The Gun Counter

Normal Disasters, by Blane
By James Wesley, Rawles on January 12, 2010 10:17 PM

I live in the suburbs of our nation’s capitol and of course I want to keep myself and family safe, so I have taken steps to mitigate and eliminate the dangers of my area. My challenge for a while was getting my new bride on-board with my preparations. She thought my supplies, guns and gear were “weird” and she chalked it up to my military experience and largely ignored it. If anyone else has a similar problem getting buy-in on prepping from their partners they may find this useful, it sure works better than arguing.

As Mr. Miyagi said in the Karate Kid 2 “Best way to block a punch is not be there.” Your advice to move and live in a rural setting is sound, but not practical for many people, so I do have the next best thing in a retreat on some family owned land. It is occupied by some older and retired family, so my preparations there both include and are guarded by them. I make a point to drive there and back by as many different routes as I can divine from a map reconnaissance that do not include the interstate highways. It takes more time, but it keeps us familiar with the routes and we notice any changes (Like a bridge that was getting rather rickety) that may influence our route choice if we need to G.O.O.D. She thought this was a weird way to travel, but I convinced her to go along with promises of new scenery, hidden treasures (Like a wonderful greasy spoon off the beaten track) and a more relaxed setting. I taught her how to read a military grid map and use a compass for “fun” demonstrating my old and valuable military skills. After she had been on all the routes though, she wanted to do the interstate to save time, but I knew traffic in our area is some of the worst in the country and decided to take advantage. On a holiday weekend, prime time we set out to follow the herd. It went exactly as I expected; a normal disaster. There was bumper to bumper stop and go traffic for hours. I let her drive this time and when the frustration set in, I threw in a “what if” scenario at her where a disaster had even more people trying to flee. There have been events in recent memory where people abandon their cars on the road and take flight on foot –however ill prepared they are to do so. She saw what I meant and recognized the value of both her new map reading skills and knowledge of the back roads. My back routes are no magic bullet, the Interstate was still faster, but the images I put in her head made her a bit less skeptical about my “weird” travel routines.

I visit there often, and take interest in the workings of the semi-retired farm. My wife loves it there, but thinks it strange I care so much about taking care of the place, like the time I was on-hand to help retrofit the windmill to make electricity once the water tower was full, or why we keep the grain silos in good shape even without a lot of livestock....

Erik wrote:Direct link is:
http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/01/nor ... blane.html

Dedicated_Dad wrote:

Erik wrote:Direct link is:
http://www.survivalblog.com/2010/01/nor ... blane.html

I know I'm going to end up feeling stupid, but....

How in the sam hill did you find that?

DD

Erik wrote:I used your link, scrolled down and clicked the title: "Normal Disasters, by Blane". It doubles as a direct link.

"She was a fan of the famous money advisor, Dave Ramsey, before our prepping, and has correctly drawn corollaries from his advice –'Live like no one else, so you can live like no one else.' "