Note to self: do not plan coastal vacations during tsunamis

[webtarkeena]

David heard about the quakes online last night before we went to bed. We said a prayer for the victims, and as we turned in I remarked to David that I wasn't too thrilled to have been reading about tsunamis while staying on the coast! In retrospect, David thinks he must have been awfully tired not to realize that the situation really Could affect us. I too had thought exactly as far as "Japan is in the Pacific. We are on the Pacific. OK, bed time!" But at 3:30 am when the sirens began wailing... well, let me just say that for those of you who have come to believe that small children mean very long exits, I think the four of us were in the car with the majority of our luggage with the engine started within 10 minutes of the first alarm! I freely admit that I was scared half to death, even when the verbal announcement finally penetrated by brain and assured us that nothing was scheduled to reach us until after 6 am. By the time we hit Hwy 42S and started making headway to the east, we were starting to think a bit more rationally, but not to the point were we were willing to turn around and simply find a higher spot in town - if for no other reason than we were sure that siren would be blaring the entire rest of the night. (Our hotel is at something like -20 ft sea level. Even in Japan David assures me that the bluff overlooking the ocean at 50 ft above would have been adequate.) So, with vague hopes of finding a Shari's or other WiFi enabled all night diner, we continued going until we hit Coquille. Carmen at that point confirmed that we were not going to find any such thing in the next hour of travel, so we finally simply parked the car on the street (it was about 4:30 am) and killed a couple of hours there. When we could actually see the road again we continued on into Myrtle Point and had breakfast at a greasy spoon. Still no internet and a truly frustrating lack of solid information on the radio (note to self: Coast to Coast AM is not the most fear-quelling place to be getting your data in the middle of the night!), but by the time we were finished eating it was after the time at which the first waves were predicted, and more importantly we'd heard that Hawaii was not being badly soaked. And we'd started to actually believe that a 3 ft surges were probably not going to hurt us. Still, when we made it back to Bandon - watching Carmen's altimeter and keeping above 30 ft - the radio told us that the all clear had not and would not be sounded until 11:30 by the earliest. But the sirens weren't running and life seemed to be proceeding as usual...
We spent some time watching the waves at aforementioned promontory (49 ft), at a nearby park, and finally - as James was not willing to nap, despite having been awake practically since 3:30 - went ahead and visited the wild animal park. And then came back to the hotel to sleep a while. And yet, even now I see an advisory still listed. Not quite sure what we'll do tonight. Maybe pack up the van and be ready to have it running in 5 minutes...