Thinking about the unthinkable....

7:44 am - Wednesday - February 14th - GNHS - 46° F, humidity 70%, wind 4 mph out of the southeast......clear, blue skies today with a forecast high of 67° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were spending four days on Marathon Key in the Florida Keys....half way to Key West......

So, as of Tuesday we've been off work since the prior Monday....nice.....8 days of just keeping our own company.  With a clear schedule we headed out first thing for our initial 1 mile out and back walk (the 53rd this winter) of the day averaging 3.4 mph....it was about 48° F at the time of our first walk, but there was no wind, and the sun was out.....

.....after my toning workout I headed down to the hot pools/tubs to reward myself with a 30 minute soak at 106° F....the water temp right now does not require that you add any pool water to cool it down.  I had the place all to myself once again.....

.....upon my return I sat down outside to read the final chapters of book 4 of the post apocalyptic series Downward Cycle, which I've been reading for the past week.  The end has a twist, which I'll keep to myself, but you will never see it coming.  Good read, good series, and I highly recommend it.  Very thought provoking, and makes you realize how unprepared any of us are if the power suddenly goes out, and never comes back.    We are so dependent upon electricity in our daily lives....it permeates every single corner of daily life, and without it civilization as we know it can crumble rapidly.

Unwittingly TLE and I have been preparing for a life without electricity, at least where electricity is supplied by the power grid as we know it, since we bought our Newell back in 2008, not because we are preppers, but because we loved the idea of living off the grid, and being independent.  When we first set out traveling the first thing we added to our Newell was solar power, and the ability to store the electricity produced by our solar panels.  We initially had two 150 watt panels installed on the roof in 2012, then two more 160 watt panels in 2015 for a total of 620 watts.  Our Newell is extremely low tech, so our electrical needs are not that great.  Our Newell is also equipped with a 160 gallon fresh water tank, which we always keep full in case of emergency.  Two winters ago we were able to live off the grid for almost 3 months with our solar panels providing the energy to run our systems, and were able to go over a month at a time on the onboard 160 gallons of fresh water.  Our focus has changed from liking to be able to live off grid, to actually preparing for the eventuality that we may have no choice in the future....something about which to think.  

Our future plans include always keeping our 180 gallon diesel tank full wherever we may be so we can 'bug out' at the drop of a hat and go over a 1,000 miles if need be to get away from the large urban areas of California.  If things go 'south' a large urban area is the last place you will wish to be.  The other cool thing about our Newell is because it is so low tech, which means NO electronics/computers are required to run our entirely mechanical diesel engine, and drive train, which means it is impervious to an EMP attack, or gigantic solar flair.

Around 4 pm we headed out for our second 1 mile out and back walk (54th) of the day, again averaging 3.4 mph.  With the sun setting later and later now we're able to take our final walk much later in the day.....

.....around 4:45 pm we headed out the 'firepit deck' to enjoy another sunset fire....

.....once again the Chocolates lit up, but I apparently failed to get a sunset picture....just got side tracked....

.....after the fire we had dinner, then spent the evening reading.  I began a new 4 book series, another of the post apocalyptic genre.  I'll let you know how that one goes at a later date.

Thanks for stopping by