I got word a couple of days ago that Cliff and Co. would be coming home almost a week early. Which is always totally sweet! Yesterday, I received some phone calls with updates along his route, including a window of time and where to pick him up.
But before he landed, my excitement and anticipation turned to shock and sickness when I learned of the enormous earthquake that hit mainland Japan. Cliff was in the air at the time, and didn't hear the news until he was being transported by bus, from the base which they landed to the base at which I was supposed to pick him up. By then, we were under tsunami warning, and I was afraid that since the pickup point was at sea level, that he was going to get stuck in some kind of holding pattern.
Luckily, the pickup went almost as scheduled, just delayed a bit waiting for baggage to clear customs (but nothing can go totally smoothly with military movements. It's against the rules...so we had no complaints.)
After a quick kiss, Cliff loaded his gear into Apollo, and we headed for home. While we were driving along one of the busiest streets on the base...this is what we saw:
No, this is not a normal occurrence. Ducks do not usually walk down this street. Not ever.
They certainly don't try to cross the road. Then Cliff reminded me of accounts of animals fleeing areas where tsunamis are due to hit, which made perfect sense and totally freaked me out. Thankfully, it was a false alarm. The tsunami waves were only a few feet down here and caused no damage. We only wished this were true for all of Japan. At this point, we had no idea how bad things were. No idea at all.
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