I have always been into guns, gear, uniforms, equipment, hiking, camping, shooting, training, hunting and fishing (this is the least of these), self-preservation and survivalism. I bought my first AR15 at age 10, and have continuously owned ARs since 1984. As previously mentioned, I grew up with a 1980's style survivalist who heavily influenced me in this regard. In High School I tried to organize a "Survivalist Club". My college apartment had a closet filled with camo, field gear, MREs and water containers. This was just who I was. When the 1999 Y2K scare ramped up so did I. From 1999 until about 2009 I was in a flurry of training and assessment.

My wife came from a "guns are scary - who needs anything other than a phone and car to survive? You can call the police or drive to a Hilton" family.

Our decision to not travel or vacation meant we needed to find alternatives for "down time". We decided to go camping since it was only $5 at a local State Park. My wife LOVED it. This was her first introduction to a "wilderness lifestyle". She thought cooking on an open flame, sleeping in a tent and watching "her man" baton through firewood with a Bussekin in the rain was "sexy". We started camping A LOT!

I had already given her basic instruction on firearms usage, and she had a scheduled amount of training she was putting in. The first camping trip kicked everything into motion. She applied for her Carry License, started looking at food differently, etc.

At this point, we had already left the "consumer" life but now were were leaving the "matrix" life too.

She had been interested in conservative politics but became involved and started researching all of the topics we discussed at the dinner table (world government, carbon taxes, etc). It wasn't long before she was leading the conversations.

We also started looking at food differently. We were given some "free range" turkey eggs to take on one of our camping trips. After tasting them she jumped head first into "natural food" research.

While she was getting up to speed with libertarian politics and safe food knowledge I was EXCEEDINGLY busy training, testing, and teaching (online) all things survival related. This was a period of hyper activity for us. She with the food and I with the survival.