On Supermoon Weekend, It's All about the Midnight Sun

So there's supposed to be this fantastic moon this weekend and tonight, a moon that works its magic on the tides and creates the largest bore tide of the year at Turnagain Arm.   The crazy bore tide surfers will be out there riding that wall of water that moves at 15 to 20 mph.

Another year, another bore tide.

Closer and brighter, they say about the Supermoon.  Would have been nice to have seen it.  Unfortunately, it hid behind clouds in this area.   For us in Alaska, though, it was upstaged by the sun--the Midnight Sun.

Tern Lake, 11 PM,  June 13, 2013.   Note the sun is still shining on the mountains.

Cloudy night.   I had to reduce the exposure a few stops to get a more accurate representation of the ambient light.

In Anchorage and Fairbanks, baseball games were played at midnight with no artificial light.  In Anchorage, it was two Alaskan teams, so no big deal.   But in Fairbanks, the locals played a team from San Francisco and I'll bet those guys were amazed.   The TV sportscaster was wearing sunglasses on the 10 o'clock news.

Officially, we had 19 hours and 21 minutes of daylight at the Solstice.  Unofficially, it just doesn't get dark.  Around two-ish in the AM, it's kind of twilighty.

I love it when tourists ask, "When does it get dark?"

That's a straight line I simply can't resist.

"September," I respond.

Don't look at my pathetic winter-killed lawn.  Look at the mountains in the midnight light.

Taken at midnight a few days before the Solstice when I remembered some droopy plants that needed water.

Sound odd?   Not to me, not after 65 years of living here.  This is normal for me, and I love it!  It makes up for all the darkness during winter.

At the Midnight Hour.

No flashlights needed.