The Northern Lights

Greg is on the email alert system for "Aurora Watch". Doesn't that sound super professional? Yeah, so he has gotten some "red alerts" in the past but we just haven't gone because of either being tired or it being too cold or not wanting to wake the children up or a million other reasons. But the time to leave Canada is looming and we figured that if we didn't go this Winter, we would always regret it. (It is too light in summer to really get a good view.) Anyway, so we woke the kids up at like 11:45 and got them all bundled and settled into the car and then proceeded to drive away from the city lights with no real destination in mind. After about 20 min. of driving, we saw our first burst of green light. It was so cool. We finally pulled off onto a country road and pulled over to set up our camp. I say "camp" because the kids didn't really want to get out of the car because they were tired and it was cold so they stay bundled up in their carseats and we opened the door. Well, that's not true, Gavin wanted to get out but he wouldn't keep his hands and feet covered in the blanket I had him wrapped in and he kept pulling off his hat so he was super cranky from being cold or cranky from us not letting him crawl around the car. We finally got home and everybody to bed by 1:30. Man, were we ever tired!

We knew we wanted pictures but we weren't really sure how to pull it off. It was basically just a bunch of hit and miss. One of the problems was that Greg put our short tri pod on the roof of the car and the car occupants were moving around quite a bit and that threw us off a bit. Anyway, it was awesome and beautiful. See for yourself.

And here's a link to the website with more photos and here are some amazing videos somebody posted from that night. I like #11. You can see how the light just moves and dances around. Very cool.

We're excited to go again and get some better shots now that we know what to expect and more or less what to do. They are supposed to be best at the equinoxes so we're crossing our fingers for March. I'll let you know if we go.

It totally made me think of Paul Bunyan and Babe. Remember that Disney movie? Supposedly them rough housing is what is making the Northern Lights.