the weather was better today and being as cabin fever had gotten the better of us, we went down to the shop, drug out two pool tables and had us a round robin pool tournament. Yes i know you cant have a proper tourney with four people, but who cares? Jay by the way won, in a shoot off with Matt. Maybe tomorrow we'll drag out a dart board or two.......

Yet more snow fell today. at least six more inches. its fucking cold as hell outside. th wind is blowing and the furnace is barely keeping up. cabin fever is beginning to look like a reality.

Snowed in hard. More thana foot of snow fell between last night and this morning. we just hung out indoors and watched it snow and blow.

mild day today. not mcuh wind but it is clouded over. the horizon is dark and i think there might be another storm on the way. Justa guess though.

I havent been feeling well for the last couple days. probably too much welding fumes i guess. Just tired more than anything. Im going to nap a bit in the afternoon today and then see what things look like.

warm today. it started out cols but ended up in the high 30s. Sigh. I was hoping for another couple weeks of sub freezing temps to keep the dead heads frozen. we'll see what tomorrow brings.

We decided today that me and Jay would go east and leave the boys in charge of the fort while were gone. They've proven themselves trustworthy and able. were pretty much packed and ready to go, but we want to see if the cold weather holds or not. if not we have to wait until all the snow is melted. i dont want to deal with mud and the possibility of getting stuck besides the dead heads.

more snow, more wind, more cold. we've spent most of the last two days prepping death metal. im beat.

As we planned, we took today off. it was bitter cold most of the day anyway. Jay is stoked about the trip ahead and spent most of the day poring over maps and making checklists for items to take. Jed and Matt werent around much. we let them have the run of the place so they do as they see fit. Jed spends alot of time digging through my book collection, reading. Matt seems preoccupied with walking the barricade, ever vigilant for an attack, even though the dead heads are refrozen for now. We taught him how to shoot the M-60s and the M-203s we have so he is well prepared. As for me, i relaoded some 12 ga rounds and took a nap after lunch. my back hurts from all the work from the last few days.

Well all the exterioir work is complete. Jay finished the lights and bracketry and i finished welding on all the deflection fins and odds and ends. Its a beast. Jed insisted on painting a styleized skelton clutching a guitar in one hand and a glock in the other with "DEATH METAL" emblazoned above it on the back door. the rest is basic black. Im dog tired and Jay is right there too. I think we'll take tomorrow off and rest up and them finish the interior in a blitz over the weekend. the temps are hovering in the mid 20s and i want it in the 30s before we head east for any duration of time.

Finished up the heavy welding on the exterior plates today. We're eating up a ton of fuel running the welder but its a nessesary expenditure. Matt and Jed have rounded up a good parts kit for us, belts, hoses, fluids, and spare parts we may need. also two spare tires. We founda set of four run flat radials in gas n' goodies shop plus i welded finned skirts over the wheel wells to deflect small caliber bullets. Jay built on a lighting package for the turret and also rigged a 12v winch to act as a turret motor. we left the hand crnak as a backup.

I added in a spare fuel stowage tank thats seperate from the fuel system but can be interconnected to either operate the vehicle off of or transfer to the exisitng tanks. i heavily armored the fuel tanks, them being a weak spot. Jed insisted upon adding a sound system as well. Kids.

Well it now offically has a name. we call it "death metal". bizzarre, but what isnt nowadays? anyway, we spent the day welding again. about half of the plates are done. two or three more days and we wil have it licked. Ive had Matt and Jed scrounging spare parts for the run east. its cold enough the dead heads have pretty much refrozen so no worries on that front for the time being.

spent this morning welding on plates. we're trying to come up with a semi-appropriate name for this beast. still havent made any progress. We currently refer to it as "it" being its the major discussion point of late. I smashed my hand with the lift crane arm about lunch time so we called it a day. nothing broken (i think) but its swollen up pretty good. im soakin git in abucket of cold water so we'll see.

Well its valentines day. the day we used to waste money on flowers, candy and all sorts of clap-trap just to get laid. Ancient history. If anyone remembers valentines day now its a friggin' miracle.

Jay was really down today. probably because all the snow is gone and i dont think its coming back. So i figured it was time to show him what i had been working on. Hes been depressed enough he hasnt asked me about it at all. Bad sign. I told him this afternoon i had something ot show him. He seemed rather lethargic but i drug him out of his chair and we drove over to G&R.

It isnt done yet, but i got almost all the heavy work done. I had found a 1979 Ford bronco in a garage across town that had been modified for heavy off road service. extended suspension, beefed frame and hopped up engine. I took a chop saw and cut back all the body except the firewall and floor pan. I then built a steel cage around the remainder, elimnating all the side doors and adding a hatch in the rear like a Merkeva IFV. The is a hand rotated turret ont he top with a mount for a M-60 and a ports the our FPWs all around. i took the armaglass from the 7-11 and cut it to make bullet reistant viewports for the driver passenger and turret gunner. there were also sliding ports on the sides. it could seat 4 plus driver, co pilot and gunner. there was also cargo room. I beefed the front with an extra leaf in the front springs, and added a heavy front bumper make from 4" pipe just right for smashing dead heads. I needed help to weld on all the side plating and the composite armor i had come up with.

I knew it wouldnt stnad up to big calibers but i had tested it and it would keep anyhting up to about a 308 out. i took mild 1/8 steel plate and laid it oerlapping like fish scales first. then i layered in thick 10 mil plastic to help make it waterproof. Then i put on a 3/4" layer of fiberglass matting and resin. i planned to weld 1/4 inch steel plate over the outside but the pieces were too heavy for me to lift on my own. i needed help with them, that part of why i showed it to Jay. I had all the fiberglas work done, and the struts to weld the plates on were ready.

He had a grin on his face like i handt seen on months. "Son of a bitch. Armored transport." I had also mapped out a potential route around our roadblocks and craters.

"I think we'll need about a week to finish and test it. then we can head east." I said. Then Jay did something completely out of chrater for him. He hugged me. I swear i saw a tear in his eye but i couldnt say for sure. He clapped me on the back and said

"Sounds good."

we headed back to the house with our heads full of plans and a new kind of hope for the future.

nice day today. mid 30s, nice and sunny. just a couple dead heads today. nothing special. i worked part of the day on Jay's surpise and slept part. this oncoming cold is starting to kick me pretty hard. i think our diet may have something to do with it. i take vitamins but i always worry about scurvy being as we have littel to no fresh fruit.

Cold, wind, snow. semi frozen dead heads that are hard to kill. im on a bit of a downer. i cannot figure out how but i seem to be getting a head cold AGAIN! bugger.

rained some more, snbowed for awhile, rained some more and now its starting to freeze. welcome to spring in SD. only a couple dead heads today. these were out of the oridinary though. one was fairly well tangled up with fishing line and the other was implaed with a chunk of driftwood. i think they may have drifted in on the river under the ice and popped up through the holes that have opened in the last couple days. im thinking we need to work up a better river defense then just the tangle fence we have up now. i hate to think about another major project like a river wall.

if we had more people we could start thinking about a "castle wall" system around the whole town. we have enough cars and rubble to do it i think. use cars and house walls on the outside and and bank dirt and rubble on the inside. crude, but effective. im thinking a "mobile wall" of sorts. build a wall of cars around a given area and clear it. use materials from the cleared area to expand the wall around another area and clear that. using the original barricade as "the castle keep" and fallback position, expanding outward. you could eventually take the whole town back that way for good. god to think of all teh fuel and manpower that woudl take. id need thousands of gallons of fuel, maybe half a dozen guys on loaders and clearing crews. bulldozers, scrapers, dump trucks not to mention maintenance of equipment and breakdowns. we have plenty of operable earthmoving equipment within reach but no qualified operators. maybe i should priorotize the trip east and try and recruit some hands.

speaking of which i worked for a few hours on the surprise for Jay. ill write more on that later.

rain, rain and more rain. it rained all day. probably over an inch id guess, there is water everywhere. soggy dead heads do maek for fun targets though. they have a tendency to splat like a water baloon if you hit with a big enough caliber. i pulled out a .375 H&H mag and popped the several that showed up. like water grenades going off. cheap thrills.

Jay is really down. after my trip he was really looking forward to going east. i have some ideas but we'll see what the weather brings. ive been working off and on, on a project in the old G&R body shop. i think Jay will like it when i get it done.

storms a comin'. there is small rain drops falling, and im betting it will freeze later tonite. Jay has been really quiet tonite. i just left him alone, he seems kinda down. Matt and Jed were on edge as well, having several spats over the course of the day. i stayed in teh basementloading 12 ga ammo. no dead heads showed even though we kept a watch on the barricade all day. overall not a great day.

overcast, cloudy and cool domonated the day. there is a storm coming, i can feel it in my shoulders. when i was a young'un i had a gate bar smack me across the shoulders when i lived out at the farm. ever since ive ben able to tell storms coming by how stiff and sore my shoulders are. its a comin'.

only one dead head today. Matt picked him off at just a hiar over 800 yards with my 8mm mauser. it was one hell of a shot. That kid would have made a fine sniper in another time. We started making plans for restocking this summer. firewood is low, as are fuel supplies.

Jay still wants to go east but unless we get more snow to drive the sleds on and colder temps to keep the dead heads at bay, that may be out of the question. i sincerly feel for the guy as he wants in the worst way to know one way or the other. its only around 80 miles to gettysburg and we could make the trip in a long day and another day back. Hard riding too. we'l see what the weather brings.

rough day today. The dead heads showed up in force. around twenty of them kept us hopping for most of the afternoon. Matt and Jed both showed thier mettle under fire and both proved themselves able fighters. Me and Jay manned the M60s and handed off our FPWs to teh boys. we piled em up like cordwood on the east side of the barricade. to me and Jay it was a turkey shoot.

Otherwise a nice day. mid 40s, lots of melting snow. After Jay cleaned up the mess with the payloader, we talked about his east trip. if the snow was gone, it would be harder and more dangerous to move that way. We decided to put it on hold until we saw what the weather was doing. it was dark in the west most of the afternoon so a storm could be brewing over that way. we'll see what tomorrow brings.

ive caught a head cold that clggin me up bad. cant even think straight. ugh.

today was mostly recovery from the trip. Jay and me talked at length about him going east to gettysburg to see about his family. he seemed rather apprehensive about it after what i found on my excursion. thats his cross to bear i guess. Jed had built a rather impressive heroscape map in our absence and was content playing with it most of the day. i had the feeling he was relishing being alittle bit kid again and i sure wasnt going to steal that from him. i even wandered down to alco and the hardware and rounded up several sets of technic legos for him to play with. He seemed excited at first but soon went back to the heroscape map. he had a robots vs. monsters battle going and was quite absorbed. Matt was wiped out and spent most of the day asleep. I found a couple paperback books to read and spent the day in the sun napping and reading. Jay wandred the barricade off and on as he felt lke it. The recent cold snap had re-frozen the dead heads for a few days at least.

we pulled back into mobridge today. Jed and Jay were on the barricade wating. We ran the sleds inside the barricade and went into the house. We filled them in on all the goings on in parts west and brought in the cheese pork and other things dad had given us. We had a good evening meal and everyone went to bed just a little bit more excited aobut the future.

there was a few tearful moments this morning when we got ready to leave. Dad of course puddled up like he always does, and i wasnt exactly dry eyed either. hugs and handshakes all around. Monte gave me Beccas wedding ring and Lil's sunglasses. He had saved them specially for me. i tucked them away in my inside shirt pocket where they were safe. Dad thanked Matt for coming with me on a dangerous journey. Matt blushed and shook his head. Mike and Bill were going to ride with us as far as Hettinger as they needed supplies.

We pulled out and made our way to hettinger I wanted to check on my cousin and an old friend. Eds house was deserted like all the others. Duanes home looked lived in semi-recently but no one was around. I did find his treasured IMI uzi under the bed in the back room, covered with a patina of rust. I helped myself. we said our final goodbyes to Mike and Bill and headed east.

When we got close to lemmon the shit hit the fan. Matts windshield dissapeared in a spray of plastic. My sled gathered three bullet holes. The bullets came from a defilade to the side of the road. We both sprayed it with our FPWs. The 1200RPM rate of fire chopped into the plywood shields and shredded them. The occupants were cut to riibons. We blew though lemmon proper at full throttle. Matt got clipped by shotgun blast and I lost my hat. I was pissed, but not as much as Matt was. He wanted to go back in guns blazing and wipe them off the map. I convinced him otherwise. After bandaging his shoulder we both did however expend an entire magazine into the town from a distance. That seemed to satiate his deisre for revenge. We camped tonite a short distance from walker. Gunfire was heard in the west during the evening.