Visitors and a lunar eclipse.

It’s not every morning you get to watch a Bald Eagle land in the tree next to your bedroom and hang out for a couple of hours. Later, a Raven found the breakfast bar out on the front deck. Plus a Penumbral Lunar Eclipse, so all-in-all, a pretty good morning.

An unexpected--and cold-- delight.

Kind of a surprise Auroral display late last night/early this morning. The auroral forecasts really didn’t look like much was going to happen, so it’s a good thing I checked outside around 9:30pm and saw a faint green band on the horizon. Got all geared up for the -10f temperatures and it turned out to be the best auroral of the season so far, even with the almost full-moon washing out the sky a bit. She really got active around 11:30pm for about one-half hour, with one strong burst that only lasted about 10 minutes. Gave up about 1am because I was getting worried about the tip of my nose ;) A fun, if chilly, night.

Baby, it's cold outside.

This is the first fairly long cold-snap we’ve had in years here in Anchorage. Below zero every night and just barely above zero up here in Bear Valley during the day. It’s been this way for the past week and is expected to last through the week. It’s clear, cold and sunny up here. Down in the Anchorage bowl today it was -14f as I drove past Campbell Creek Science Center. Thick sea-fog rising up off the Cook Inlet and filling the bowl in a blanket of white.