Northern lights

So last night, while attempting to have a good conversation with a friend who I don't get to talk to much anymore (on the phone), there was a knock at my door. It was my neighbor telling me the northern lights were amazing and did I want to go out and see them. I hemmed and hawwed... I really didn't want to hang up the phone, so I told her, maybe I'd step outside later. Two minutes later, her fiance is banging on my door... am I coming? So I said my goodbyes, geared up for an extended period outside and grabbed my camera, a tripod and some spare batteries.
We drove over the hill to get away from the lights of town... and WOW! The Northern lights were out in all their glory, from horizon to horizon they filled the sky, dancing to the music of the wind. It was the kind of thing you could never photograph properly, they were moving too fast. And they looked so white, with a hint of various colors running through them. At one point it looked like there was a rainbow flexing and dancing through the sky. Another part was bars of color lighting up like piano keys being struck. My camera batteries survived the cold a lot longer than I thought they would! And much as I thought the neighbor's much more expensive camera was going to leave mine in the dust for pictures... I think I actually like the ones I took better. Though really, there's only a few keepers out of all the ones I took, and the same for their pictures. I'm posting my favorites...

And I think next time I do that, I'm going to need some thin gloves that fit under my thick gloves, so my hands are protected from the cold when I need the big gloves off to fiddle with the settings on the camera.

On another note, I managed to get rather sick last week. Just as I was feeling a bit better from the head cold I had, I came down with one of the nastiest cases of Gastroenteritis (Stomach Flu) I've had in years! I couldn't leave the bathroom for a few hours the day I got it... because the couch was just TOO far away! Quite glad that's over with. The docs in town are saying that there's a really nasty version of Gastro going around town. So of COURSE all the nurses are coming down with it, because they keep admitting patients who have it and then we catch it.

Sunrise: 06:53am Sunset: 18:33 (6:33pm) Almost 12 hours of sunlight now!!! It's nice walking to work when the sun's up!
Today's low: -24C high: -18C (-39C with windchill this morning)