Lights, Camera, Action!

 As you know, our first night of aurora chasing had its 'not to be repeated' excitements!

Undaunted, Sue, Leslie, and I headed out on Monday evening, seeing clear skies, cold temps, and good possibilities for aurora.  Jeanne kept the home fires burning back at the lodge, viewing aurora from there.

We made sure we had gear, sleeping bags, cell phones, and our wits about us.

We drove north on the Elliot Highway.  Yes, street signs do give you a flavor of just where you are at the moment.

 The Elliot Hwy heads north of Fairbanks,  and connects to the Dalton Hwy at about mile 83.  400 miles more of gravel road on the 'haul road'  takes you to Prudhoe Bay, and the Arctic Ocean.
We only went about 30 miles north, sobered by the sign that said:  Next services 138 miles.  Really.
Parked the car.  Waited.  And the show began!

 What we saw were whitish clouds, slightly green, but this is what the camera recorded.  Yes, that Ursa Major, the Big Dipper.  Is that not cool!?

We drove to several spots, finally landing at Wickersham Dome, (the destination of our first night,             never reached!)

For these photos, I set up the camera on the little tripod Earla gave me, set it to F2.8, ISO 1600, 15sec shutter, and just snapped away.  Hey, the details are important, you never know when you may need this information.  I had only learned these settings that morning in the lodge, from a sweet young man from Seattle, whose aurora photos would knock your socks off.  And that's not a small thing in Alaska, to have your socks knocked off!

 The sky was constantly changing.

 From Northern Lights Centre:

WHAT ARE NORTHERN LIGHTS?

The bright dancing lights of the aurora are actually collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun that enter the earth's atmosphere. The lights are seen above the magnetic poles of the northern and southern hemispheres. They are known as 'Aurora borealis' in the north and 'Aurora australis' in the south..
Auroral displays appear in many colours although pale green and pink are the most common. Shades of red, yellow, green, blue, and violet have been reported. The lights appear in many forms from patches or scattered clouds of light to streamers, arcs, rippling curtains or shooting rays that light up the sky with an eerie glow.

WHAT CAUSES THE NORTHERN LIGHTS?

The Northern Lights are actually the result of collisions between gaseous particles in the Earth's atmosphere with charged particles released from the sun's atmosphere. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The most common auroral color, a pale yellowish-green, is produced by oxygen molecules located about 60 miles above the earth. Rare, all-red auroras are produced by high-altitude oxygen, at heights of up to 200 miles. Nitrogen produces blue or purplish-red aurora.

 And the show got better and better.......

We got in and out of the car, taking turns warming up, taking pictures.  Should we go now?  No, look, there it is again!  Your turn to get out.  And always, always, always, making sure a window was wide open, so we would have no repeat of our locked car episode.  At this site, we didn't even have cell phone coverage!

The colors really do dance across the sky, ripples of light dancing.  SkyDances........

There was a point at which we had to make ourselves go back to the lodge.  And found to our delight, the show wasn't over!
Ben, this photo is for you.  Although there was some blurring, as I had the zoom feature on, check out the reflection of the power plant and the lights in the Chena River below..........
And there's our winter pal Orion hanging out above............

 This photo was taken from the deck of our log cabin lodge, looking over the garage and main lodge.

 My last photo was about 2am, when I finally had to concede to fatigue and cold.

There are  those people who stay all the way through the movie credits, and are surprised sometimes with a added bit of movie from the producer.

For those of you who have read all the way through this blog,  our surprise is not an ending. 

 It's a new beginning.

Under the Aurora Borealis,

 in Alaska, 

Leslie  asked me to marry her, 

and I said yes (after I stopped crying).  

Put a ring on my finger.

How lucky am I!?!?

Martha has happily given us her blessing, and Facebook, with a life of its own, put a post on that Leslie was engaged (she changed her profile to 'engaged", not knowing Facebook's  procedures).  I would call each and every one of you, but I have very little voice, on day 9 of a URI that began on the plane to Seattle.  So here you go.  The word is out.  

A reasonably long engagement is anticipated.

And yes, good news, we are going to continue to blog.       

Written here on Hudson Drive, in our very own home, Auntie Em.  

There's no place like home, eh?           RJ

Hmmmmm, did I say that already?  Oh well...........  xo