Leigh Kimmel says:

Great-grandpa built this motel, right after the War. That’s the big one, World War II, for you kiddies. People were itching to travel after the wartime sacrifices, and they wanted places to stay. So he got some military surplus huts, painted them to look like fanciful yurts, and put up a sign.

Being right on the way to a major national park made it a sure money-maker. Pretty soon he started expanding, building a proper building for the front office and including a few rooms behind it. Except everyone wanted to stay in the yurts because they were so cool and different, so by the time Grandpa took over, he had built twelve more.

Over the years the prices have gone up, and we’ve had to rebuild more than a few of those yurts when the original metal proved less durable than expected. But one thing that we’ve really lost is the common sense people used to bring with them. They understood that the forest wasn’t like in Disney’s Bambi, that wild animals might look cute, but they were most definitely not pets. Nowadays, a week doesn’t go by but we have some idiot walking right up to the bison for a selfie, or trying to cuddle a bear cub, or calling “here kitty, kitty” to a mountain lion. Most of them manage to escape with their hides intact, but every now and then one of these nitwits leaves in an ambulance.

Or a hearse.

Dupin says:

Who’da thunk it. Here we are thriving in Russian yurts, using Chinese-made solar cells, batteries with lithium mined in Zimbabwe, motors using neodymium magnets mined in Australia, Kazakhstan-mined gallium for our LED lighting. We use Oriental bamboo for our renewable biomass; Middle Eastern-origin barley, Mexican corn and agave, and African coffee for our drinks; and a mix of Old and New World crops and animals for our food.

And now we’re cut off from everyone else but comfortably safe in our East Texas lakeside community. No radio these days, or at least nobody broadcasting, but we’ve got what we need.