline. The quake, while not very big, was centered directly under Clayton, which resulted in the rupture of the oil pipeline. Most of the area surrounding my development has been contaminated, and I was only allowed back into the community briefly to evacuate what belongings I could. Given the current state of government in California, I think that it is very unlikely that anyone will be cleaning up the area any time soon. It will simply be cheaper to cordon it off and let it sit for a few hundred thousand years.
So…it was with much coincidence and serendipity…as usually happens in situations like these, that I met Mike. Mike is the leader of a nomadic group of techno-savvy people, who banded together for mutual support. They roam from place to place, attempting to patch together the computing and communications infrastructure where they can. They buy and sell computer and electronic hardware, and hack together solutions, for a fee. The rest of his group consisted of mechanics, cooks and the like. He was willing to bring someone on as long as they could contribute a skill that could either make them money or keep the group moving.
Mike’s group was in the area, had heard about the earthquake, and thought there might be some opportunities around. We met while browsing the bulletin board at a local emergency shelter.
It turns out that Mike was looking to bring aboard someone who had experience repairing 4-wheel-drive vehicles. It was just my luck that I had belonged to a Land Cruiser Club for many years, and I was able to perform some advanced maintenance procedures. Luckily, those vehicles were designed to be repaired in the field, so basic mechanical knowledge and a good manual go a long way. Mike thought that my computer skills and my mechanical aptitude would make a good fit for the group. I agreed to take on trial membership in the group while we make our way to the East Coast, where I will decide whether or not to become a permanent member.
So, I’m gathering up my things and saying goodbye to friends. I will be meeting up with Mike and the rest of the group tomorrow, and we will be heading to Sacramento as we make our way to Reno. I’m very apprehensive, but I am also very eager to meet the rest of my new traveling companions.
Getting anywhere in 2019 is a real challenge…and a lot slower than it used to be. It’s more similar to 1880 than it is to 1980, and we are certainly something like a wagon train.
