Reader Survival Prep Update

UrbanMan received this e-mail from a reader:

Hey UrbanMan, I just came off of vacation and wanted to drop you a line on what I did to prepare these past four days.

I took my son (16 years old) and daughter (12 years old) to the range. Incidentally, my son is on board with prepping. His sister is not, nor is his mother (my wife). I gave them instruction and had them shoot my Rock River M4, a Ruger 10/22, a Ruger Mk2 .22 LR pistol, my Springfield XD-45, the Remington 12 gauge pump shotgun, and the M-1 carbine.

My daughter did not like the recoil of the Springfield 45. I did not have her shoot the shotgun, but by golly she did well with the other guns. She was placing all her rounds on the man sized target at 20 yards no sweat. I set up a piece of steel about 8 inches by 16 inches at about 80 yards and my daughter was hitting that much more often than she was missing. My son has been shooting .22 LR’s at camp for years, and he did very well. He did not miss the steel target at all with the M-4. This was not only Survival Firearms training but “bonding” time as well. We ate at Applebees afterward, so I enhanced the day at the end, kind of like a reward for my daughter putting up with the boys.

We went for an all day hike, in the 100 degree heat no less. I live about 1.5 miles from State land, so we walked to the state land, then followed the boundary where we ended the hike at the back end of a street that has a tow truck company. Nine miles in all. I taught my kids to build a fire, both with a lighter and with a magnesium fire starter, which had my daughter puzzled since it was so hot! But I thought is was important enough to practice. Then we walked about ¾ of a mile to an Ice Cream place, where I had the wife pick us up after we had some sundaes.

I explained to my son, but not my daughter or wife, that this was a rehearsal if we had to Bug Out from the house and using our vehicle was not an option. The state land gives us some concealment and hopefully lack of people until we get to the Tow Truck yard. Here we could access transportation by hot wiring a vehicle if need be. There is a direct route from here, via a state road, to a small lake where our friends have a cabin.

Me and my son discussed where at this location ext to the tow truck yard where we could hide some food and some other stuff. Burying it is not an option as the ground is way too hard.

The last day of vacation we went down to the local sporting goods store and I bought them each some hiking boots. My son and I have Camel-Baks, so now my daughter wants one and these are the basis for our Bug Out bags.

All in all I think I had a productive vacation weekend accomplishing a short Bug Out rehearsal and some survival firearms training. Thanks for doing your Urban Survival Site. My suggestions would be for some more firearms articles, maybe some reviews and any articles on people who are not used to guns. I haven’t started prepping food storage in earnest yet. I have some extra dry goods in the pantry, maybe about 7 to 10 days worth, but plan on buying food saver and storing some rice, beans, instant potatoes, pasta, powdered milk and such as well as buy some of the cans of dehydrated fruit and other food from Earth Wave Living. I hope to God we never have to do a Bug Out, but feel better with what we have done so far and my next set of plans to better our preparation. God Bless.

P.S. I understand about the information security concept. I am withholding the names and descriptions of some of the locations and my state, so it would be hard for anyone to figure out where I am. You have my e-mail which I hope you will keep confidential.