by Pete Thorsen
Neither of them thought that would amount to much of anything. Recurring bills like his credit card and cell phone bill were on auto-pay. His retirement was direct deposited in his bank that he could access in just about any town. He had internet for his laptop with the cell phone account so he could get online just about anywhere he got a cell signal.
Over the next six weeks or so he settled into what was to become his routine. He stopped and camped at out of the way spots most nights to enjoy some solitude. He camped in KOA-type campgrounds every so often to refill his water tank and empty his grey and black water tanks.
On the back of the motor home instead of pulling a jeep or something Joe had a carrier for his Yamaha XT250 motorcycle. The motor home was big enough on its own without pulling another vehicle behind it. Joe liked the little bike and it was a dual-sport that could be ridden on or off road. He thought at some point he may very well change to pulling a jeep or other small four wheel drive vehicle but for now he liked the motorcycle.
Chapter Two
Jason Black was only slightly late for work. Ten minutes wasn’t bad and close enough so you could really say it was on time. It was handier too because he could walk in the front entrance of the bank where he worked instead of coming in the back door like a thief or a janitor. He was a loan officer and had worked here for almost two years now.
One of the tellers had warned him that if he was late much more he would be fired but Jason didn’t put much stock in what a lowly teller knew about anything. Even if he lost his job he had been here long enough to get unemployment benefits and Congress had passed the extension bill so you could draw unemployment for ninety nine weeks if it came to that. That would be longer than he had ever worked at a job in his twenty nine year life too.
Jason thought Chicago wasn’t a bad place to be either. Well he better stop daydreaming and get ready for the next loser to come in and waste Jason’s time looking for a loan. The bank was very careful about whom they loaned money to and most of the applicants were just losers with not a good enough job and not a good enough credit score. All they did was waste Jason’s time because almost none of them ever qualified for the loan they requested.
By noon break Jason had handed out several loan applications and several people he had just told the bad news without them even filling anything out. But now it was lunch time and Jason just walked to the deli a few doors down from the bank. He ordered a sub sandwich like he often did and was surprised when they rang it up as it was higher than it normally was.
He questioned them about the price and was told all their prices had gone up due to the cost of the food ingredients that were so much higher now. Jason paid for his sub but thought he would shop elsewhere from now on because he knew the cost of food had not went up. The clerk had obviously just lied to him because Jason kept track of inflation and it was hovering around zero so food had not gone up at all.
That night at home in his apartment he was watching the nightly news like he always did and it was something he was rather proud of. None of his friends watched any kind of news and had no idea what was happening in the world at all but Jason watched several nights every week though often it was so boring it was hard to pay much attention to it.
Chapter Three
Joe loved his new life on the road. He was finally getting to see many of the great things in the United States that he had always wanted to see but a job or a shortage of money or family ties had always stopped him. He sure did not blame his family at all and would not have done anything different if he could as far as they were concerned. But he sure loved being alone and traveling now that he could.
He had a bit of a belly from his desk job with the state and lack of willpower to exercise when he was at home. Now that he was traveling he was walking quite at bit and he could already see good results. He stopped at many state and national parks and he walked on one or more trails at each park. He was to the point now that a trail of six or eight miles did not get him even puffing when he was done.
Joe had been traveling so far just in the eastern United States and wanted to be in way better shape before going to the western states where he thought trails might be a little tougher for him. Plus he was already in the east and there was plenty to see here anyway. Joe went to many historic places that had had a very real impact on American history and the shaping of this great nation. Joe loved this country and was getting to finally see many parts of it.
As fall started to change to winter Joe continued south as he had planned all along. He would drive down to Florida and then would follow the gulf to Texas. He did not watch any TV since he sold his house and he did not miss it in the least. Evenings he spent on his laptop surfing the web.
He went to many news sites both common ones like CNN and Fox News but also several foreign ones. Some days he wished he hadn’t watched the news at all. His government was going berserk with some of the things they were doing to the citizens. There were almost constant news articles about what the TSA was doing to innocent citizens at airports. Joe swore he would never fly again and he knew for a fact that many other people felt the same way.
Then there was all the crap coming out about how the United Sates government was spying on its own honest citizens. And tracking their every movement and everything they bought, did, said, tweeted, posted, the list was endless. Foreign countries were laughing at US citizens about their ‘freedom’ with big brother always watching and listening to everything. The foreigners did not laugh anymore when it came out that the United States government was also listening and watching everything in their countries also.
Of course they could do nothing at all about it but ask our government to please stop spying on us. Big brother was everywhere and in everything. Access to just about every camera, every computer, every cell phone, and every regular phone, likely every bank account, certainly every internet account of any kind, the list was endless. Plus all those spy satellites and not to mention all those drones.
No you could not hide from the United States government in any country. Your only saving grace was the sheer bulk of information was beyond comprehension and maybe you could hide in there if you did not draw the government’s attention too much.
The NSA had to build a new ‘compound’ out in Utah to try to keep on top of things. The computing power of the place was absolutely amazing; at least it would be if a normal human could comprehend it all. At a stated cost of two billion dollars for the buildings and another more than two billion for hardware but one has to wonder what the real cost was, two times that much? Ten times that much? Did anyone really even know the number? Some things are secret you know.
The site is expected to use about two million gallons of water per day just to help cool those massive computers and use enough electricity to light up a whole town. But it was needed to help keep track of everyone and everything on the planet. And to keep a record of everything. Not only did they listen to your conversation they recorded it so they could listen to it at anytime in the future too. Nothing was erased; everything was saved electronically.
Then there were the local police forces that were becoming more and more militarized. Even small towns now had fully automatic military weapons and ‘surplus’ military armored vehicles. Why did they need that stuff? They said it was to protect the officers but out of over one million officers last year 33 were killed by gun fire and that number might even include suicides. It is way more dangerous to go shopping or take a shower than to have a cop shot and killed on duty.
The odds of being shot by the police are much, much higher than the police being shot. Why do they need to be armed and drive the same vehicles as the army? Then there is the fact of more and more citizens being shot by the police. And the police always shoot your dog (I believe that is standard practice).
No-knock warrants were becoming more and more common. And they were not all that careful with getting the correct address either when they smash down the door. We had a bombing in
Boston and the citizens there got a taste of the total police state when they locked down the whole city and went door-to-door doing searches for the bad guy.
Of course the police could not find the bad guy but the police sure terrorized the whole city. Finally a common citizen found the bad guy and told the police where he was hiding. To bad for the citizen that the bad guy was hiding in his large boat because even though the bad guy was not even armed the police riddled the boat full of bullet holes (they hit him once in the arm).
That boat will never float again. The police have no obligation to pay for the expensive boat and the citizen’s insurance very likely excluded coverage for damage caused by police actions or terrorism (what it really was).
On the Federal level Joe heard of more and more news that would ‘leak’ out that most people found troubling at best. The Department of Homeland Security was buying billions of rounds of ammunition. That’s right billions with a ‘B’. There are only a little over three hundred million people in the United States so even one billion rounds would be enough to shoot every man, woman, and child three times.
How many rounds do they need? Then it comes out that besides all the ‘surplus’ military vehicles that the local police were getting the DHS ordered their own new military vehicles. Why do they need them? What do they have planned? Then there are more and more fully armed ‘Federal Police’ units. The IRS has their own armed forces along with the Department of Education and the Postal Service.
And the Federal Reserve has their own one thousand to two thousand strong fully armed police force. The list of armed Federal officers is astounding and likely there are thousands that we hear nothing about.
All of those armed Federal officers do not include the United States armed forces. And there seemed to be something fishy going on with the current White House administration and the military.
In the last couple years they fired over two hundred high ranking military officers. Why would they do that? Most people believe the military is ‘skeptical’ of the current administration. Is this administration afraid of a military coup? That would certainly explain the reason so many high in the military were fired. Or maybe they were afraid if they gave the military an order they might not obey that order if they thought it was ‘unconstitutional’. After all the military swears an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to obey the President.
The current White House administration has been fraught with scandals and caught telling many, many lies. But they are like they are made of Teflon as everything bad just slides right off them.
Those proven directly involved in the scandals are never fired and most often get promoted instead, like it was a payoff. But the White House administration always says they will launch an ‘investigation’ into the matter but a year or more later if they say anything it is always that ‘no evidence of any wrong-doing was found’.
Chapter Four
Man did Jason hate the winter. It was so cold and windy and that stupid snow would come every few days to make things even more miserable. Jason did not own a car because he could not come close to affording one plus where would he park it? He lived right downtown in the midst of everything so he did not need a car anyway.
He walked or took a taxi, no way would he be seen taking a city bus, the buses were for losers. He sure hoped he would get a raise soon and he expected to because he soon would have his yearly review. He had been there for two whole years now and knew he was a very valuable employee. He wondered how much his raise would be, he thought it would more than likely be quite substantial.
Those idiots! No raise, are they nuts! He gave them two whole years of his life and all they could say was that he had been late on many occasions. Instead of a raise they actually told him he was now on probation and if he was late again during the probation period he would be ‘let go’.
They would be lucky to stay in business if they fired him, which shows how smart they were. He might have to cut back on some stuff now that he found out he was not getting the raise he had expected. He had planned on using his raise to pay down his credit card bill. He didn’t know what he would do now because he was even having a hard time making the minimum payment every month.
The bank must be having a tough time making a go of it due to the stupid management there and they were just looking for a scapegoat to pin the blame on instead of on themselves where it belonged.
That night at home Jason called the cable company and cut back to the minimum package, that would save him thirty or forty dollars a month and no one would know. He could ease back on buying any new video games for a month or two if necessary he thought at least to help him get back on his feet.
The next day the cable company had already cut all his extra channels off and he clicked through what lame channels were included in the cheap package he had now. When going through the stupid channels he found the new GBS channel that was just starting out.
It was a government news channel so there would be no partisan crap that was apparent on the other news channels. Jason promptly decided to only watch the GBS channel for news from now on so at least he would get all the facts and none of the lies and speculation.
Chapter Five
Joe didn’t care for Florida. He really didn’t even know why and he had expected that he would like it. After all isn’t it where everybody goes to retire? But he toured the state to see it all but he noticed he was feeling happier when he was heading out of Florida.
Maybe it was all the old people that made him think of his own old age that was coming. Or maybe it was all the Hispanics that were just about everywhere speaking their own language that sounded like gibberish to Joe. Whatever it was that bothered him it was now in the rear view mirror. And maybe it had nothing to do with Florida that was bothering him. Maybe it was all the bad stuff his government was doing.
There was a pretty large snow storm with very cold temperatures that covered mostly the whole top two thirds of the United States. It even got cold way down south where Joe was. A dozen people in the states died from the storm. It was sad but really not any different than most other years. Winter was winter after all and you could expect cold and snow.
But after the storm the government said they were going to start their own twenty four hour TV news station so every citizen would have a place to look to get factual information in a timely manner that could conceivably save their lives. This would not be a C-SPAN type of show but more like a regular CNN or ABC news program.
Joe thought what the devil is the government wasting money on now. Like the people of the United States couldn’t get news and weather absolutely any time they wanted now. News and weather was already on their TV’s, radios, computers, tablets, or even their cell phones. NOAA already had weather alert radios for local weather conditions.
So what was the government’s angle on this? Was it just another money waster with no purpose? There were already hundreds of those so it would not be a surprise. Then Joe had an epiphany. He realized there was a very good possibility that the government actually had a plan and we were only seeing tiny parts of the plan so they made no sense when you saw just one standing alone. But when all the pieces came together only then would it all make sense but Joe thought by then it might be too late for the American people.
The United States government was taking on more and more power over the population every day. At some point they would/could consolidate all that power and rule with an iron hand. It had happened throughout history so it was not all that far-fetched of an idea of it happening again. The book ‘1984’ kept coming to mind.
If that was true and the government had a plan then what was it? That Joe decided, was the hundred dollar question. In the army if you expected a war you moved assets into position well in advance. Maybe that was the plan here.
This was not a card game where you planned one move ahead this was more like chess where you planned fifty moves or more ahead. And the government had a huge advantage as they knew
what was coming and what cards everyone in the world was holding.
If the government did have ulterior motives this would be a very hard game to win when the deck was stacked in their favor. The government not only had every single piece of information about just about everyone and everything but they also had almost absolute power over everyone and everything.
Well Joe could do nothing about it but he still wanted to stay on top of things. So he still surfed the net every night to see what he could find. One of the things he found was China saying that they would be shedding excess foreign currencies that they had on hand to the tune of over two trillion dollars worth, the bulk of which was in US dollars.
This was just basically a line item and no one talked about it at all. And it did not make any difference to the stock market or the dollar spot price but Joe found it interesting. He decided he would do the exact same thing as China was doing, shedding US dollars and buying precious metals.
So he would start buying about two thousand dollars of gold and silver every week until he had went through most of his ready cash. It would be perfect with all of his traveling to spread the purchases around and always use cash.
He also continued his tour of the United States and in the weeks that followed he toured Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana before getting to Texas. In Texas there were many spots to see and he went slower because he wanted to stay in Texas until spring was in the air before gradually heading north again.
Joe followed the spring weather slowly north with many trips slightly east and west to see even more sights. It was well into June when he found himself at the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi in Minnesota.