I, like many, can't help but constantly quote the sunrise and sunset times up here at Latitude 65.  It creates shock and awe in the winter AND the summer.  For instance, I must share that today's times are:

Sunrise: 2:58 am
Sunset: 12:47 am

Makes for a short night, to be sure.  Just think of the poor souls doing pilot training and trying to fulfill their night hours requirement!

People ask me what the trick is to sleeping this time of year.  (In December, they asked me how we stayed awake past 4:00 pm!)  Personally, my summertime sleep tools include:

• eye shades
  
• cheap-but-effective paper window blinds in the bedroom (Home Depot)
  
• ear plugs (just to desensitize as much as possible)

My friend Kevin suggests: 1 bottle of vodka and 3 sleeping pills, but so far I haven't needed that!  The biggest nighttime problem is Luna--she is raring to go with all the daylight, and just won't sleep.  Doctor Bob recommends--I kid you not--Doggles, eye shades for dogs.  We may have to give them a try, or else dose her with Kevin's vodka and pills!

I enjoyed today's Letter to the Editor in the Daily News Miner.  Local resident Jude Henzler has some different thoughts about the sunrise and sunset.  Read on...

The Fairbanks air is thick with smoke from the numerous wildfires burning around the state.  Collin has been flying far and wide--dropping smokejumpers and paracargo--in an effort to keep things under some semblance of control.  By the numbers:

• 17,000 lightening strikes up here yesterday (as of this writing, 573 already today at 10:00 am)
  
• 188 active wildfires in Alaska
  
• 129 smokejumpers working statewide, including some loaners from the Lower 48 and Canada
  
• 12/2, which is Collin's duty schedule (twelve days on, two days off); he's currently on Day 7 of 12+ hour days

Below are some pictorials; click to enlarge.

Before the Parks Highway was completed in 1971, the only way to access Denali National Park by car was to take a roundabout way, which ended in a 91-mile stretch of two-lane, unpaved road.  God bless the souls of those who made that trek in old, bouncy school buses!

Today, the Denali Highway remains a public, dirt road connecting tiny Cantwell (population 183) and tinier Paxon (population 16) some 90 miles away.  It's great for people wanting to explore some beautiful country off the paved roads, and it's also supposed to provide unparalleled blueberry picking in the fall, so I just might have to return.  Here are some shots from our trip.