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Imagine the worst place you've ever been, and take away the sun
I have SLEPT. And slept, and slept some more. Got about 10 hours yesterday, and last night I went to bed at 10pm (much earlier than usual) and just now got up. I spend so much of my life running on not-quite-enough that it just feels SO GOOD to do this.
I noticed yesterday that the sun, in the middle of the day, shines on the bottom end of the driveway. SQUEE! I walked the dogs down there to get in on some of that sunshine action. I was enthusing about this to O., whereupon he pointed out that the driveway is 3/4 of a mile long and the sunshine still has a ways to go before it makes it to the yard. (For those who don't know, there is a fairly large hill directly south of us. In the winter, when the sun barely clears the horizon, this means that we get no direct sunlight on our property from about November to February.)
I swear, Fairbanks is like this abusive boyfriend and we are all totally Fairbanks' bitch. Just listen to Fairbanksans talking about the weather in January: "It warmed up to 20 below! I couldn't believe it, it was awesome!" "The sun actually shone on my house for five minutes!" You know, in most other parts of the world, these things which cause joy in Fairbanks would be cause for the darkest pits of despair, or possibly a sign of the coming apocalypse.
People in Fairbanks are probably the most weather-positive people that you will ever meet anywhere. You really don't hear Fairbanks people griping about the weather at all. Possibly because no matter how bad it gets, they know it can get worse (having seen it) and when it DOES get that bad, they're all too busy trying to survive the month of 60 below to complain about it. Then it "warms" up to 40 below and they're ecstatic.
It's all a matter of perspective, really ...
I can't believe we're nearly through the seriously cold time of year and we've only had one spell of a few days that it got anywhere near 40 below. You do realize, you newbie Fairbanks people, that the entire month of January and much of December used to be like that? The last couple of years have been, dare I saw it, AWESOME. And here I go with the being Fairbanks's bitch thing again, because most people in most parts of the world would not consider two months of 0 degrees and no sun to be anywhere remotely near "awesome". But when you're expecting it to be 50 degrees colder and then it's not ... Yes. Awesome.
Of course last year waited 'till the end of January to drop the 50 below bombshell on us. I was conveniently in Kodiak for that. Hee! But the weather forecast doesn't show insanely cold weather coming our way in the next week, and honestly, once you get to the end of January, even if it *could* get -40 (which it can), it probably won't stay that way for very long.
The quote at the start of this post, by the way, is from a book talking about Fairbanks, and is probably the most wonderfully, amusingly appropriate way of describing the town that I've ever heard.
I noticed yesterday that the sun, in the middle of the day, shines on the bottom end of the driveway. SQUEE! I walked the dogs down there to get in on some of that sunshine action. I was enthusing about this to O., whereupon he pointed out that the driveway is 3/4 of a mile long and the sunshine still has a ways to go before it makes it to the yard. (For those who don't know, there is a fairly large hill directly south of us. In the winter, when the sun barely clears the horizon, this means that we get no direct sunlight on our property from about November to February.)
I swear, Fairbanks is like this abusive boyfriend and we are all totally Fairbanks' bitch. Just listen to Fairbanksans talking about the weather in January: "It warmed up to 20 below! I couldn't believe it, it was awesome!" "The sun actually shone on my house for five minutes!" You know, in most other parts of the world, these things which cause joy in Fairbanks would be cause for the darkest pits of despair, or possibly a sign of the coming apocalypse.
People in Fairbanks are probably the most weather-positive people that you will ever meet anywhere. You really don't hear Fairbanks people griping about the weather at all. Possibly because no matter how bad it gets, they know it can get worse (having seen it) and when it DOES get that bad, they're all too busy trying to survive the month of 60 below to complain about it. Then it "warms" up to 40 below and they're ecstatic.
It's all a matter of perspective, really ...
I can't believe we're nearly through the seriously cold time of year and we've only had one spell of a few days that it got anywhere near 40 below. You do realize, you newbie Fairbanks people, that the entire month of January and much of December used to be like that? The last couple of years have been, dare I saw it, AWESOME. And here I go with the being Fairbanks's bitch thing again, because most people in most parts of the world would not consider two months of 0 degrees and no sun to be anywhere remotely near "awesome". But when you're expecting it to be 50 degrees colder and then it's not ... Yes. Awesome.
Of course last year waited 'till the end of January to drop the 50 below bombshell on us. I was conveniently in Kodiak for that. Hee! But the weather forecast doesn't show insanely cold weather coming our way in the next week, and honestly, once you get to the end of January, even if it *could* get -40 (which it can), it probably won't stay that way for very long.
The quote at the start of this post, by the way, is from a book talking about Fairbanks, and is probably the most wonderfully, amusingly appropriate way of describing the town that I've ever heard.
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People don't seem to believe me when I tell them this, but in a lot of ways a winter at -40 is easier to deal with than a 30-degree winter. The roads are hardly slick at all and we get very little snow. And, yes, the F and C temperature scales cross, which is all kinds of fun.
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