This might be my longest post ever. Inspiration hit me this morning. I think I might have a black eye.
Last night was one of those moments that make me feel like a true Alaskan. As I stated in a previous post, I felt like a tourist yesterday. I woke up and saw Alaska through tourist eyes.
It was a crisp, sunny day. The air was sharp and cold, the sky was an insane mixture of 20 shades of blue (if you didn't know there were 20 shades of blue, now you know!) and there was not a single cloud to be found. The sun was ridiculously bright, birds were singing, and it felt like the world was Edwardified. Everything sparkled. The sunlight glittered off of the snow (yes, there is still snow on everything) and just made everything dazzle. I swear if I would have stopped and tried hard enough I would have heard angels singing in the distance. To say it was a beautiful day would be a massive understatement.
The drive to Fairbanks was GORGEOUS. Andrew was getting slightly annoyed at my requests for him to stop at every pullout for me to take pictures (there are approximately 14 pullouts on our 90 mile drive). I don't know if the sunlight made everything look clearer, or if my vision had a miracle change overnight, but I felt like I went from seeing the world on a tiny tube tv from the 80's to 1080p LED HD big screen. Everything was so crisp, clear, bright, and perfect. I was taking pictures of trees because suddenly they were more beautiful than ever before!
Fairbanks trips are usually exhausting because it's your only trip into civilization and you have to make every dollar count (gas dollar too). But we worked out a really good list and game plan ahead of time which made this trip relatively low-stress....a first in a long time. Maybe I'm getting over my anxiety for crowds. I didn't even freak out when we went into WalMart. Yes....I went into WalMart. (Keep in mind I live in a town of like 1000 people and then travel into Fairbanks where there's 40k....that's a 40,000% increase, lol....if I did my math right).
So if you're wondering when I'm going to get to the northern lights part, I'm going to RIGHT NOW :) We were driving home, and just like on Valentine's day it was only around 8ish, which is seriously an ODD time to see the northern lights. We're driving home and we see some glow in the sky...nothing super special. They are the usual green and white colors and not very bright. I keep my eye on them though because (well because Andrew is driving) they seem to be moving alot, which isn't very normal.
For about the next hour I watch as they get progressively brighter to the brightish greenish and whitish color you've seen in the photos we've taken. And this is nothing special to neither Andrew nor I, as we've seen lights like this a thousand times. But we pull over because they are quite literally taking up the whole sky for long periods of time. We've never seen them take up the whole sky for longer than a flash.
Here's the romantic part (lol), we're pulled over at what's called a transfer station. A transfer station is a parking lot of dumpsters for people to dump their trash. This is where we pulled over to watch the lights--haha!!
Imagine two columns of green light. One on the east side of the sky and one on the west. But these columns aren't straight up and down, they're slightly curved like a rainbow, and desperately trying to connect with each other, but there's a magnetic resistance that won't allow them to connect and light resistance shoots up and sparks are shooting off of that. That's what this particular display looked like. The colors weren't amazing, but the movement and amount of sky this was taking up was the best Andrew and I had seen....(up to that moment).
After about 10 minutes it died down. That's the thing with northern lights. You can't predict them very well. They flare up and get active, but just as quick as they flare up, they'll die back down too. So we continue on our drive and about 20 minutes later the sky is lit up again...only this time it's even better. It's brighter, more colorful, and involves more sky. Northern lights are literally everywhere. All around us, 360 degrees. Cars are pulled over on the side of the road, nobody is even bothering trying to drive. We pull over, our friend Lindsay who was driving behind us pulled over with us. We happened to pull over in a turn out by the Tanana River (much better than a transfer station, eh?) so we had an EPIC viewing spot for the lights.
I am going to tell you that everyone has had one of those moments where they say, "Ok God you can take me now, I'll die happy." I had one of those moments last night. Seriously. I even said it. I even said, "This is the kind of Northern Lights show you see in the movies. This might actually be better than the stuff they put in movies." And then I made noises I didn't even know I could make!!! Squeals, Oohs, Ahhs, Gasps, Screams, etc. Imagine crowd reactions at the BEST fireworks show and multiply that by a thousand, and that was me last night. I told you, I was on tourist mode. Even Andrew was giving me "The One Eye Brow" look.
Ok, so here's what I saw:
Pink, Purple, Green, White, Orange. The BRIGHTEST of the brightest lights. They were moving FAST. They were dancing. They took up the WHOLE sky. They made twisty, swirly shapes. They moved so fast I couldn't keep up with them at one point. They made a majestic pink and white fairy river, better than the one I talked about on Valentine's day. There was a green and white display that looked like a heart. I wanted to just boost up there and float in the candy lava fairy river. I wanted to reach up and lick the cotton candy swirls that were taunting my drooling mouth. I wanted to reach out one finger and point for ET's phone at the green electrifying currents that were pulsing through the sky to the beat of my heart. It was a majestic moment. An intense connection. I felt like a true Alaskan at that moment.
I almost felt like God should have come down and handed us an Official Alaskan Membership Card or something.
