Sky, I'll take our earthquakes over your hurricanes any day of the year! Our earthquakes, on the average, don't begin to do the damage that your hurricanes do.

Many years ago, my first husband and I travelled to Illinois. Tornadoes followed us through Oklahoma and we experienced a tornado first hand while attending the horse races in Illinois. No, thank you! The anticipation, the warnings, etc. are killers! Tornadoes are also over in a matter of minutes, just like earthquakes, but with earthquakes, there is no anticipation. It's here, it's gone and it's over.

Since 1986, we've only had two really bad earthquakes in California; one in San Francisco and one near Los Angeles. I'll take those odds any day! So we have brush fires... I helped fight one off on my property, but I'll take that, too, rather than hurricane after hurricane.

There is nature to condend with anywhere you go, but nature isn't always raging. She expresses herself more gently in places... like in Oregon, right now. LOL Mt. St. Helen's is about to blow again! I'm glad it's my middle son that will condend with the ashes rather than me. It will teach him to abadone me! Nah... just kidding.

Oh! And as for Paradise... we usually get a lot of rain during the winter months here, so Spring is particularly spectacular! In west Texas where I grew up, there wasn't anything to turn green when it rained so the first time I saw California "in the merry month of May," I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. LOL (Plus I was in love for the first time in my life.)

Ok... so much for rambling on and on about Mother Nature. hehe