$250 cash and no credit cards and need to go cross country?

Fill up car with gas, get some water and powerbars.

Drive to a safer city.

Call bank at home and have money wired to me.

Go to bank and cash a check (keep a blank one in my wallet)

Go on net, find internet friend from here or AR15.com who lives on my route home that has not had any disruptions, paypay them money so they can give me the cash (and make a nice little transaction fee for their trouble )

That is a great idea! An ETS type forum is a great way to network with like minded and prepared folks to prepare for the unexpected. If you networked well and "qualified" your contacts you could wind up with a good contact in each geographical region or major city.

This same idea of a team or networked group is the basic premise for the alpharubicon.com members. They are a very close knit group and limit their membership to only those who actively participate and help the group. Unfortunately they are currently not accepting any more members but you can still get some really great information from the articles on their site. I highly recommend checking them out.

With no offense intended, I'd have to say Susan is overstating things a bit in regards to crime in Las Vegas. To be fair, we do have a fairly high violent crime rate, above the national average, and it is true that the national media doesn't make a whole lot of noise about crime in Vegas. But I can guarantee you that local news is more than happy to report criminal activities, and does.

Now, there are definitely areas of town that you do NOT want to go to, especially if you're a tourist...but most of these areas are adjacent to the Strip or in much older areas of town.

Honestly, I don't see much difference between Las Vegas and any other major metropolis, crime-wise, and that's speaking as someone who grew up and has lived here for over 20 years.

As for the original post...I'd buy gas, food and water, and drive myself to L.A. I've got family there and a place to stay. There's no way in hell I'd go to New Orleans. They've got plenty of problems of their own at the moment. I know next to nothing about Chicago, or what I'd do there, so I'll stick with a familiar place that has relatives to take me and my fictional child in.

Hmm,

If some major event happens, you can figure that public transport is pretty much outta the question. As stated, they will be iffy at best. Since this includes freighting services as well, you can also forget about "shipping yourself" somewhere. Fuel prices are going to be insane, so $250 might only get you one tank of gas, if that. Striking out afoot or on a bicycle really is not an option (uh, the middle of the desert, not practical).

With $250 and a car, you could try and parlay to get something different, but anything that would seriously help you out isn't likely. You could get a gun and try stealing your way to Chicago I suppose.

If it were me, I'd try and head south. You got some serious desert in all directions, but I think I would push for Pheonix, Flagstaff or at least Kingman if I had to go anywhere. I would not try to go to LA, and I think the others are just out of the question.

I'm simply gonna hitch a ride with one of you guys. We split the costs, double our money, and make it to chicago no problem

OK, I'm in Vegas. I find the nearest casino, put the whole $250 down on lucky number 7, pick up my cool $8,750, tip the Croupier a $500 chip (hey, it's only money!), and fly out 1st class to Chicago...piece of cake.

I like your plan, soldier- I'll drop you off and keep going north. :P

Works for me! Can we stop off at Ben & Jerry's first though?

Wow, I have been to their site so many times! They have a lot of knowledge.
I did know they were an organizaton that was not accepting members but I was not very clear on who they were and what they were about other than they were pro gun and into survival; I usually just find them through "Goggling" something.

I would really like to be a part of a group / network that supported being ready while ofering members the ability to link up in an emergency as well as good times. I guess there are a lot of groups like this out there in some fashion.
Heck even if you were part of a hobby type network like homebrewing or reloading or even quilting on-line it would be easy to start to network of some great "contacts".
I guess in the mean time I will have to "camp at the gate" at Alpharubicon.com

B