Chapter 28

[Preservation – Janice]

We had followed I-93 into Boston but deviated from it to meet up with I-95 outside the city. From there, we would trace a path up to Portland. It appeared that this portion of our trip would be a bit over one hundred miles or four to five days depending upon our rate of travel.

It took five because we took a detour to the Bush place in Kennebunkport. It was interesting though storm damaged. This area might not get hurricanes but sure received storms! We arrived in Portland to see it had been damaged, also. We found a park with a place to shelter us and pulled in. We got on the radio that evening with Poppa and Jim and talked about whether or not we should check out any particular area or search for people. Jim wanted us to go by Belfast and Augusta. We agreed that we would go there next. First, we decided to go west and check out a bit of New Hampshire and, perhaps, Vermont. If we stayed on plan we would return south through Canada. Everyone expressed some surprise at the lack of people in the north. Our best guess was that we might not see many people for a while. Either they went south though we hadn't seen many or there were even fewer survivors than we had believed. This was Jim's opinion. He hadn't seen many people and told us not to expect much. He thought people had to band together to survive up where we were without utilities.

We loaded everything and went west figuring to ride for a couple of days and then return. That's what we did. We saw no sign of people anywhere. We tried to cover towns that might have survivors as well as enough farm lands to give a real chance of seeing someone. Four days later, we were back ready to head north on the next morning. We had both noticed that the weather was cooler than we would have in the south. Over the next four days, we went through Augusta and into Belfast. There was no one here and it looked like no one had been here since Jim's friends had left for the south.

We would leave in the morning continuing to head north and following Jim's route, more or less, to Augusta. There, we found the Chevy dealer and Jim's 'vette still untouched and looking good though dusty. We would tell him about it tonight. We wandered around the city looking for a place to stay and for any signs of people. We picked a nice house with a big fenced yard for the night. Jim was surprised that we saw his 'vette today and that it was untouched after all these years. We also reported that we had found no people.

After talking it over with Jim and Poppa, we decided to forgo Prince Edward Island and head into Canada. We needed to start south to avoid winter without hurrying and while we tried to see everything there was to see.

We left the next morning for Montreal heading northwest on, compared to the Interstates, back roads. The roads were good though the years of winters and no maintenance had damaged them in spots. We had no trouble with the horses but I wouldn't have wanted to try it in a car or even a truck. It took eleven days to make the trip. We found Montreal to be as deserted as had been the area through which we had traversed. It was unsettling to see nothing of recent human habitation.

Our next stop would be Niagara Falls. We would follow the St. Lawrence for a distance and then go south into New York to check out Syracuse and Buffalo before pulling into the Falls. This would be a long trip. Our ruler suggested over four hundred miles. We always figured we could make twenty to twenty-five miles a day. Even at twenty-five miles, it would take over two weeks. It took closer to three weeks. We continued to watch for signs of people and put out messages when we saw a good place to leave one. Poppa had given us about one hundred sheets with information written on them. We just had to add the date. Syracuse and Buffalo were both busts. Nobody had been around for a while. The heavy snows here during winter would make farming a rough business.

We were excited to pull into Niagara Falls. The falls were all we could have hoped for. Pictures don't do them justice. The grandeur of that much water is simply enough to put you in sensory overload. We found a place to camp and wandered over both the US and the Canadian sides. As Jim had said, the Canadian side gave a better view. We went everywhere we could. The weather up here had not been kind to the tourist attractions but I think we did everything but ride around in a boat. There had been people here and they had left signs but none since last summer. We left ours in a couple of places in hopes of hearing from someone.

Our next stop would be Cleveland following the shore of Lake Erie back through Buffalo. It took ten days to cover just over the two hundred miles. We saw no one but did, in one smaller town, see a note from earlier this year of two families who were leaving for the south. It was a quiet and uneventful trip.

In Cleveland, we found a note in the first Walmart from the same families. We were catching up with them. We left our notes, also. We roamed a bit of Cleveland but didn't expect to find anything and we were right.

From here, we would go through Columbus and Cincinnati. In Cincinnati, we would pick up I‑75 and follow it home. We had a long way to go according to our maps. Bennie's guess was over a month of travel to get home. It would be September before we got home.

That evening, Bennie and I talked with Poppa at length about the situation. Should we look for the families or hope that they would find Preservation or that we would come upon them as we traveled? My concern was that looking for them would take time and we knew they were headed south. If we continued to check message boards and got ahead of them, we could leave a message for them to meet us. We might even follow them all the way to Preservation though it was more likely we would catch up to them on the road. They seemed to be following the same route south.

The final decision was to keep moving and let what happened happen with the two families. No one wanted us to remain in the north too long.

It was raining when we left Cleveland. It was one of those dreary, dismal rains that would continue on all day making traveling miserable and getting everything damp. After looking at the sky, Bennie suggested we call it quits early today and get dry. We did, having only gotten through Cleveland. It was a disappointing start on our journey home but we weren't trying to set any speed records and, in this instance, comfort would reign.

Instead of stopping for lunch, we were stopping for the night. We saw a barn off the road and pulled over to it. Like most farmers, the barn was empty with the doors left open to release the animals. I only saw one barn that had been left closed and there were no animals in it, just vehicles. We picked a stall for us and tied the horses in others. We checked the pasture area close to the barn and found it still fenced. We left the door to the pasture open to allow our horses to go out there and untied the horses. The barn had an overhang, which we decided to use for our cooking fire. We cleared it and started a small fire sufficient to the task of cooking the two rabbits Bennie shot. They weren't smart to be out in the rain. They were plump enough to offer a hefty meal for our lunch, dinner, and even breakfast the next morning. We didn't hide our fire allowing it to smoke. We were watchful to be sure it didn't get out of control. We were always thinking of people or predators that might be curious. We had shot cats on occasion when our food was at risk.

We spent a quiet afternoon as the rain continued to fall. It was late afternoon when Bennie noticed that the wind had picked up. He said, "Let's be cautious and look around just in case. We have tornadoes in Georgia and east Alabama enough that I understood his concern. It was clammy warm and, though we hadn't heard thunder, you never knew. We went over toward the farmhouse and found a storm cellar, which would be usable. The house was in good shape and we thought about using it for lodging but Bennie preferred to be close to our horses. I didn't mind as the straw under us would be clean and the barn smells were actually better than the inside of a closed up house.

Later that night, the wind became worse and lightning flashed and thunder roared and vibrated the barn. We were dry and comfortable snuggled together though both of us were alert to any further worsening of the winds. We had not called in that evening as Bennie didn't want to put up the antenna in the wind using our bow and arrow method to loop a rope over a branch and then haul the center point of the antenna up in the air. Gradually, the storm passed and we woke up to a fresh, clear morning that promised to be sunny and quiet. We finished off the rabbits for breakfast and saddled the horses and left thankful for a safe night and a clear, pretty morning.

We hadn't gone two miles along our road when we quickly saw that nature had taken a toll here. The classic signs of a tornado were present at an interchange. Signs and trees were down, buildings were damaged, and debris was everywhere. We weren't going fast and slowed some more to be sure to see or hear anyone needing help even though we didn't expect to see anyone. We left the interstate at the interchange intent upon following the path a ways in each direction. Bennie told me to go along the back path for a mile or so and return calling if there was anything. He would follow a similar course in the other direction.

I had ridden maybe half a mile when Bennie called me over the radio. "Janice, come toward me. I found the folks we had seen notes on. They are going to need help."

"On the way," was all I said. I turned the horses and headed toward Bennie at a trot. I found him looking at a body just off the road and a horse just beyond it. He pointed toward a house about fifty yards off the road and said, "I saw a piece of wagon there, too. I think they had stopped there."