“Good night.”
“Good night.”
(pause)
“Did you feel that?”
“Yeah…what is that?”
“No idea.”
The entire apartment was shaking, slightly, but very noticeably, about once every second and a half or so. It felt like a small earthquake, except that it was far too regular, and it kept going.
And it seemed to be getting stronger.
I got up, tossed on some clothes, and started to see if it might be coming from somewhere in the apartment building. Someone banging on a wall, maybe? Some late-night work on their apartment?
It was a little stronger on the floor below us — strong enough that the door to the apartment directly below mine was rattling lightly in its frame. As I continued on my way downstairs, it kept feeling a bit stronger. I got to the ground floor and saw a girl from one of the other apartments out in the hall. “Do you feel the building shaking?” she asked.
“Yeah — that’s why I’m up. What’s going on?”
She didn’t know. It seemed to be strongest by the mailboxes. A few moments later another tenant came out of their apartment, then another, and another. Eventually there were eight of us, all wondering just what was going on.
“Oh, I’ve got an idea,” I said. “They’re doing a lot of construction on I-5 this weekend…that’s gotta be it. Some construction equipment pounding the ground for some reason.”
That made sense, and it seemed to be fading a bit, and people started heading back to their apartments. Prairie and I were quite awake by this point, though, so we decided to head out and see if our guess was right. Jim (one of the other tenants, and the one who recognized me earlier this week) came along, and we wandered the two blocks down to the Spring St. bridge over I-5.
Sure enough, a few lanes of I-5 were shut down, and a large truck was slowly moving down one lane, a huge contraption on the back sending what must be an insanely heavy metal slab slamming into the pavement again and again, breaking it up to be removed.
We stood on the bridge and watched it for a few moments, feeling the bridge shudder with each drop, marveling at how heavy this thing must be. “You should have brought your camera,” Prairie said. That sounded like a good idea, so we came back, Jim went back to his apartment, I grabbed my camera, and we headed back out to the bridge.
I took a few shots and a few seconds of video (things like this really are more impressive when you can actually see and hear what’s going on — a still photo just doesn’t give the same impression), and then we headed back home.
The building’s still shaking every few seconds, but it’s not as strong as it was…and now that we know what’s going on, instead of just being somewhat freaked out and envisioning the building foundation suddenly cracking and collapsing, it’s not as disturbing as it was. Prairie’s already crashed out, and I will be as soon as this post goes up.
A bit of an unexpected adventure on a Friday night. Kinda fun, actually.
Prairie and I had a lot of fun exploring the park. Neither of us had been there before, so we bounced back and forth between the picnic and wandering up and down the beach. While clambering over rock piles and underneath a pier, Prairie got to show me a lot of sea critters that I hadn’t seen outside of aquariums before, from huge starfish to tiny rock crabs that skittered away from us after she kicked over the rocks they were hiding under.
The picnic was also quite fun, with really good sausages and other potluck goodies to munch on, and quite a few Utilikiltarians (some of them employees, others, like me, customers and fans) chatting and playing. I spent some time playing frisbee out on the sand with Steven, Jenniviere, and Ben‘s daughter (amusingly, Ben and I know each other from Anchorage — long time ago) until my feet couldn’t take the hot sand anymore.
