any destination, including crossing the country: you followed the highspeed interstate grid until the destination was 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 and safely completable. Vampires are too valuable to lose even one in this exodus.
EXODUS » SUSAN It is very cold as the sun starts lighting up the sky. I was doing the graveyard dialysis session for Voyager 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 10 p.m.. Almost everyone sleeps, although some watch late night television. - 102 -
