The Longest Day of the Year

Since we spent so much time moaning about the dark winter months, we thought we should give credit where credit's due. Today, on the summer solstice, the sun officially rose at 4:32am and set at 9:40pm.

It was kind of cool to see this on the longest day of the year, a little mystical in a way, right outside our front window. This shot is from right around 10:00pm.



The whole story can't just be told though by sunrise/sunset times as that only says when can you actually see the sun. I think the more impressive times are when you look at dawn and dusk which is the time it actually is light outside. Today, dawn was at 3:38am and dusk was 10:35pm giving you a whopping 18 hour and 57 minute day.

This photo was taken at 11:15pm and as you can see the sun is still not wanting to yield its reign.



You'll have to forgive me for not waking up at 3am to show you that the sun is trying to come back already.

All this daylight does have some disadvantages though. I hate going to bed when it's still daylight out (probably a holdover from when I was a kid fighting to stay up past bedtimes). And it also kind of sucks when you get woken up by the blinding sun and it's only 5:10 in the morning.