Venice

EXODUS (2)

The rolling walkout started Friday — at 10am. The nearest first markers for these cohorts could be as far as Salt Lake City, Utah; Boise Idaho; and Phoenix, Arizona. All of the markers were outside California: this was guarantee this was a ‘national’ action, and California sheriffs and highway patrol would have no authority any more. Why and how any branch of the government could legally impede peaceful migration of citizens was unclear, but the value of these vampires was in the billions. That is a strong incentive to break moral and legal codes.

The US interstate system — has a simple numbering system: interstates running west-to-east are numbered as multiples of 10 starting from the southern border. In the south, the I-10 runs from Los Angeles, California to Jacksonville, Florida. In the north, the I90 (the longest) runs from Seattle, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts. Interstates running south-to-north are numbered similarly, but shifted by ‘5’ and starting on the Pacific Ocean. The I-5 runs from San Diego, California to Seattle, Washington. The I95 runs from Miami, Florida up to Bangor, Maine. This grid bounded by Seattle, Bangor, Miami, and San Diego represents the most-easily accessible (in time and by land travel) locations in the US. More remote towns are within relatively short travel times from each of the interstates and their interconnections. The interstate grid enables similar navigation techniques as getting to shops in back alleys within the grid of a major city like Manhattan.

All of the first-day markers were very near these interstate grid points, and subsequent-day markers were also ‘on the grid’ if the final destinations were further east. This was to enable short travel times to any destination, including crossing the country: you followed the high-speed interstate grid until the destination was

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within a day of an interstate exit.

The goal was for each vampire — to reach their destination in time for their next scheduled dialysis session; i.e. in three days. The furthest dialysis caves were near Bangor, Maine and Miami, Florida, both of which are more than 3000 miles away from most of California. That requires driving 1000 miles every 24 hours, or 16 hours a day at 60 mph. That is too much driving for a person to do safely: DOT (Department of Transportation) rules for professional truck drivers is 10-12 hours (with some possible extensions) per day, so we used a 12-hour ideal to plan routes. On the interstates, speed limits are commonly 70 mph, so 3000 miles could be closer to 40 hours of driving over three days. We accepted that some vampires would need an extra day of travel in rare cases. Those vampires also had a second choice destination that was nearer if they needed to shorten the trip.

Actually, all vampires had a collection of shorter ‘treasure-maps’ to follow if they needed a shorter trip. These secondary maps guaranteed a vampire could reach a final destination within four hours of reaching a marker. The first day markers were all a full 12 hours away, but in that case the vampire could just return back to their home clinic if anything went wrong. After day one they were on a journey that needed to be safe. Vampires are too valuable to lose even one in this exodus.

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EXODUS — SANDRA

It is very cold — as the sun starts lighting up the sky. I do the graveyard dialysis session for Satellite in Redding, California. This type of session is for patients that need a longer and gentler dialysis: 23 patients and I spend eight hours together starting from 10PM. Almost everyone sleeps, although some watch late night television.

I hate the cold, but today is the beginning of a new life. Or at least a vacation. My first marker is near Phoenix, which should be ‘a tad’ warmer. It is a long drive (maybe 13 hours), but is super-wide freeways as soon as I reach I-5 until I get off the I-10. With a tank full of gas, my Prius should be able to get to Los Angeles before it — I hear some people personify and name their cars, but that seems very nerdy to me — needs to be refilled. My guess is I will stop a couple times on the way for Peets and In-n-Out, so it might take me more like nine hours to get to Pasadena where I ‘change direction’ and head pure east.

The drive down I-5 is both boring and fascinating if you know what you are looking for. California is like a giant garden where instead of hoses or pipes coming from your house to water various trees and plants you are growing, the water cascades down from the Sierras through aqueducts and rivers to reach huge tracts of plants and trees… which are growing food for the whole nation. As you drive down the I-5 from true Northern California (north of Sacramento), you can see the rivers cross under the highway headed due west for the coastal populations. But the aqueducts weave back and forth with the I-5 to support all the farms along the way to Los Angeles. That ‘support’ varies though: water is allocated to farms, and that allocation may not be sufficient for those farms to survive. Especially on years where California is in drought, which appears to be currently two out of every three.

While I progress to Los Angeles, I weave with the aqueducts a

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