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Morning comes softly ... and early
Have got to get curtains for the bedroom. There's a big window that faces south, which wasn't a problem during the winter, but now it's starting to get light by four and it's full light by 5 a.m. ... and it's waking me up. This morning I woke up at about 4 a.m. and laid in bed for an hour or so before giving up and getting up to ink RC pages. At least it's a weekend, so when the inevitable crash happens in the afternoon, I can just lay down and sleep for a couple hours.
I should have gone out to watch the sunrise this morning, since from now 'till fall the only times I'm likely to see sunrise are nights like this when I have a bad case of insomnia. The weather page says ... sunrise at 5:45 today, sunset at 9:55. The longer days are accompanied by correspondingly longer twilight periods. (The sun rises and sets very slowly at high latitudes compared to farther south. Sunrise/sunset last a long time before and after the actual event itself.)
In June in Fairbanks, the sun will dip briefly below the horizon after midnight for an hour or two. It won't get dark. Odd what a difference a few hundred miles makes .... Where I grew up, near Anchorage, even in the middle of June we still got a few hours of twilight at night.
There is something very high-energy about summers in Alaska. You go outside at 10 p.m. in the summer, and everyone else is outside too, walking their dogs or jogging or window shopping. A lot of businesses have extended summer hours because a lot of people shop at night. The Midnight Sun Run marathon takes place each year on, or near, the summer solstice at midnight.
Of course, there's a downside as well. Stargazing in Alaska is synonymous with "freezing your ass off". You can't see the stars in the summer. And 4th of July fireworks are nothing to write home about ... you can tell where the fireworks are by the noise they make, but that's about it. ;)
I should have gone out to watch the sunrise this morning, since from now 'till fall the only times I'm likely to see sunrise are nights like this when I have a bad case of insomnia. The weather page says ... sunrise at 5:45 today, sunset at 9:55. The longer days are accompanied by correspondingly longer twilight periods. (The sun rises and sets very slowly at high latitudes compared to farther south. Sunrise/sunset last a long time before and after the actual event itself.)
In June in Fairbanks, the sun will dip briefly below the horizon after midnight for an hour or two. It won't get dark. Odd what a difference a few hundred miles makes .... Where I grew up, near Anchorage, even in the middle of June we still got a few hours of twilight at night.
There is something very high-energy about summers in Alaska. You go outside at 10 p.m. in the summer, and everyone else is outside too, walking their dogs or jogging or window shopping. A lot of businesses have extended summer hours because a lot of people shop at night. The Midnight Sun Run marathon takes place each year on, or near, the summer solstice at midnight.
Of course, there's a downside as well. Stargazing in Alaska is synonymous with "freezing your ass off". You can't see the stars in the summer. And 4th of July fireworks are nothing to write home about ... you can tell where the fireworks are by the noise they make, but that's about it. ;)
No kidding!
(Anonymous) 2005-04-27 10:49 pm (UTC)(link)I know exactly what you mean, and you have just summarized in one short paragraph pretty much all of the major (minor?) complaints I had with Alaska while I was living there. Well, that and mosquitos. Living as I did in or near Anchorage, at least we had some of that fabled scenic splendor within easy viewing distance (the Chugach Mountains are absurdly picturesque from Anchorage) and minimal bugs, praise the Lord. The downside of living "so far south" was that we didn't see many episodes of northern lights. Ohhh, but the ones we saw were worth it!
-Sarah D in CA