Chapter 15

[Preservation – Jim heads for Mount Rushmore]

It took six days to reach St. Paul. We enjoyed the sights usually stopping early if a good spot presented itself for RV camping or if it was just too scenic. We pulled into St. Paul looking for a grocery store to replenish our supplies. We found a Wal-Mart and pulled into the parking lot fairly close to the door. I stopped the RV and we got out. I locked the door. We were both carrying pistols and shotguns. We each grabbed a cart and started to pick out the goods we needed. We filled the carts and returned to the front of the store and loaded the RV. I pulled out and found a camping place where we could hook up for the night.

Cathy remarked on how few people there were. I told her that news reports had said a three percent survival rate but that I thought it was much less.

She said, "What do you mean?"

"Okay, what about Belfast? According to my map and your chamber of commerce, there were just over six thousand people there before the Day. When I showed up, there were eight. That's, umm, just over one tenth of one percent."

"Oh, so few!"

"Yes, that's my point. That means, in the US, there are only about three or four hundred thousand people left out of three hundred million. It sounds like a lot but there is a lot of empty land out here now. Another thing that I noticed is there seems to be less than that. Belfast may have more who were immune than most places."

She shivered. "You just don't think about it much. You get busy living."

We had supper and I tried to get someone on the radio. We heard and talked a moment to Ben on forty meters. Otherwise, all we had was static. We headed to our beds. I had the feeling that Cathy would join me in my bed but I didn't think I wanted that complication in our relationship such as it was. She still was not my choice as a romantic partner though I realized that she might be my only choice. We did manage to get along well in our travels.

We reached Rapid City in South Dakota that afternoon. We found a place to park and hook up the RV. Over supper, we looked over maps and had a Wi Fi connection for the laptop that I used. The roads would be tight and there were no facilities at the park itself. I suggested that we needed a smaller vehicle for our riding around. We decided that a small pickup or SUV would work.

The next morning, we pulled out and picked the first dealership we saw. There, we picked out a nice small SUV with good sight all around and a sun roof. Cathy would follow me in it with a HT on simplex. We also picked a camping place close to the park in Keystone. We went south and then west to Keystone and reached the camping place, Kemps Kamp. We found that we weren't the only ones there!

As I pulled into the camp, we were greeted by a man with a rifle over his arm. He smiled but held up his hand and I stopped beside him and rolled the window down.

"Hi," I said.

"Hello, I'm Roger Jones. Would you please tell me your business here?"

"Sure, Roger. I'm Jim Sinclair and Cathy Ellsworth is behind me. Strange as it sounds, we're sightseeing the US before returning to Virginia and setting up a permanent home. We had planned on camping here tonight and going to Rushmore tomorrow. We would probably continue on the next day through the Black Hills with Yellowstone and Glacier Lake as our next stops."

"That should be all right. Stay put for a minute while I check." He pulled out a HT and walked back toward Cathy with his rifle still in a casual hold. I quickly put the two meter on full scan but heard nothing until it went beyond the ham part of the band into the police frequencies. There, I heard him say, "They look okay and we could use some company. I'm checking out his companion. He's in a big RV pulling a small boat. She's behind in a small SUV. She looks okay. Unless they've got a gang in the RV, they should be okay. I'll welcome them in unless you object." A woman's voice came on and said, "Roger, that sounds good to me. I'll take the ATV and point them to a good spot. Okay?"

He walked back up to me and nodded. He said, "Marion will meet you and show you a good spot. She'll be on an ATV."

"Thanks, Roger." I drove into the camp and saw a person on an ATV waving at me. I followed her and pulled into the indicated spot. I stopped and killed the motor. I got out without the shotgun and was met by the person who turned out to be a woman of about the same late forties age as Roger.

"Hi, I'm Marion Jones. Welcome to Kemp's. Roger said you were sightseeing?"

"Yes, I realize that sounds a bit crazy. I just figured that this may be the last chance to see the country."

Cathy strolled up from parking and Roger had ambled over. He said, "You're from Virginia?"

"That's correct. I'm from Richmond, Virginia, and Cathy is from Belfast, Maine. When everything went bad, I was in California on business. I couldn't get a flight so I had to drive back. I picked up a RV and started out the southern route. It took a while because I did do some looking on the way east. There was some violence in New Mexico and West Texas but I made it through. My sister and her family had passed and there was no one for me. I decided to head north and then west and see the natural sights as well as Washington and New York City. I was in Maine when I met Cathy and some other survivors in Belfast. They wanted to go south and Cathy was interested in coming with me on my tour. We went into Canada and then back down to Niagara Falls. From there, we took a northern route to St. Paul and Minneapolis and then to here.

"We plan to go to Yellowstone, Glacier Lake, Crater Lake and maybe Alaska before returning to Richmond. I don't know what we'll do after that. My house there is in a subdivision and I think farming is going to be important in the future.

"What's your situation?"

Roger said, "That's quite a story. We were headed here from Chicago in the early spring. We were able to take early retirements and this was our first trip. Everything went down and we are staying here until we figure out what to do for the long run. We have enough food from the local stores to make it another month or two. We want to find a place before the winter. There will be things to get from our home in Chicago. I think your other friends from Belfast and you are right. Living up north will not work long. I figure that, over time, most people will migrate south. Marion and I would want to live in a community of some kind. I don't know farming but I can learn."

Marion said, "We've both had office jobs but we can learn. We like the outdoors anyway."

Cathy said, "Jim is a ham radio guy. We can still talk to the others from Belfast on his radio. We haven't heard anyone other than them so far. It's neat."

Roger looked up, surprised, and said, "Tell us about that." I then told them about ham radio and we went into the RV and I turned the radios on and tried to make contact with Ben on forty meters. I got out the repeaters directory and looked up repeaters in the area and got two to come up and identify themselves. Roger said, "Can we get one of those and set them up in our RV?"