Kings of The Road
We are two friends who went on a road trip around the United States 20 years ago to serve churches. We kept a journal as we traveled and are reading through the journal and remembering our adventures. Listen and laugh with us as we go back in time and inspire others to go on an adventure.
Kings of The Road
Detour: Natural Disasters: Surviving and Smiling through Nature's Tests
Ever wondered how our childhoods shape our perspectives on natural disasters? Join us as we reminisce about our nonchalant attitudes towards earthquakes growing up in California and compare them to the fears faced by our friends in hurricane and tornado-prone states. From hilarious stories of our summer adventures in Michigan to the nostalgic mention of a favorite burrito called "the big one," we kick off with a reflection on state pride and the beauty of our diverse homeland. We invite you to share your quirky and unique stories about your home state, adding to the colorful tapestry of our collective experiences.
Have you ever considered the psychological toll of living in an area prone to natural disasters? We delve into the unsettling realities of facing earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Hear firsthand accounts of a Category 1 hurricane in Birmingham and a historic tornado outbreak in Alabama, and learn about the distinct contrasts between the forewarning provided by storms and the suddenness of earthquakes. Through these personal stories, we reveal the preparedness each disaster necessitates and the psychological weight they carry, offering a deeper understanding of how these events shape our lives and memories.
What trade-offs do people make when choosing where to live? We explore how natural disasters impact daily life across different regions, from the persistent threats in the southern United States to the less frequent but equally significant earthquakes and wildfires in California. Through our own experiences, we highlight the humorous ways Californians react to earthquakes, complete with geology jokes and lighthearted anecdotes. Tune in to laugh with us and perhaps even see your own region in a new light, as we reflect on the weather-related challenges that shape our perceptions and priorities.
Well, there went the turn. Oh, it couldn't have been. I came up so fast. Yeah, you know, 100 yards, not that far.
Speaker 2:Dang it.
Speaker 1:Detour, detour, detour.
Speaker 2:Detour, tour, detour.
Speaker 1:I like that intro. I think that that's a good one. Detour, detour. We are jumping on and wanted to have a short conversation today about something that impacts all of us, and we're considering again just where is the future of Kings of the Road. We think there's a lot of futures and we're enjoying dreaming about it. If you have any ideas, we'd love to hear it, but one of them is just discovering other states and with you guys. So tell us, what state do you want to get on and talk about and defend, and just tell us more about and laugh about. So if you have a state that's close to your heart, maybe you live there for a while. Whatever it is really, but I do think you need to have some knowledge. I don't want it just to be like I've heard New Hampshire is nice in the fall. Yeah, I know somebody that went there once.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've heard from a few of you, you know, because we moved relatively quickly and so we'll go to a place and somebody's like oh, you didn't see this or you didn't see that, or it is the wrong time, you know we talked about. Atlantic City recently and it was rainy and we're like, well, it was terrible and somebody might say but in the summertime, it could have been great.
Speaker 2:So yeah, we want to explore states a little well more deeply with somebody who has had that experience and you can defend your state, you can tell us about it.
Speaker 1:We do think we're going to take a like, hey, defend your state position and so you know, let us know what's great about it, because every state does have something great. And one of the things as this conversation has been happening, one of the major things about different states and especially us being native Californians, is people will look at us in utter shock and awe Because they will go well, how do you survive living in the imminent threat of earthquake all the time, of earthquake all the time? And it is shocking because I again, I've lived in Alabama for six years, so discovered the Southeast for a while traveling. It comes up. It's not like one of those make-believe things that happens on the radio or on TV. No, it comes up.
Speaker 2:People are actively wondering what it's like to live under the danger of earthquake yeah, I, I talk to people in different states every single day, whether it's, you know, well, mostly at work, you know, and anytime there's there's that conversation. Oh yeah, I live in california. Oh, wow, you, I don't know if I could live there with all those earthquakes. How do you do it? And I'm like, wait a minute. You live in Florida. You have an entire season every year of natural disasters. Hurricanes are coming.
Speaker 2:It's just a plan Right and my parents and sister, who now live in Tennessee. Recently they had a big tornado that hit just miles from them, Yep, and so we're sitting here as California natives going earthquakes what I spend zero time thinking about earthquakes.
Speaker 1:Everybody, not everybody. It gets asked, people wonder, but the truth is there's not a thought that I'm like well, today is going to be impacted by the, the threat of an earthquake, or what if an earthquake happens today? I might even be able to pick up the kids and get to emily. Yeah, none of that, it's just no, it's just, it's just there now. Um, I will say that because the talk of the big one, which any californian, as soon as you say the big one, they're not wondering about an ice cream scoop, they're not wondering about a burrito.
Speaker 1:No, they know what you're talking about. It is the big one, by the way.
Speaker 2:Oh man, there used to be a mexican restaurant, I think it was in big bear or something, and they had a burrito called the big one and I was like that's the greatest idea.
Speaker 1:Was it good? Did you have one?
Speaker 2:of course it was good, I don't remember, but I know any burrito is good. You ever had a bad burrito in california?
Speaker 1:not california. I was gonna say any california burrito. The floor of a california burrito is great, okay. So the big one, though, is talked about um, because it's just something we know, it's something that's kind of in the atmosphere and I have a very, very vivid memory.
Speaker 1:so my family would go away every summer for about three weeks because my most of my family's in michigan, as you've discovered on this podcast and right um, so that was a very important place to us and my parents were there. I'm sorry. My grandparents were there, my aunts and uncles are there. It's where we went and I remember at one, one age it probably hopes age, to be honest, maybe 10, old enough to be aware, but young enough to still, like, not really understand the world Actively having the thought oh, I hope the big one hits while we're in Michigan. Wow, no kidding, no Like. And I have a memory of I don't know if the news was on or something Hold, on, are you?
Speaker 1:making a sandwich right now. No, I'm just putting lotion on my hands.
Speaker 2:I couldn't tell All of a sudden in the screen Scott holds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like, is that a tub?
Speaker 2:of mayonnaise that you're squirting onto some bread Okay.
Speaker 1:That's nuts, that's nuts Sweet. So I watched him in some news program and it being like, oh, is this the big one, is that what happened? And my dad's like, no, you know whatever happened. Oh okay, oh man, it wasn't that. So that is the extent, I would say, of the way earthquakes impact Californians.
Speaker 2:Okay, so most people from California, though, do know a lot about earthquakes. Of course, I would think so. I'm going to Now I maybe have an unfair advantage because before I completed my degree in landscape irrigation science, aka sprinklers yeah, I was a major in geology and then I switched it over to sprinklers and now you do software sales. So it all it all comes together all lines up brilliantly so what year was the famous san francisco earthquake do?
Speaker 1:you know um. So this is where sports helps me, because I know the world war series was happening.
Speaker 2:Yes, what an iconic yeah, the 60s?
Speaker 1:I don't know, that's 1989 just shut up. It was that late, but 60s you were alive, scott. No, well, see, I thought it was significant, but then that means it's really close to the Northridge earthquake, because that was 94, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, oh good, that was my next question. We had two in five years, so there was a period where we're like whoa and I also remember as a child, because you and I are seven, eight years old. Yeah.
Speaker 1:We're right there.
Speaker 2:There was a period in kind of the late 80s to mid 90s where there were a lot of earthquakes going on, so we had 1989. Big ones, big ones. So San Francisco it was like a 6.3. The Bay Bridge collapsed part of it. That was very famous. It happened during the World Series, so there was footage at Candlestick Park, yep and there was a big crack in the stadium or something like that.
Speaker 1:They stopped the game. I mean, it was a thing, yeah. And then Northridge.
Speaker 2:And then Northridge five years later, which is kind of a northern suburb of Los.
Speaker 1:Angeles. So north south of California, yeah, southern California Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that was about this. It was like a 6.5 or 6.7 or something, so it was about the same size to to us in torrance, it was like.
Speaker 1:I remember it.
Speaker 2:I remember there's because the earthquakes are loud, it's like a banging, and it depends because they're just different kinds, but I remember that one, it was like a banging and then you know everything shook like some yeah, it was like four banging. And then you know everything shook like some yeah, it was like four in the morning. Stuff fell off shelves by us everyone's awake about the extent of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my uncle, my uncle or great uncle, um, my grandfather's brother, whatever that is to me. He lived out in um is winneka town or he lived off of win wanaka. Anyways, he lived off the, off the 101, kind of near where north which is, and I think he had some more damage, like his chimney fell down and stuff like that. But no, and it, but that was. But again these were big, big earthquakes and really it was like yeah, like it was scary, but and it and and it impacted the people.
Speaker 1:It was right under. There was one that happened I know closer to where emily lives in the last 10 years, because the church that they were at actually got impacted and they couldn't like go anymore and I had to move buildings. So there's definitely impacts, but yeah, here's the thing. So let's just pause for a moment. What natural disasters have you experienced, andrew? Earthquakes, done?
Speaker 2:You personally. Earthquakes Done the only other one and I want to come back to earthquakes for a second, because I feel like I just sort of minimized how scary they are. And of course we've seen large earthquakes around the world where it's devastating.
Speaker 1:We've seen large earthquakes around the world where it's devastating, and I remember Okay, let's not move off that. I think the point that we're making is is that, yes, and they've devastated parts of the neighborhood, we've been through big shaking, but we are not actively living under the terror of earthquakes.
Speaker 2:I think I am now, because now that we've talked about it, I'm like oh boy.
Speaker 1:He talked himself back into it.
Speaker 2:No, because I'm like oh, here we just talked how much, it's not a big deal, and now the Earth is going to be like I'll show you.
Speaker 1:Oh right, I see we're pissing it off, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:I'm very.
Speaker 2:Earth as I look at the mountains that were formed by the San Andreas Fault.
Speaker 1:In the distance, it is very powerful and I was wondering, as you were speaking, because it is something that impacts our life. When it happens, you go whoa, the difference and the reason I pivoted to. What have you experienced? So I've experienced tornadoes in Alabama. I think it technically was a Category 1 hurricane when it hit Birmingham, but it was maybe a tropical storm by that point. You had a hurricane. We had a hurricane here last summer Remember that August, but that was a hurricane.
Speaker 2:That was a hurricane, do you remember? Do?
Speaker 1:we have a quake in the middle of it.
Speaker 2:Last July yeah, Last July it was all this big news California's getting a hurricane. We never get hurricanes. Are they called hurricanes in the Pacific?
Speaker 1:They are, it's the monsoons. That's in Asia. They're the same thing in Asia, but I don't think. But they're hurricanes.
Speaker 2:Still they call it a hurricane. When it came up, yeah, Last summer big news hurricane, I think it did some pretty significant raining flooding in San Diego. I remember I was supposed to fly to Dallas and my flight got canceled because of the hurricane. By the time it actually got here, it was like a light rain. But at the same time there was a small earthquake, and so then that was the news. It was like it was a hurricane.
Speaker 1:That's a good name, the big one. The reason I think that was we have so many mountains and they spin counterclockwise right, and so I think that it came up have so many mountains and they spin what they spin counterclockwise right, and so I think that it came up and it all got beat up in the mountains. So actually, emily's- area El Centro on that side of the mountains. They got more hurricane-y, they had more winds and rain and by the time it spun around to our side, I think it died out.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, well, because they can't go on after they hit land because there's no water to suck up.
Speaker 1:There's no water to suck up.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker 1:I experienced a hurricane, I experienced tornadoes and I was in Alabama during one of the worst tornado storms I don't know how to quantify it In the last 100 years. Whatever it was, it was big and a lot of people died 350, some people died, billions of dollars of damage and I had never experienced something where it actively interrupted so much of our life. The whole state was trying to get power to different places. I was without power for a little while. I drove down to another city where they were really without power and we knew some people there picked them up, brought them back to our house so they could spend the night because they had a little baby, and we were trying to figure out chainsaws to cut down trees, to open up roads.
Speaker 1:I mean, the devastation that happened in 12 hours was just, it was really really I don't know the right word impactful, important, and I think the difference is having experienced both of those, because they both are hard and so I mean natural disasters. It's weird when the earth turns against you, right, I think the difference against you, right, I think the difference is you. So they knew that storm was coming. There's a really famous meteorologist called James Spann in Alabama, and when he takes his coat off and rolls up his sleeves, you know he's going to be on air for 14 hours talking about things and just going. They were saying it was like you know, when, jane, there's a memes when Jane Spann rolls the sleeves up like get ready Alabama.
Speaker 2:Just it's coming.
Speaker 1:Oh boy, yeah. And the he was saying tonight's going to be bad. We woke up to something that was already like we had a little light storms and it knocked down some trees in our neighborhood. And he's like tonight's going to be bad because all of the things that line up for tornadoes are happening tonight.
Speaker 1:Where the jet stream is the barometer level, there's like five yeah, yeah so we were all living in this moment of like oh boy, once these things line up over alabama, it's going to be bad and it was bad. You don't get that experience with earthquakes, that's the thing.
Speaker 2:That's the thing. Hurricanes and tornadoes. You have, yes, some warning earthquake and it's a momentum to it which is why it feels.
Speaker 1:For me, being a californian, it feels more scary because you're watching the news and you're going look at that thing on the radar that's coming at us.
Speaker 2:Well, it seems like, yeah, it seems like, with tornadoes, like your parents too. I don't know if there's like, yeah, well, tornadoes, but you know they. They just hit random spots and so chances are you're gonna be fine, whereas the thinking around an earthquake is it's everything like if the earth shakes, then everything on that earth is destroyed, and we've all seen that. Well, we've seen areas where that is true, right, where, like in um yeah, where?
Speaker 2:what was the? The big one? There was one in turkey and morocco not that long ago and like complete and utter devastation of everything, and so that's what people have in their mind, I think. But like in a tornado sense, it's like, well, it could hit the neighbor's house and ours could be fine. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I guess, unless it's really big, then it could yeah, well, and that is one of the weirdest things about um the tornadoes is, is that you have this one spot where it is horrible, and so the neighbor's house is gone and your roses are still standing yeah, that's weird, it's like that's weird and oh, I thought of another one driving to yeah, keep going, no, no
Speaker 1:you're driving on the road and on the freeway. It's like tree, tree, tree, as the south is, you know, just thick with trees, nothing. This swatch and you can measure from here to here. That's how, why the tornado was that's so weird that's how many. It's so weird, well, and so I think that that part of it is different. So maybe we just live with this like underlying anxiety not, I don't say anxiety because, again, we don't think about them here, I don't we just live with this reality of like sure, and what are you gonna do about it?
Speaker 1:you can't prepare the best. You can have some water and some food, so if worse comes to worse, you're, you're ready the funny thing is do you have earthquake insurance?
Speaker 2:No, of course not. I don't think anybody has it. Every year with your homeowner's insurance comes this really scary letter that says you are not covered for earthquake damage. No insurance company offers that, except for this one insurance company that all they do is earthquake insurance. I think it's the state. I think it's the state. Is it the state? Yeah, I think, and like, everybody, just throws that in the trash as far as I know maybe I'm wrong, but I'm like, I'm not paying for that you know a lot
Speaker 2:I'm like my house has been here for 60 years, right like maybe this is a dumb way of thinking about it, but I'm like it's probably gonna be fine well, and if there's no quake right underneath your house, it's gonna be bad, but if the earthquake's epicenter is a mile away, you'll probably be okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so it is really interesting because the amount of anxiety that comes from outside the state inn and I looked at the people who live through tornadoes and, as I lifted them, being like that's worse that's what I think.
Speaker 2:That's what started this whole conversation, because I'm like, if I'm gonna choose, okay, I'm gonna live in a place that has earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes we forgot wildfires but you kind of know where those are gonna be. I know that's interesting, but we've had some fires here in california that, oh yeah, I live near yorba linda.
Speaker 2:There was fires that went through yorba linda several years back and that just wiped out, and anaheim hills and um that whole area, so but yeah, I mean, as a californian I'm like I'll take earthquakes all day long, every day versus wildfires is the two that we have to deal with.
Speaker 1:We don't get the hurricanes or the tornadoes and I definitely had my life impacted more by tornadoes than by any other natural disaster. I lived through, like you said, big earthquakes, but the tornadoes and that, like watching the storm come and knowing it's going to come, and being in the basement and Emily and I wondering okay, you know watching the news Is this? Do we get Grace out of bed right now? Is this worth waking her up and bring her downstairs? Is it coming this direction or not? Does it always come at like 10 o'clock at night? You know it's never a convenient time. Yeah, it's a convenient time to have a tornado.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about 11 am and then, yeah, and then, and then ice stuff too, you know, oh sure, yeah, like that all the, the things that happened in texas a couple years ago, and then that one big thing in atlanta where the cities aren't ready for it, and that one where the everybody was just abandoned or that was stranded.
Speaker 1:That was what I I fed 150 people that day, because they were just stuck in their cars and just walked into the church. I I have never been as impacted by the earth as when I lived in the south. Is what it comes down to? Interesting, right, like, and every. I think that's. I think that's what we're coming to is the question we get in coming to California. Is that what you said? What about earthquakes? Yeah, I don't think about earthquakes.
Speaker 2:I.
Speaker 1:I don't. I've lived through, as you just pointed out, 89, 94, these earthquakes, and yeah, they happened. My dental appointment got canceled. If for the. Northridge quake.
Speaker 1:I remember that because we had a disappointment score yeah, exactly red um, and that was like the impact of our day on that one, but it was a really. It just doesn't impact our, our every day, whereas those storms I I had ice where I had to feed people, we had the tornadoes where we had to move stuff, we had, I mean, flooding up in nashville where we tried to send clothes up there. It's like the earth in the south is just constantly saying don't live here, why do you live? Why are you?
Speaker 2:here yeah.
Speaker 1:I want you off of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how could I make it more clear? This is not intended for you. Please leave, I'm human. Okay, I'll send mosquitoes, I'll send mosquitoes no, you're still going to stay. Oh my gosh, how about dinosaurs? Right?
Speaker 1:Florida's good. I'm going to send dinosaurs. Yeah, florida's a good idea, florida.
Speaker 2:Louisiana. Yeah, I saw this show where they're like.
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm in Florida and I'm on some bluff. That's probably the highest spot in the whole state, emily, because it's like 150 feet tall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they can see everything from that bluff I can see those hurricanes coming from Africa. There it is, I know it really.
Speaker 1:It's really really interesting, and so I didn't. I was not impacted by the weather until I lived there, really, and so I guess that's what it is. Is that we, we do not consider earthquakes ever, and so not minimizing it because they've been horrible and we're not at all minimizing them, Do you I?
Speaker 2:think earthquakes are helpful for people.
Speaker 1:I can't wait for this thought to continue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't wait this thought to continue. Yeah, because I think people realize that where they live is quite miserable. Okay, okay, like tornadoes live in the south hot humid horrible, thick you live, you live up north. Cold, bitter winters, yeah right, just just the worst. Also humid, right Right, like, why don't you just move to California? Oh well, I don't want to move to California because they've got earthquakes, so I'm fine.
Speaker 1:just I can deal with my terrible weather, because I don't have earthquakes here and I'm like guys earthquakes are a big deal out here it could be. I think it helps. I think it's one of the things I think it helps.
Speaker 2:I agree Like oh well, you know I was going to leave Wisconsin, but you know earthquakes, so well, just going to deal with negative 40 today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, and a hurricane.
Speaker 2:We got better cheese.
Speaker 1:We do have great cheese curds that yeah so it is like just the ultimate um card, which is probably why we hear it all the time, because it's like spread. You know they put on the news. They're like don't move. California, guys, remember earthquakes?
Speaker 2:yeah, but then, they're like they, they get here. And they're like oh wow, these mountains are really great. You know how we got those earthquakes?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's not all bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I I know like I'll go places. I'm like oh, it's so beautiful and green. I wish it was green like that. And they're like you know why it's green? Because it rains every freaking day here.
Speaker 1:I'm like, ah true, these are the trade-offs. There's always a trade-off, yeah, okay, so as we close, let's just um what? Because you the question left unanswered. What have you experienced? Weather like natural disasters impacting your life, earthquakes?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, earthquakes, sure wildfires I have because we live. We live downwind from some natural area and so we've had it where you know it's hard to breathe and you get ash dropping all over your house and stuff, so some of that, but never, never in the threat of burning ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, praise the Lord. When I was in Alabama with you at that lake house, we had that really weird and you guys were like this is, this, is tornado. Like we had some windows open and or doors open and they slammed shut and like to try to open them, like the pressure was different in the house and outside of the house and like there was lightning and the sky was green, yeah, and then we drove around the lake like the next day, and I
Speaker 2:don't think we saw damage from that night like we know that there probably was a tornado somewhere that night. But then we were going and we'd see, that's right, beautiful lake house, beautiful lake house, leveled lot trees, I know, and it's just like what's that, and you were like that's a tornado, I'm like what. And just like you described, one house would be gone and the two next to it were fine. It's so bizarre. So so there's that. And then I I'm not even gonna say hurricane, because that hurricane last year was well, you know what? I got a flight canceled, so yeah, yeah, impacted your life yeah, but I also think that's like blizzard in florida.
Speaker 1:Who have you experienced a blizzard?
Speaker 2:I mean I've experienced snow, but like nothing where I was in danger more, more like all right it's snowing. It's going to be a great day of skiing tomorrow.
Speaker 1:I've experienced blizzard in so far as I think like, yeah, like in mammoth, where you can't see in front of your hand, in front of your face, like I've been that white yeah, maybe not hand, but like I think I was driving once and it was like those conditions and that was really scary driving that.
Speaker 2:Oh cause you couldn't see anything in the road is covered in snow. I think it was going like four miles an hour. It is scary.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is scary, yeah, yeah so. So we although I would say that, because we live in California, we are probably not the experts on this are. I think there's some good discoveries in there. The big one is is that the impact of it is when you can see it on the news, you know it's coming. I think there's a different level of anxiety, whereas we're just we're just um bouncing around, waiting and if it comes, yeah here we go yeah, and sometimes we had an earthquake a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 2:It's like a four or something, right, and I was like, oh, it's a little fun ride, yeah, like when you're here. And I know somebody who lives in Pennsylvania and they had that earthquake a few weeks back. Yeah, it was like, oh my gosh, we had this earthquake. It was a four point three and it sounded like this and they were talking about how scary it was. I'm like, oh, four point three, that's a a 4.3. And it sounded like this and they were talking about how scary it was. I'm like, oh, 4.3, that's a good one. Like that's pretty fun, like you felt that. And they're like what they're like, shouldn't you be scared? I'm like, ah, that's a good time. Like that's just a little like there's some excitement for your day something to talk about for everybody.
Speaker 2:Talk about your friends, everybody in california like immediately knows like, oh, oh, earthquake, usgsgov. Okay, where did it? Where's the epicenter? How deep was it?
Speaker 1:Okay, that was a pretty good one. Yeah, exactly that's why it felt like this and not that. Yeah, we become geologists very, very pseudo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all know Lucy Jones. Oh, she's going to get on TV, although we don't have live news, like we used to anyway. No, we don't.
Speaker 1:Okay, anyway, well, discovery, natural disasters together. That's what's shaking today? Oh man, you've had some good ones, juan. Oh well, shaken, you're on fire Big.
Speaker 2:Juan, yeah, I've got a lot of geology jokes if you ever want to hear them.
Speaker 1:You sure do Not good Any of if you ever want to hear them, you sure do Not. Good, that's fine, not good, okay, you have to do it, thank you.