Friday, about 6:30 p.m., Tom and I were sitting in the RV. We had just finished supper after another busy day at the Castle.  Everything was quiet as it usually is at the compound – even on a Friday night.  Suddenly there was a booming noise and the RV started shaking.  We looked at each other and listened for the wind that usually accompanies the shaking RV.  No wind at all – at which point we realized that we were experiencing our first earthquake in Death Valley.

We joined the other RVers and the people in the apartments outside – something like that naturally draws us outside and together.  All of us agreed that it was an earthquake and we talked for little while about other earthquakes we had experienced.  I think we were also waiting to see if there were going to be aftershocks or another quake.

When nothing else happened, we all returned to our homes and resumed our normal activities.  Saturday when we went in to work we found out that it was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake, which is a light earthquake felt by everyone but with no damage.  The epicenter of the earthquake was just 11 miles from our compound.  Our earthquake even made the news!

Saturday morning at work we got a call from the Death Valley Law Enforcement office.  They were concerned about the park employees living at Grapevine compound so they were sending a Law Enforcement officer up to check on us.  We thought it was pretty funny:  if they were so concerned, why did they wait 14 hours to send someone up to check on us?

Death Valley was created by seismic activity and our compound happens to be along one of the major faultlines, so we might experience another earthquake while we are here.  This was the best kind of earthquake to have – mild enough that it doesn’t cause any damage, but strong enough to be a good story.