Sunrise, sunset
posted in Alaska |
When OmegaDotter and I arrived here at the Final Frontier, August 2, sunrise was at 5:28 a.m. and sunset was at 10:38 p.m. Twilight was an hour earlier and an hour later. Essentially, we had light from 4:30 a.m. until 11:30 p.m., nineteen hours.
Today, sunrise was at 7:30 a.m., and sunset will be at 8:10 p.m. (shortly).; the day is running thirteen hours, with an additional hour and a half of twilight. As the days get shorter, the time of twilight gets shorter, too.
(To get this information, I went to this handy-dandy sunrise-sunset calculator from the U.S. Naval Observatory.)
We are fast approaching the autumn equinox, the day when sunrise and sunset are supposed to be evenly spaced across the 24-hour day.
With the shorter days are coming chilly rains that deck the surrounding mountains with snow–halfway down their flanks on Monday morning, then melting back upwards, then a third of the way down today.
With the rain come winds. The inlet Big City is located on is receiving gale-force warnings on a regular basis, and when one looks at the satellite images there are large comma-shaped cloud patterns swooping around the state. A little tighter, and those cloud patterns would look very similar to hooricanes, so the wind warnings are no surprise. As it is, we get ongoing drizzle rather than downpours.
The winds are muted here Chez OmegaFamily; our house is in a small dip and thus sheltered, and word has it that where we live is a lot less windy than, say, the town where OmegaDad officially works, which is more towards the end of the inlet and at the foot of some mountains.
But still…it is raining leaves. Golden leaves tumbling on the breeze, fluttering downwards to splatter across our back yard and front yard. As the leaves sweep down from the trees, new views are revealed. Our drive to take OmegaDad to the office shows more and more of the local houses, which are, during the leafy season, hidden away.
(Why is it “our” drive? Um. There is currently one car for the Omega Household. When the insurance adjuster figures out the cost of the repairs to the old house due to the Huge Great Storm in Small Mountain University Town, and the relocation company decides to pull itself together to actually put the numbers into a calculator, we will be receiving the final dollar amount on our house sale to the relocation company, and will [hopefully] receive that amount fairly soon thereafter, minus the payoff of our old mortgage and minus the advance to put down on the new house. Then we will pay off the new car and purchase a nice-ish used car, and we will be a two-car household once again.
OmegaDad has become convinced that the relocation company is actually dragging its heels in hopes that we will get an offer on the house and they won’t have to buy it. I am inclined to agree with him. But we have signed on the dotted line accepting their offer, contingent upon repair costs, and await only those estimates. Damn it.)
Anyway, each day a new vista shows itself. One day, the not-so-distant mountains are mostly gold and red and green, with grey rocks topping the autumn colors; the next, dazzling white snow drapes those same mountains down below the vegetation line. One day, we are driving through thick forest with no idea how many houses there are; the next, a little log home peeps out between the leaves here, and a ranch peeps out there.
Like the length of the day, it’s ever-changing.
