I grew up in Oregon's Willamette Valley - truly one of the most beautiful places on earth. After 36 years, I followed a job and moved to Nevada, which I've grown to love in a short time. God blessed me with my wife and child here. We get visitors periodically, and visiting Lake Tahoe is about the only close-by place to see (unless they like to gamble). I wouldn't mind going out into the desert someplace and shooting rifles or digging up rocks, but most visitors don't get their jollies doing things like that. I suppose it's a "guy" thing since my wife and daughter don't get too excited about that either. The other places to visit in the area are Pyramid Lake and Virginia City - both are about an hour away and have their own attractiveness. Fishermen would probably enjoy Pyramid Lake even more than Lake Tahoe. Virginia City is a historically significant landmark turned into a tourist "trap", but fun to visit the curios shops and old hotels. There's another attraction that's going to be in Nevada on November 1st & 2nd: A second Appleseed training event (of this year) (see http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=1043.0 for details). It's to be held way out in the desert about 50 miles past Fallon and about 2 hours from my house. This is one of those events that I'll try to get visitors to come to Nevada for. Any Monkeys I "know" are certainly welcome to go with me. Tents, sleeping bags, stories by the campfire, shooting the rifle all day -- hard to beat! Getting back on subject, my best friend and his wife came down from Oregon for a visit and we were able to play tourists for a couple days. This is the guy I spent many an hour preparing for Y2K with -- he actually did many projects back before '00 that I'd like to eventually pursue (e.g. making soap, nitrogen packaging, more...). We were enthralled with "Triple Ought", and we tried our best to attain a simple supply of preparations. I remember calling him from Nevada back in 1999 and mentioning to him that there's no way I'm going to be prepared for Y2K. I had just a few staples socked away, a 10/22 and 9mm pistol, and a long way to march to get to Oregon. [Good thing I didn't have to use those preps.] Now that he's married, his concentration has been diverted (as it should be towards your wife), but he still thinks of projects to keep "on track" without disturbing the man/wife balance. Of course, any prep-minded Monkey will think this is the way life should be lived, but many of us are distracted by entertainment and other "Golden Chains" that entangle us. One heinous distraction is the thought that you're not rich enough to be prepared (something I think of quite often); believe it or not, I think this can actually be beneficial! If you don't have the money to buy tons of canned good, you can learn to can your own product. Can you buy 10,000 rounds of your favorite ammo?... Try getting a reloader and learning that skill (our own Martin97 can get you set up pretty well for a reasonable cost and good advice on top of that!). What about other skills that will be useful that don't cost much to learn... You don't need to be rich, and I've learned that well from my good friend. So, there's the lesson from two poor boys that are set on providing for their families if times get rough. "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." Mark 2:17
