Radiation Vacation

So there aren't many ways to look on the up side of a potential nuclear meltdown. However, I have found one. And that is that my friend Mary and her daughter Annika are coming to Guam a whole 10 days earlier than originally planned!

The situation near their home outside of Tokyo has been pretty frightening the last few days, as I'm sure many of you have been following. Radiation levels were recorded to be higher than normal at their base yesterday and the ongoing gloom and doom news stories about potential reactor explosions is enough to make anyone crazy. That combined with a powerful aftershock at Mt. Fuji (very close to Tokyo) early this morning, and Mary decided she'd braved enough catastrophic disasters for one week. I don't blame her!

After following her updates on Facebook for these last few days since the earthquake, I offered for her to come ride things out here as long as she needed. Going to her parents' home in the States would have been ideal, except for the extremely long trip there and back. If everything clears up in a few days, it would be nice to get back home and resume life as normal. But if not, there are Space-A flights that can get her to the States pretty easily from here. So Guam was a great compromise... all of the safety and not nearly as much of the flying time. Not to mention, a little beach time doesn't hurt either.

She's already out of Tokyo (!) and will make her way to Guam tomorrow after a good night sleep on the south part of the island, far away from the destruction and radiation threats.  The awesome part is that once she gets here, she goes from stressful catastrophe to vacation island :)  I am so looking forward to our time together, even if it was this awful earthquake that is bringing us together sooner than we thought!

Oh, and while I'm on the tsunami subject, thanks so much for your many emails, texts, phone calls, etc., checking in after the Guam tsunami warning. Luckily we happened to be at low tide when the 3-ft. wave hit the island. The only ill effects suffered on the island that I've heard of were that the submarine lines snapped under pressure sending two subs loose into the harbor. Nick and I actually heard the lines pop around 8pm Friday from our house about a mile up the hill from where the subs are docked. It sounded like muffled gun shots. So even if the wave wasn't high enough to come on shore and destroy anything, it definitely had some power behind it. So grateful our island was spared!