tsunami-free beach countdown. . .23 days

I took this picture at Ecola State Park, one of my favorite coastal places, when my parents were here visiting this summer. If you look at the water out beyond the rocks, you'll notice it's pretty smooth. I've never been to the beach when the ocean has been that still. It was almost eerie. I was reminded of this picture Monday evening when Dr. Phil and I were on a date with our friends, the Ellypticals. There are four or five new flat screens up on the wall at the Y and so basically while you sweat to death, you get to watch your choice of shows. . .news, sports, cable news, old reruns, or the history channel. I happened to be on the one right in front of the history channel. And since I never remember to take my earphones (or my ipod - which I got for my birthday in June and still haven't loaded any songs onto - for that matter), I get to read the closed captioning.

That was a horrible sentence, and I apologize.

Can you guess the topic of that show??? Tsunamis. Yah, those of you who have read my blog for a while know I have a big ol' fear of tsunamis. {BUT. . .those new readers of mine out there ~ welcome ~ maybe don't know it so much.} And as hard as I tried to watch the old black and white blast from the past, I kept being lured to the history channel.

All these scientists are trying to determine if there was a massive tsunami that swept over the entire Mediterranean area about 6,000 years ago. Italian scientists think it was caused by a massive landslide in Sicily. They showed some pretty awesome graphics of rocks from the landslide all spread out over the Mediterranean Sea and compared it to the Mt. St. Helens blast. (You know what my brain was doing at that point.) They also showed lots of clips from the Asian tsunami in 2004 of which I have previously seen too much media coverage (which was even more stimulation for my brain.) And I didn't have any nightmares that night which I find amazing.

Dr. Phil is taking me to the beach in 23 days. Saying a prayer tonight for a tsunami free visit.

This morning I got behind a garbage truck and so I decided to get in the right lane. That caused me to not be able to get back into the lane I needed to be in to turn. Which in turn caused me to get on the freeway from another on-ramp, one that is rather out of my way. (So much for trying to beat the garbage man.) Anyway, I was a little behind schedule, but as I got onto the bridge that I hate, I saw the most beautiful sunrise. I tried to capture that for you with my cell phone. But there was only one point where I thought I could get a decent picture of the sunrise and not semi trucks. Picture this: I tried to get a good shot. But when you are driving, and illegally using your cell phone while driving, and you aren't even talking on your cell phone but taking a picture instead, and you can't look at the camera because you have to keep your eyes on the road, it's kind of hard to get a good shot. But trust me on this one, when the Columbia River Gorge and the almost shadow-like Mt. Hood are out your car window, and it's all surrounded by big puffy gray clouds with the sunlight streaming through, you get some pretty awesome morning views. I would post the picture I took, but all you'd see would be clouds and cars.

So the whole garbage man incident turned out to be a rather good thing for me today.