Our Friend Ed & Family in the Philippines' Volcano Eruption

Thanks for the post Frankie55 ! Way too close in my opinion. Glad to hear that Ed & family are safe and sound.

Upside: We'll get to follow a new thread when Edward Neal gets back: 'Ed and the Volcano'.

update - Just to let everyone know we are all home and safe. Got in late last night and still adjusting to the time change

Other than the volcano everything went great and once we knew we had made it to a safer place we managed to cap the trip off with some fun

As epic as the volcano was for us I think it was much more amazing to finally get o see where my wife spent her childhood, hearing about it all of these years has been informative, but actually taking the 12 hour drive from Manila to go there and then spending some serious time to get to see it all gave me a new respect and understanding of how amazing the lady I am married to really is - I am one hell of a luck man to be blessed with her as my wife

I know it doesnt follow the "volcano" theme of this thread, but it was the important part of our amazing and unforgettable adventure. This was my third time to the Philippines and I am sure I will go many more times in he future, but this trip is going to be very hard to top especially with the exclamation point of being on a volcano when it unexpectedly decides to erupt

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know we made it home and that despite the interesting interruption (or perhaps I should say "inter-eruption" we had a very good and successful trip

Thank you all again for the thoughts and prayers - I love you all very much and thank God for having you as a part of my life

Oh - and just because this seems like as good of a place to put these as any here are some snaps from the Bicol region of the Philippines where my Sara was born and raised - some of the happiest and kindest people I have ever met and apparently no one ever told them that you need to have possessions to be happy - God bless them all

My granddaughter with a bunch of cousins she met for the first time

The elementary school where my wife's sisters and brothers went to school - By necessity my Sara quit school to support her family after the 4th grade right before they moved to this area so it was not her school

One of the houses my wife lived in along with several relitives

Many of the homes have little stores they run, this is one where a cousin lives

This is my wife's youngest sisters house and on the porch with my wife is her second youngest sister who came from Japan to visit

The view down the street in front of Saras sisters house - despite the extreme poverty notice how it is spotless I swear people even sweep the dirt - they may not have much, but they really take care of what little they do have

my youngest granddaughters getting a taste of what its like to have no running water and having to go out front to pump it and then take it inside when you need it

And I will cap this post off with this image - might have posted it before, but with the little boy on the bow hamming it up for the camera I just have to - this is the beach right behind my wifes sisters house, the people here make their money and feed their families mostly by fishing, there are several of these boats on the beach that they use. In the morning they go out a good distance off shore and stretch out huge nets (you can see it in the boat) then once the nets are out the people pull them back into shore - the people who go out in the boat and set the nets split 1/2 the catch and the people on shore who all pull in the nets split the other 1/2, they can then take what they need to eat and sell or trade the rest for other things - - As a side note I think my wife is almost as big of a ham as the kids -

just for reference this shows where we were staying in relation to the Taal Volcano

The red indicator is the Monte Vista subdivision where our Airbnb rental is located less that 2 miles from the edge of the lake and around 10 to 11 kilometers from the peak of the volcano - At this point in time they are still requesting a total evacuation out to 14km and are still issuing advisory warnings to people within 17km

The Taal lake is the oldest original crater from the original volcano formation and the island is where it formed a new cone in later eruptions and the current cone is in the center of the lake that is shown in this map - before this eruption it was a "volcano in a lake on an island inside another lake on a volcano" - from what I understand the center lake is no longer there

for those interested - The Latest Info

Just for kicks you might like this - Yesterday a reporter from our local ABC station came out and did an interview with my wife, daughter ad grandkids about our volcano adventure

Palm Springs family shares their Taal volcano experience in exclusive interview

I had no desire to be on TV so I took te dog on a nice long walk until they were done - with the exception of saying 11 miles when it should have been 11 kilometers I think it was pretty good - and my girls all did great