'Tis the Season

Yesterday was the winter solstice. Shortest day of the year. That doesn't mean much in the lower 48, usually. Here, it means a very short day indeed.

On December 20th, 2008, the sun rose in Dillingham Alaska at 10:27am. It set again at 4:37pm. Today, December 21st, 2008, sunrise was at 10:28am, and sunset will be at 4:37pm again. So, I guess, according to the US Navy anyway, today is actually the shortest day of the year.

Here are a few pictures taken at 10:30, 11:30 and around 1:00 today.

Not a whole lot of sun to be seen when it's cloudy and cold. It's 27 degrees here today.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from yesterday. Samara got up early and started cooking for the SAFE Christmas party. She made mashed potatoes and apple dumplings. I got up nice and late. It was well after sunrise. I went shooting, which was uneventful as usual. The snow pants Samara got me are great at keeping me warm, though.

Samara left to help do some of the last minute cooking at SAFE at around 3pm. I stayed home and made a fruit salad. I used six kiwis, four apples, four pears, and four Satsuma oranges, along with some lime juice and honey to make a really tasty fruit salad. I also packed up some cookies. I drove over to SAFE at around 4:45, just in time to help with some of the last minute setup for the dinner. The place got packed pretty quickly. There were around 80 people there, which was better than the turnout for the last potluck Samara did. It probably helped that SAFE was handing out its bonus checks to employees at this event. The highlight of the evening was Santa. He and Mrs. Claus turned up to take pictures and hand out gift bags for the kids. (In fact, Samara and Rose had stuffed gift bags the night before to help Santa out.) Samara snapped photos and I used a Kodak instant photo printer to print them out. Then Rose taped them into some foam Christmas photo frames that Samara had decorated. The cutest photos were the youngest kids, all of whom immediately started crying as soon as they hit Santa's lap.

At about 7pm, everything was wrapped up and cleaned up fairly well. Samara, Rose and I headed off to the Willow Tree bar for a drink. The Willow Tree is probably pretty typical of a remote Alaska bar. It's a single, fairly large room, with a bar at one end, a few tables, and some pool tables. Samara had to explain to the bartender how to make a Midori sour, but Rose was happy enough with a Corona. Those two drinks cost $12.50. At that early hour, there was hardly anyone in the bar. We sat around and watched TV at the bar for a little while, and then made it to the grocery store just before it closed. Let me tell you, folks--we're really living it up here in Alaska. Lots of excitement.

Okay... now one final note. I'll warn you now that this is another gory picture, like the beaver that Samara posted.

I went outside this afternoon and saw this outside our neighbor's house.

It's moose season again, and apparently our neighbor managed to bag one.

Weird, huh? More stuff that you don't normally see in the lower 48. But up here, 'tis the season.