They took the last off ramp and approached the building. It was a Best Buy warehouse electronics store, and the building appeared intact. In the same complex was a Furniture Warehouse, also mostly intact, and a Starbucks attached to a gas station convenience store, which were wrecked. The front windows in the Furniture store had blown out and a lot of the inventory in the front of the store had water damage. The offices and warehouse in the rear of the store were intact. There was a couch in one office, which Tiny claimed. David did not blame him, since his foam pad only was for one.
“No problem, I’ll sleep on one of the beds outside. Lets check out the other building. I want to get up on the roof and see what shape the solar system is in.”
The front of the Best Buy had steel roll-down doors over the entrance doors and windows. They drove around to the back and found a two bay dock, and a drive through vehicle entrance, all with roll-down doors. They did find two steel access doors. Three shots with the 357 blew out the deadbolt on one of them and they were inside.
The next week was spent surveying and consolidating their new home. The Best Buy building was secure, after they found the open key safe and barricaded the door with the blown out deadbolt. It had daylight lighting through translucent panels in the roof and walls. That building would be the home of the Best Buy Trading Post. It was filled with all of the electronics and appliances that were presently useless.
David had hopes to restore some of the solar power generation capacity from the roof panel array, but his initial efforts had proven unsuccessful. He did find a case of solar laptop chargers that would recharge a laptop, after two or three day’s exposure to the overcast daylight sky.
They moved most of the inventory into the warehouse, and stacked it for long term storage. The batteries, lights, solar chargers, and a few other selected items were placed on covered display cabinets in the rear of the sales area. The salvageable items from the convenience store and Starbucks were also moved into the warehouse.
With a recharged laptop and battery powered printer, David printed 25 notices.
The Proprietors of the Best Buy Trading Post announce our Grand Opening Fair. We will open our doors on Saturday, October 20. We are located in El Dorado Hills at the end of Highway 50, in the Best Buy Building. We have a secure place for you and your trading goods, out of the rain, so you can stay overnight. Bring anything you have to swap for something you need. We have some batteries, lights, solar chargers, and a few other selected items. We will trade for most anything, since if we don’t need it someone else probably will. We want food, bicycles, seeds, fishing gear, tools, ammo, pumps, and solar equipment.
We also can provide a slow recharging service for small battery powered devices. We could charge your cell phone but it still won’t work.
Our world has changed beyond our understanding. We have all lost too much. Now is the time for those of us who have survived, to start rebuilding our lives, and working together. It will take our, and our children’s lifetimes to remake this corner of the world, but what choice do we have?
There are some that have preyed on others since the Event. That behavior will not be tolerated here.
Early the next week, David loaded up and headed back up Highway 50 to bring the Frombachs back to their new home. Tiny stayed behind to guard the property. David left several notices at the Missouri Flat off ramp and the junction at Highway 49. He left one notice at every crossroad all the way up to the Frombach’s cabin. Elmer and Alice were overjoyed to see him, and David felt like he had come home. They were excited when he described the trading post idea.
Later, over dinner, David described so far unsuccessful efforts to get any power out of the solar system. Elmer smiled and said, “you didn’t have any power on the service side did you?”
“No, that’s why I am trying to get the solar system up, “ David replied.
Elmer continued, “You have to have voltage on the load lines before the converter will turn on, it’s a safety feature, to prevent someone down the line from getting g shocked by the solar panel. You need a small battery powered converter to energize the load side of the solar converted so it will turn on. Then you can switch on the real loads and the solar system will drive it.”
David shook his head, and said, “I have all the engineering book learning, but not enough real world experience to know that. I’m glad to have your help, and your experience.”
The next morning, they started loading the truck and a small trailer with everything that might be needed in their new home. David assured them that there was plenty of furniture to pick from. Elmer did have a good selection of tools, some fishing gear, and some heritage seeds. Alice had a kitchen full of stuff as well as bedding, an old sewing machine, knitting supplies, and family pictures. They also took the wood stove and the hand pump for the well.
They were ready to leave by early afternoon of the next day. David turned to Alice and asked, “any regrets about leaving?”
She shook her head and replied. “No, no, we were not safe there anymore. We have had a good run, but we need to move on. Elmer needs medical attention. His arm is not healing. I’ll miss my roses, but I took some cuttings.”
They saw that most of the notices were gone, and David considered that a good sign. They arrived just before dark, and just pulled into the warehouse. Unloading would wait until the next day.
Tiny had seafood stew and pan bread supper ready to prepare, and within an hour they were sharing a meal by battery lantern light.
Tiny also had news of two different groups of visitors. The first was two men from the other side of El Dorado Hills. They promised to return for the fair.
The second group of three heavily armed men arrived yesterday afternoon on bicycles. They had come down Highway 50 from the Placerville area. They were wary, but impressed, especially with the security and the shelter offered by the furniture store. They also said that a large group from their area would come down the hill for the fair.
The next day, everyone worked to get the Frombachs settled in the big furniture store office.
David finally was able to address the solar system problem. It was almost sundown when he connected a converter powered by the truck battery to a single panel and converter. The green LED indicator on the panel converter flashed on, and when he connected the AC output to a flood lamp, it illuminated. It went out a few minutes later as the sunlight faded. It was a major milestone on the road back.
During the next few days, everyone but David worked to prepare for the weekend fair. David worked to disconnect the damaged panels from the rooftop grid. When that task was completed, two thirds of the panels were available for power generation. Using the single panel he had been able to use the forklift charger to charge an array of a dozen batteries salvaged from car on the eastbound Highway 50. He used three small converters supplied by the battery array to provide the startup power.
Early Friday morning, a school bus pulling a trailer arrived with the first group from Placerville. After they had unloaded, it went back up the hill for another load. By the end of the day, 27 different family groups had arrived, some on motorized vehicles, a few on wagons, and several walking.
The fair was a huge success, and the last of the visitors did not leave until Monday afternoon. David promised to hold another every other month, and everyone promised to return. David had set up a bulletin board with a place to list things they needed and things they had to swap. He decided to include the listing on the back of the next fair notice.