Lewisburg

After my hike through rough terrain, I've finally arrived at a painted wooden sign with "Lewisburg" etched in bold, fancy, cursive.

It looked nearly untouched by the weather and had vines growing up from its base almost completely covering the bottom half.

Such a site for sore eyes.

I could almost sense the life that once inhabited this town. It was small but looked very homely.

Now closing the distance from where I was in the field, I could see that it is definitely a shell of it's former self. Grass growing in the dirt roads and cars covered in natural filth brought on by the weather.

The town center was small. A courthouse with a clock tower rose from the center surrounded by shops, a diner, and a church. Towards the back of the town are a few blocks with residential houses. Small but friendly looking.

I bet whoever lived here had an easy going life compared to life in the city where everyone judged you if didn't live up to expectation.

Putting my thoughts aside I pull out my binoculars, a junk piece of paper, and my pen and start scoping out this "Lewisberg" for my plan of finding my base of operations.

The tallest tower is of course the clock tower in the center of the town square. The second was the church which has a bell tower. perfect for a lookout point and it wasn't much shorter than the clock tower. The rest of the buildings have flat roofs with only an alley or 2 in between each group on all 3 sides.

I began drawing a rough layout of the town on my piece of paper trying to get a decent map going. once I was in the town I could draw out more details but this was as far as I was going to get from this far away.

Time to move in.

It took me a good 10 minutes to walk down the dirt road into town. The sun was out full blaze and my clothes were almost unbearably hot from walking out in the wide open all morning.

The clock tower says "11:30" maybe I should take a few to refuel just in case there's any danger. I didn't see any signs but you can never be too careful.

Finding a nice shaded spot under a giant oak tree, I begin to pull out some of the jerky I made and unscrew the cap of my thermos.

...

A half an hour passes and I am feeling way better. I'm no longer feeling hungry nor overheated so it's time.

I take another second to ponder and strip down to just my shoes, pants, and T-shirt with my machete sheathed on my waist.

Covering my jacket and backpack with my blanket, I decided to stash them by the same tree I took a break under.

I mean its not like someone's going to show up and steal it. I haven't seen another living person in months. Besides its easier to run with 15 to 20 less lbs. on my back if I run into trouble. It looks like it's abandoned but I don't know that for sure.

Better safe than sorry.