Earthquake!!!

At about 4:30 this morning, I woke up to the house shaking. Now, this is not necessarily unusual considering we live in a trailer. It shakes every time we run the washing machine. But this time, we were really SHAKING!

Turns out we were feeling an earthquake that was happening about 150 miles away in West Salem, Illinois. It measured 5.2 on the Richter Scale. Luckily, there haven't been any deaths or major damage reported. And of course, our sturdy little mobile home is doing just fine. :)

It was a little bit of a flash back for me, though. In January of 1994, I was 10 and we were living in west LA. We woke up at almost exactly the same time (4:30 in the morning) feeling our apartment shaking. That quake was much bigger and scarier than what we felt this morning. It measured 6.7 on the Richter Scale and the center was only about 15 miles away. The sound of everything falling off shelves and out of cabinets was really scary! Not to mention the countless aftershocks.

Or what seemed like forever, standing outside wearing my pajamas and two left shoes (one tennis shoe and one dress shoe).

It ended well for us, though. We didn't really have any damage to our apartment. I remember being amazed (I guess it doesn't take much when you're 10) that the big pickle jar that fell from the very top cabinet shelf (right up there next to the ceiling) didn't break! And the best part was that we played Monopoly by candle light for hours. I thought it was great!