Forty Miles And What's Ahead

Forty miles.

It's not really far. Not at sixty miles per hour on the highway.

I've lived places where it was forty miles to the next small town. Wasn't a thing at all to take off and drive to Such and So town because they had a regular Walmart, or more than one grocery store. The Super Walmart was almost twice that distance to the North and better than twice that distance to the Southeast. It was also, come to think of it, a solid six hour drive at seventy miles per hour to the nearest city with a commercial airport to rent a seat on a commercial airliner.

The environment didn't change much in an hour on the road. It didn't change much in six hours on the road. Except traveling to the West. The front range, near the Mile High City, got more snow. Ambient temperatures, summer and winter, were about the same. Hot summers, cold winters, and a hard blowing wind … summer and winter ... that was often unrelenting for days on end blowing tumbleweed down main street. The available natural resources, the flora and fauna, were pretty much the same for hundreds of miles around. It was the kind of place with a desolate beauty that outsiders either fell in love with or went crazy on account of.

It's different here in this geographical region … the Alabama coastal plain.

Forty miles makes a difference.

Certainly nothing significant where the ambient temperatures are concerned. Subtle but not significant. There is certainly no significant differences where these coastal plain mosquitoes are concerned. Those boogers thrive from the time you're tempted to wear short sleeves in the spring until the first real hard frost in late fall or early winter. The subtle difference, something generated by those few slight degrees of winter temperatures and about 200 feet in elevation, is the occurrence of hardwood trees that aren't common closer to the coast.

We have, for the past twelve years, lived fairly close to the Gulf Coast. The “as the crow flies miles” to be over water is about four to the West and to the South. Another four or so to the South over water, plus a few hundred yards to clear the thin Fort Morgan Peninsula, and a crow is flying over the Gulf of Mexico.

I grew up here. I have, off and on, lived here in this immediate vicinity when I wasn't off out there living somewhere else … in three countries and a nice assortment of states. This immediate vicinity, my home turf, is the one that I am most familiar with. Not just with the road numbers and where they lead. Any map can provide people with that information to get you there and back again. I am, more importantly, quite familiar with the geography and the hazards lurking within the climate of this geographic area. I have also made it a point, and continue the practice, to familiarize myself with many of the beneficial helpers afforded in this area.

Making this claim is not intended to come across as boastful chest beating. It's just an honest statement. There is still plenty that I am not familiar with. That plenty is vast. A lifetime isn't long enough to possibly learn it all. The challenge, for me anyway, is to learn as much of the plenty as possible … to be always learning … to be a perpetual student of the natural environment that offers its life to support my own.

Acquiring the simple tools, and developing the necessary skills to embrace the natural environment as an ally, pairs naturally with the challenge.

So what's happening with us now?

Shirli and I are closing in fast on finishing up this major move we've been working on. A lot of other doings had to be put on hold while we pulled this thing together and pulled it off. There's still some pulling to do to finish up but we are, at last, finishing up our move forty miles inland to The Cabin On Huckleberry Hill.

This is September.

September means our Annual Skills Day gathering with our Mountain Bushcrafters Alliance family in Southeast Kentucky. This is always a great experience with some fine folks and we consider it an honor to be part of the MBA family. Mountain Bushcrafters Alliance maintains a Facebook page. Check us out. “Go Farther. Stay Longer.”

On the backside of this trip to Kentucky, and after finishing up our geographic move, I will resume offering skills courses. I will be publishing information soon regarding available courses, dates, and course fees.

In resuming these skills classes, I will also be networking with Buck Terry at the Southeastern Defensive Training Center in Foley, Alabama. Buck is well-qualified as a NRA Advanced Pistol Instructor, Massad Ayoob Staff Instructor, NRA Personal Protection Inside & Outside the Home Instructor, and Defensive Firearms Coach With Combat Focus Academy and I.C.E. Training Academy. The SDTC website is located at www.selfdefensefoley.com .

Get the skills you need, folks. Whether it's self-defense with a weapon or the ability to use the natural surroundings as a means to sustain your life in the event the need arises.

Sometime … Somewhere … Somebody … will be in a situation where successfully negotiating the situation demands having the tools and skills to come out on the other side alive and healthy.