Day 17: 4:00 PM

After feeling like I had committed mass murder at the truck stop and leaving an inferno behind we made it back to the park. We filled up the RV bus and got acquainted with each other. Doctor Khiem examined the families while Billy went to the trailer.

As we had killed off the other residents that had gotten infected and since the place was fairly secluded it just felt safe now. We gathered wood for a bonfire to keep warm and cook with. Billy broke out one of his camping pots and poured a dried mixture of soup into it. He added distilled water and set the pot just inside the fire for boiling.

An hour later we had hot potato soup! It tasted darn good as it seemed like it had been months and months since we had had a nice hot meal. We decided we'd leave in the morning at dawn. After eating I crawled into the sleeper cab since I was going to be driving the most. A.J. and Ryan would take over the tanker. Mike or Mark would handle the RV part of the caravan and make room in the easier riding RV for our survivors that had been riding in the trailer. They'll think they are traveling on a cloud by comparison.

I'm headed to sleep now, dawn awaits and the next leg of our trip. This means a brand new hope for us and possibly more people to come. If we scavenge everything we can find from here to Alaska we'll have a great little community to live in until this all blows over or if need be to live the rest of our lives in.

I've given a lot of thought to what would happen if this doesn't blow over. You do that a lot when you are driving. What if this is it? What if no one else becomes an Edison and harnesses electricity again? What if no one alive can repair the power plants? No engineers are alive anymore to design infrastructure to repair America? No printers are alive anymore to print books or writers to write books? That means no new culture will arise from the ashes of this terrible calamity.

No artists, no sculptors, no teachers, no professors, no judges, everything we had is gone now and there's a good chance it's gone for good and we are running away to start some semblance of civilization again in a hand built village. Living and dieing on the land, raising crops and harvesting our very survival. Hunting for game and roasting it on a fire for years on end.

Yeah, that's our life now, isn't it?