Daylight in Alaska and the Ever-Changing View

The viewing deck here at the Diamond M Ranch is always changing.  A few days ago, mist gently moved across the wetlands, completely obscuring the mountains and almost everything else.  The way the sun played across the wisps of fog was gorgeous.  I hear that Blair has been told to move his Nordic Trak out of the main office room, but he loves the view there so much that he hasn't been able to do it yet.  Nothing beats working out in the morning to the ever-changing Alaskan scenery... 

Speaking of scenery, here's a sunset picture taken from one of our Main Street Suite rooms.

One of the interesting things about being an Alaskan is the way the sun moves across the sky.  In the dead of winter, the sun seems like it peeps over the edge of the mountains, just long enough to decide that it's way too cold to stay long, and then dips back down to warmer regions.  In the summer, though, the sun stays...and stays...and stays, coming up early in the morning and not going all the way down until after midnight.  (This means that the ideal windows for my houseplants in the winter are not at all ideal in the summer.  Ha.  No matter.  We just play "musical plants" every six months, and it all works out okay).  

We all get accustomed to the rhythms of the light, so it rarely bothers Alaskans, but newcomers to the state often take a year or so to adjust.  "How do you sleep in the summer time, with all that energizing light?"   Sleep?  We've got a gorgeous Alaskan summer in front of us---salmon to catch, berries to pick, clams to dig, gardens to plant, beaches to walk, barbeques to enjoy---and we want to enjoy every last minute of it!  We'll catch up on sleep come winter...