A check in from winter

The weather from town tonight steadily improved over the half hour or so we drove, from mostly cloudy in town out to mostly clear further out east. It was, to contrast just a few nights earlier, cold cold. It was an immediate parka night, hood up as the wind blew steadily all night. I switched quickly to thicker mittens with separate liners, and it’s in those moments I wonder how I’m ever going to survive the next 6 months. But somehow these humid, windy nights just below freezing always felt so much worse than the -30s of January. I just hope it’s true again this year.

Our patience out in this wind was not at all in vain. As the hours passed, the aurora danced and filled the sky with greens, purples and pinks. It was everything you hope for, everything you wish for everyone to experience. Magic.