Touch the Sky

We've had to take a detour, because I'm dumb. I've been working on navigating our route down south, and somehow forgot that there's a huge range of mountains in our way. While it would probably be easier to just avoid them and go south, the team and I have agreed to take the chance of traveling as close to the Rockies as possible. We won't try to make it over them, that would be ridiculous. There's probably enough snow up there to stop us from making it very far, or to kill us with bad roads or avalanches. That's assuming the roads up that way aren't packed with abandoned vehicles. I somehow doubt people have made any effort to clean that area up.

We're travelling the foothills because damn it, we want to see the mountains. I've never seen one up close. Well, I've been through the Appalachian range twice, but they aren't what I think of when I hear the word 'mountain'. I want to see a part of the earth reach up and touch the sky.

We're stopped right now outside of a huge shopping complex in northwestern Colorado. We're siphoning fuel to top the tanks off again, just to be safe. It's not all that cold here, but there's been no sign of life or habitation since we left Karen and her people yesterday. No more farms after we exited her area, very few zombies. After a few hours, there were no zombies at all.

It's peaceful here, but not comfortably so. This mall seems dead in a way that most places don't. I can't put my finger on it exactly. None of us want to stay for very long. I'm only writing instead of helping gather fuel because Bill is still having trouble walking, and we refuse to leave him alone and defenseless in case something bad happens.

Will, Becky, and Steve are siphoning and hauling gas from the cars in the parking lot. Rachel is making a very careful exploratory trip into the mall itself to see if there are any supplies we can use. Given the ridiculous number of cars here, I'm guessing not. There's a Costco here, though, so maybe we'll get lucky and find some food that hasn't expired yet. Even if it's just some well-preserved rice, that would be a nice addition to our current fare. We've got potatoes (thanks, Iowa!) and plenty of dried meat, but a lot of the time we have to gather edibles from the wilderness. That's pretty hit or miss. This time of year, where we are? More miss than hit by far. Anything to bolster our stocks would be a treat. I honestly don't know how we run so low on food so often.

Still, we can always hunt. We won't starve.

Huh. I just realized what's weird about this place. There are no animal sounds. Usually you hear something, even if it's just a bird way off. I haven't seen so much as a squirrel. That's...very disturbing. I think I may need to take a walk outside for a minute.