Boom!

Yesterday morning I was woken up by what I was sure was my first earthquake. The whole apartment shook. The windows were rattling. My bed was vibrating. It sort of sounded like a tree had fallen on the apartment, or a car had hit the building.

DS, as usual, had been up for some time.
Me, yelling from the bedroom: Was that an earthquake??
DS: I don't know. I think something fell on the roof.
Me: No way. Nothing could have fallen on the roof that hard. There's nothing above us.
DS: I don't think it was an earthquake.
Me: Well, it didn't sound like something hit the roof to me.
DS, pointing to the ceiling now that I'm in the living room: I think it hit right there.
Me: I don't believe you. I'm looking it up.

As it turns out, we were both wrong, though it was surprisingly hard to pinpoint the cause. It was actually the sonic boom of the space shuttle landing at the Edwards Air Force Base, which is roughly a 3 hour drive from here.

A sonic boom that big from an object that had been in space?! That's almost cooler than an earthquake*. Awesome. :)

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*I have always been very fascinated by natural phenomenon and disasters, and was very close to choosing meteorology as my major in college so I could be a storm chaser. So unless dying is involved, an earthquake would be sweet. I swear I'm not crazy.