We're currently in the town of Twentynine Palms, just outside the border of Joshua Tree National Park. At 20:18, there we were, enjoying a dinner at the 29 Palms Inn with a groovy local band entertaining the crowd, when ... zomg... there was a (very tiny, please don't worry mum, we're fine) EARTHQUAKE!!!
It wasn't very strong. We were sitting down at the time, and I thought that it must be a train travelling through (very stealthily and rather close by). Niall thought that it was someone trying to walk behind our chairs and not doing a very good job. Then, the band stopped playing mid-song and announced "hey, it's an earthquake!"
I have to admit, that's not a phrase I expect to hear being yelled out in a jovial manner. They must get them all the time here, because nobody freaked out. People started cheering and clapping, and the band resumed their song. About 5 minutes later one of the other diners had checked it up on the internet and announced that it was an aftershock from an earthquake in 1999 measuring 5.5 on the richter scale.
:-O
So of course, after we got back to the motel we had to read all about it on the internet, and we discovered how organised all these Californians are. If you go to http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/ they have current data on any earthquake that's happened in California and Nevada in the last week. The big blue square in the image below is what I will affectionately call "our quake".
You can also report your experience of the quake online which is collated and added to that earthquake's report.
SO AWESOME. Most definitely a unique and interesting Californian experience!
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