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While the vehicles are being checked, you drive to the rear of the line to make sure that the Chargers have not chosen to pursue the colony. You can see no sign of clan activity on the freeway, and when you relay this news to the colonists, an air of excitement grips them. You are now less than fifty miles from the Pine Valley checkpoint: the end of the journey is at last within grasp.
Now that you no longer need to stay in break-out formation, you take your place at the head of the convoy and head off along the Interstate. Soon you reach a place with the ominous name of Devil’s Canyon, where the east and west lanes of the freeway part company in order to bypass a ridge of high ground. This ridge marks the start of a gradual climb towards the Tecate Divide and the mountains of southern California, which have been instrumental in sparing the Pacific coastal territories from the worst of the post-holocaust storms that have devastated the country’s mid-western and eastern states.
You are mindful that Pop Ewell is eager to contact the Pine Valley checkpoint and, as you emerge from Devil’s Canyon, you see a place that looks like the ideal location for him to transmit his radio message.
