Day 26 of 30

My fears and a pic of a place I've been to.
I don't really have a lot of fears. But one thing that scares the crap outta me is earthquakes... oh my goodness. I don't think anyone but my parents really understand this fear but I am terrified of earthquakes. I grew up with 'em and they were pretty frequent. But after the Northridge quake..... I have been permanently scarred. It was the most terrifying experience of my life. At 4:31 am for 45 seconds I had to live through one of the most violent earthquakes. All my Cali friends I'm sure remember this. It was really scary for me at 10 yrs old. My mom was pregnant and they had just gotten back from Vegas the night before. Thank goodness. I had been staying with a friend and her dad was out of town working and her brother had to get all 4 sisters out and help his mom out who got stuck in her room. So it was nice to not have to add me to their mix plus my parents would have had great difficulty getting back into town with the damaged freeways. We didn't have any major damage. Our pool didn't crack and the house itself was ok. Our neighborhood had a lot of cinder block walls between properties and one of our was tilting and that had to be fixed. Our water heater came detached and leaked water all over. Sadly our new van was in the garage and everything around it fell on it. A bunch of dishes broke. Our piano fell over and a tv fell off a stand. Thank goodness we had gotten carpet for the first time a few months before that so it didn't break. I think the noise and not knowing what was gonna happen scared me most. We were only without power for about a day. For a couple weeks we had to boil any water we used since they thought some might be contaminated. We were lucky that we had our pool too so neighbors came around and used that to flush toilets or use for cooking and drinking. The aftershocks were horrible. I could hardly sleep that first night. We all slept in the living room the first night because I was so scared. A lot of people slept in tents. But it took me about 6 months before I'd ever sleep in my own bed again. I would wait for my parents to fall asleep and then go in their room on the floor or on the floor in the hall. I hated to sleep alone. But it was hard sleeping on the ground too because I could feel every tiny aftershock. Even if it was like a 2.0.
Things haven't changed. I was trying to find the right earthquake on wikipedia... I thought it was called Joshua Tree but I guess it's called the Hector Mine earthquake. It was 7.1 out in the desert. By the time it reached us the wavelengths were so long. I tried to run from my room to my parents and kept running into the walls. It felt like slow motion. I remember their fan swinging. We knew if it felt that strong where we lived it must have been big where it originated. I cried. I was terrified. I didn't want to sleep in my room. I remember another one by the time I was like 18. It may have been an aftershock or a smaller magnitude quake but I slept in their room then too. So basically I'm a big pansy when it comes to earthquakes. But they fascinate me. I love geology and learning about that stuff but it scares me like no other.

Onto my pic of a place I've been.... I've been lucky to take a lot of cool trips with my parents. But my all time fav was our 8 day trip to Hawaii. We were on the big island 3 days and then 5 on Oahu. One of the most beautiful places was called Sharks Cove. May not sound like a place you wanna snorkel but trust me... you do! It was amazing. Lots of little pools to swim in and in the deeper water people said they saw seals and sea turtles. I was even surrounded at one point underwater by a school of silver fish.... just swimming around me in a circle. One of the coolest things ever! All my pics are on print and I had some good ones but here's one I found online. Doesn't do it justice but it was the best I saw.