Another Installment of Rowan's Journey

Installment seven
Rowan was in the kitchen cooking the most delicious meal. Turkey, gravy, stuffing and all of the trimmings were on the menu. Joshua was coming home from college for the holidays. It was always the favorite holiday in their home, Thanksgiving. The house was full of the smell roasting turkey and veggies. The scent seemed to swirl around the house intermingling with the aroma of the pumpkin pies she had baked earlier. Rowan was proud of her pumpkin pies. She had two special ingredients that she refused to ever tell anyone. She also made sure that it was thick. She couldn’t stand pumpkin pies that were custardy in texture, no her pies had nice bites to them. When you sliced a piece you could see black speckles, from the spice mixture, throughout the orange brown filling. Rowan always used graham cracker crusts never that dry flaky stuff.

This year was special because Joshua was bringing home a girlfriend. He had dated in his years away at college but never liked a girl well enough to bring her home to meet the family. Maybe she would be the one? The door opened and there stood Joshua, all six feet two inches of him. He looked so much like a man, yet at twenty five he stilled had fine soft hair the color of white beach sand. It always reminded her of her honeymoon in Hawaii. Joshua stood there glowing with a radiant gold hue. “Mom”……..
“Mom”

“Mom”

“Mommy wake up”…..Rowan opened her eyes to see little Joshua standing over her. He was still his little three year old self. She had been dreaming. Rowan shook her head and rubbed her face with the palm of her hands. “Go watch a movie sweetie and let Mommy wake up” she whispered as the boy stared at her like she was from Mars. It took a minute for her to come back to reality and notice that they were at Wade’s house still, and that there was no electricity. Then the memory flooded back to her and she almost started crying. She would have cried if that little handsome boy had not been eying her like a hawk. His little sandy blond hair tossed to one side as he tilted his neck to look at her oddly. Joshua had the over exaggerated mannerism of a toddler trying to make a point. He would have really thought she was crazy if he knew what she had been dreaming. She felt disoriented as she tried to figure out what time it was. At this moment she would have also liked to know what day it was. She mumbled to herself “suck it up Rowan….we don’t have time now to fall apart.” She rubbed the boys head and grabbed him in her arms and snuggled kisses into his belly. “STOPPPPPPPP” he giggled as he broke free and ran to the other side of the room, “I donnnnn’t like that Momma.” She promised not to do it again “today”. She must have fallen asleep watching him play with the Mousetrap game. He loved that game and him and Wade could play it for hours. Personally she found it boring and annoying all of those little yellow and red plastic pieces. Putting everything together just to roll a marble through it seemed so tedious to her. The boys loved it though. It was more than likely her emotions that wore her out not actually the game. She must have only been sleeping for a half hour or so. Judging by the sun and the way the game looked at the moment. She apologized to Joshua and explained that she was dreaming. He smiled and went back to putting the finishing touches on the obstacle course before he was ready to run the marble through the gauntlet. He hollered with delight, “watch Mommy” as he let the marble go. Laughter flowed from him as it made every turn finally landing on the spot that would drop the net and catch the game piece man. Rowan could not help but laugh as Joshua jumped up and did a victory dance singing, “I did it, I did it, it only took a minute”. He was so proud of himself and at the minute she was proud too. How could she not like that game? The effort had to be worth the sense of accomplishment that beamed from his eyes.


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Trip to California

Back from my trip in California. It was nice but I am happy to be back in Iowa. In Des Moines now but will be driving home later. Man I missed this state. CA is nice but has some things that made me nervous in regards to prepping. I was in the hills in Carpinteria and that was nice. Got some great book ideas to read. In the long run though I see how CA is not the top of the list for retreat property. I did meet a woman that has an organic farm and is pretty well prepped. She is the one who gave me the book ideas. I will let you know about them once I check them out. I need to check the forum pages now....Blessings in Iowa





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Installment Three Of Rowan's Journey

She slowly pulled out of the garage and parked next to the side door to the house. For some strange reason Rowan was relieved that they could not be seen from the street. She felt a need to be careful and not draw too much attention to them. She got the car seat out of the Prius and installed it in the 4Runner. Having extra room now, Rowan decided to get some more things from the house. They went into the kitchen and Rowan pulled the extra grocery bags from underneath the sink. Trying to keep Joshua and herself calm she asked the toddler to load a bag full of cans from the bottom cupboard. As the boy worked Rowan cleaned out the cupboards and loaded all of the food into the SUV. She also grabbed all of the food from the refrigerator and freezer. Over the last six months Rowan had become a bit of a prepper. She had been watching Glen Beck and following a few different stories on the Internet. Something about having extra things stored away made her feel safe. She had started buying extra food and stowing it away in her bedroom closet. She had saved up enough food to last two adults six months and enough water for two or more weeks. Rowan set her son to task and he was loading up his little radio flyer wagon with bottles of water. Some of the food was in a Rubbermaid tub, which Rowan now realized was way too heavy to move. Filling every bag in the house, she loaded every bit of food into the Fore Runner. They were almost ready to go and at the last minute Rowan grabbed the extra blankets from the closet and two sleeping bags. Ready to leave the house now, she took one last look around and sighed. She had no idea how long it would be before they would come home.

Rowan strapped Joshua into the car seat and buckled herself in. Joshua’s Dad’s place was not that far away but she had no idea what they would find on the road. It was a great property just outside of town and was surrounded by 150 acres of farm land. In the back there was a small stand of trees with a pond. The property itself had a large outbuilding, an old well, and a vegetable garden. The house was a ranch style 3 bedroom 2 bathe home. It was bought at auction and completely remodeled, including a small apartment in what used to be the garage. There was a wood stove, a fourteen gallon reverse osmosis water reserve in the basement. It was off city utilities and used a propane tank that was kept full always. The place was a pretty good start to self sustainability. Not yet off the grid but with great potential for it. The home also had sentimental value, as it was the house Joshua was born in.

As they pulled out of the driveway Rowan realized the Prius was blocking the driveway. She thought about trying to push it out of the way but decided just to drive through the yard. As she drove down the lawn people started to look at them. Rowan noticed all of the cars just sitting in the driveways. Her next door neighbor asked how she got the car started. Rowan shrugged her shoulders and yelled it just started. There were people walking down the street with suitcases and wagons full of personal belongings. The road was clear though. Because of the early time of the morning no one had been up and moving before the plane crashed. As they got farther away from their neighborhood Rowan noticed that the power was out all over town. There were smoke plumes all over the place. The sun was coming up over the horizon and as they crested the hill Rowan gasped for breathe as she counted at least ten other plane wrecks around town. What could have possibly caused this? Rowan felt a stir of panic well up in her. Joshua asked, “what a matter Momma?” She tried her best to cover her reaction up. “Nothing baby, Mommy is just trying to wake up.” Rowan decided the best option was to take the highway around town instead of trying to go through the streets that now looked filled with people. As she drove down the on ramp it was almost unnatural how deserted the road was. There were no cars, no people, and no movement what so ever. At first the drive was smooth then Rowan saw the small plane down in the middle of the highway. It was one of those cessna type planes, a four seater. The landing gear was gone and it rested on its belly off kilter on the road. It was blocking both lanes. The cabin door was open and Rowan did not see anyone moving inside. She was not sure what to do. She could only think of getting Joshua to his Dad’s house. They would be safe there. Wouldn’t they be? Rowan put the car in neutral and pulled the emergency break. Rowan had to lock in the four wheel drive on the tires. Once the tires were locked in place, she shifted into four high and drove off the road onto the center- median. The vehicle seemed to have no problem driving through the thick brush. Then she saw the landing gear lying across the brush. Rowan had to drive all the way to the other side of the highway. She felt strange driving the wrong way down the road but had no other option. After they had cleared the wreckage she got back onto the right side of the road. She contemplated unlocking the hubs but decided she would rather leave it in four wheel drive and go a little slower than to have to get in and out if they needed to used it again. Just in the short time they had been out Rowan could tell that something big had happened. She had no idea what it was, but it was BIG.

Installment four coming soon…


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