UMTravels

Phone rings at 4am: Swanda telling me that there is a tsunami headed my way (I guess I picked a good day to be at the beach).

Phone rings at 4:20am: Front desk telling me that an evacuation is in process for the expected tsunami.

Phone rings at 4:40am: Dan from Florida has managed to butt-dial me from his new Ford Flex.

Phone rings at 6am: They want everyone evacuated by 6:45am for the expected 7:15am tsunami.

Personally I’d been watching the TV and was waiting to see what happen at 6:10am when Hawaii was supposed to get whacked before I was even going to get out of bed and take a shower. When Hawaii got 3-5 foot waves, and the tide at Seaside was out 3+ feet, and the fact that my room was on the 3^rd floor at the back … I’m not running for the hills (or the 5-8 floors as they also suggested).

Here is the “fauxnami” as I started calling it:

Looks more like turbulent surf to me. This was taken at the designated arrival time — didn’t seem to bother the guy parked on the roundabout either.

I did get email from one of my friends in Tokyo saying he and the kids were alright — though he faced a 3 hour walk home.

Left a deserted Seaside after missing out on $75 for owner reeducation as they’d cancelled all the sessions because of the fauxnami. Hit a couple of antique stores in Astoria more out of killing time than anything else — having declined to purchase some more gifts for Swanda since they were $5 a piece rather than the $3-3.75 that I got the other four for — and I hadn’t heard back from him if he wanted any more … only to get a text answer back about the time I hit Longview that yes, he would like them, for a Easter basket for his sister.

Next stop Centrailia to see if they had antique stores (TONS downtown) and see if I could find any — found plenty, but not in the range I wanted to pay, and the right age to match the others, and the right material (metal, not cardboard). $6-8 each was just a little too much for me.

Then onto Olympia for the monthly poker game — this time with dinner before with Rich and Curt to talk about next month’s Mexico trip. It was a good night at the table — up about $30, which might have covered the booze bill.

I leave you with this silly picture from the game:

Curt took a group shot, but still haven’t gotten a copy in email, so the above will have to do.

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