Sweet Surrender

Finally. September has been exhausting. But finally after a day of blizzards, breaks of sun, and broken cloud cover, the clouds gave it up for a few hours with the exact right timing. More of this please.

Temptation

It’s 10pm, we’re trying to get far out of town to less cloud, and almost immediately above us the sky opens to stars everywhere. So we have no choice but to find the nearest driveway off the highway for a few minutes, and unfortunately the clear sky passes quickly, cloud again eats away at the aurora, and we continue on. It wasn’t a perfect night, but the aurora did break back through for a little dance.

190 Kilometres for Nothing

The additional 190 kilometres from where we ended up at 2am yesterday shouldn’t have been for nothing. It should have been everything. But, and I know you’ll be surprised, all our clear breaks forming at the northwest disappeared in about the hour and a half it took us to get up as far north as the highway would take us. So we followed clear breaks sitting some 40km off the highway almost all the way back to town where finally they began intersecting with the highway. Again, miraculously, the timing was about perfect.

The Long Game

We left town with adequate clear skies above us, so a long drive to put some distance between us and the approaching clouds wasn’t immediately necessary, but we were playing the long game tonight. An arc of aurora stayed right above us through our drive, and if you can’t escape into altogether clear skies, then this is the way to be. A cloud bank growing on the horizon, and an auroral break-up towering above, swirling and dancing. The perspective is beautiful.
Our timing was at the least, very, very fortunate - getting settled outside just a few minutes before she started to dance. Then as the aurora wound down some time later, the clouds covered us up making it an easy decision to begin the drive back home. It was a perfect script.

A Night to Expect Surprises

Something a little unexpected was in the sky as I was leaving the house. Against a moonlight flooded eastern sky, the aurora - already. Conditions were interesting, but it was a little surprising to me to see so much so soon. She didn’t wait long before forcing our hand in pulling just off the highway for a little while she danced with colour too. All the way until 3am, her surprises became more predictable and we ended to her dancing above hotels back in town.