Judy Larimore is a Sequim resident and photographer. Her work is on display at The Gallery at Fifth (500 W. Hendrickson Road) for the month of October.

Larimore’s work includes scenic views of the West Coast from Monterey and the Olympic Peninsula to Canada, plus some scenes from Utah canyons. (The Fifth is open daily, 8 a.m.-6 p.m.)

Larimore’s recent planned trip to northwestern Mexico resort town Cabo San Lucas got a significant detour after the town was leveled by Hurricane Odile in September.

“I guess the guy upstairs had other plans for me. I paid extra for the smaller version of my passport for my billfold. I stayed with my daughter and family in Redmond the night before the trip. She took me to the airport at 5 a.m. At the counter I was told that version of my passport didn’t cover flying. They sent me back to Sequim to get the other one. I did and I stayed all night with my family again.

In the meantime my friend, Ann, who was flying from California, was on one of the last planes to land before the hurricane hit. My time share, Grand Solmar, is on the front row of the beach so they sent Ann to another one farther back and told her to stay in the bathtub for the safest place to be.

She was there alone talking to me on the phone when it hit. She said, ‘You better get here tomorrow.’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’

I went to the Seattle airport at 5 a.m. again. Instead of telling me no, they sent everyone headed to Cabo from Seattle to San Diego and said they would tell us at 11 a.m. if we could go on. You can guess that they cancelled all flights after we got there.

I talked to Ann and she was safe. There was no damage to my time share except the loss of part of an infinity pool.

Now I was in San Diego and couldn’t get back to Seattle until 10 hours later. All the flights were full from Seahawks fans returning from the game the day before.

They said I had to pick up my big suitcase at baggage and I couldn’t leave it there. So I hired a cab, dropped off my suitcase at a hotel for storage and went to the San Diego Zoo. I got some great photos of the 2-year-old panda I thought I’d use in my October show at the Fifth Avenue Gallery.

I waited a long time to get the right shot only to see a sign at the end of the line. ‘Photographers, you can take all the photos you want, but you can’t sell them.’

The one good thing that happened when I got there after $25 for the cab, the one-day pass was $46 was when I said, ‘Don’t you have a senior price for a 74-year-old?’ She said, ‘Yes, it starts at 64, but I didn’t think you were that old.’ You won’t appreciate how much joy that gave me until you get to be my age.

Ann was in Cabo from Sunday through Friday, when she stood in line for seven hours in the sun waiting to get on a plane. She didn’t know where she would be going until she got on it. There was a line for Mexico cities and one for U.S. cities. She flew into Los Angles and a friend picked her up. She got home to the Morro Bay area the next day.

She said, ‘When are we going back to Cabo?’ I said, ‘Not during hurricane season.’ I want to give them next year to get it all cleaned up so we are planning on going to Hawaii in February for my 75th birthday.

We both had packed our snorkeling mask and fins to save money renting them. I told her they went all the way to Cabo and San Diego and never got in the water.”

Everyone has a story and now they have a place to tell it. Verbatim is a first-person column that introduces you to your neighbors as they relate in their own words some of the difficult, humorous, moving or just plain fun moments in their lives. It’s all part of the Gazette’s commitment as your community newspaper. If you have a story for Verbatim, contact editor Michael Dashiell at editor@sequimgazette.com.