Just spent a great weekend in Western North Carolina at the Heritage Life Skills event put on by Carolina Readiness.  This was their fifth event and I had a blast.  Sold lots of books, met lots of folks, and had a  lot of great after-hours conversations with the people that stuck around for the entire weekend.

I was set up at a vendor booth with my friend Chris Weatherman, otherwise known as Angery American, author of the fantastic Going Home series.  Chris and I signed lots of books and had a lot of time to sit and BS about everything from kids to guns to prepping and everything in between.  He’s a great guy I can’t thank him enough for recommending my books to all the folks that came up and said they’d read all of his already.

Chris and I also taught a class together on Friday and on Saturday we were the opening speakers at the night’s event.  It was a sort of a panel discussion with Chris and I being joined by Alan Kay, winner of the first season of ALONE.  Although Alan and I didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, I can tell you that people raved about his classes and workshops.  If you ever get the opportunity to participate in a training offered by Alan, whether it’s on foraging, bug out bags, or personal defense, you should grab that opportunity.

I also got to meet Survivor Jane, well known in the preparedness community for her books, lectures, and her Prepper Camp event that she hosts in the fall.  We had a good opportunity to spend the morning talking and I really enjoyed meeting her.

My buddy Steve Bird showed up on Sunday.  Steve and I always have a great time hanging out together.  He is on his second series of post-apocalyptic fiction now and you can find those on Amazon.  I’ve read through the first series and really enjoyed it.  In the picture, I’m not really depressed or anything but I was chewing gum and the camera caught me mid-chew.  The bearded guy on the right is Angery American.

I’ll be posting more on this later, but I also had the opportunity to meet one of my own preparedness heroes Dr. Joe Alton, otherwise known as Dr. Bones.  He did an interview with the Steve, Chris, and myself for his podcast.  I also told him that he had a mention in Legion of Despair during  a scene when someone is stitching someone up and stated that they learned that skill in Dr. Bones’ suture class.  Sure enough, Dr. Bones was conducting suture classes at HLS, too.

On the last morning, I also got the opportunity to meet Scott Hunt of Practical Preppers, known as Engineer775 to his Youtube following.  Scott did a short video interview with me which he’s already released and I’ll get a link up to that soon.

There were so many cool and interesting people that it’s hard to list them all, but I wanted to thank Jan and Bill Sterrett at Carolina Readiness for the invitation and hospitality; my camping buddies James Ashton (NCPREPPER on Youtube) and instructor Kerry “Gabby” Alzner for the entertaining evening conversation and storytelling; and my entertaining vendor neighbors Ken and Jen Elswick and #mountainfabulous realtor Stephanie Johnson.

Great people, great event, and I look forward to going back next year.