Pacific Coast Sunsets

It’s a good year to miss winter in Alaska. The snow started early, on the last day of summer. I wasn’t lucky enough to miss that storm.  It complicated my travel plans. It took me a couple of extra days to close everything up on the homestead and get out of town.

Then the snow took a brief hiatus, making way for the extreme cold. It was 40 below for weeks at a time in McCarthy, even dipping down to -60. The coldest I had ever seen was 53 below. Glad I missed the cold spell.

See what I mean about a good winter to miss? It was just getting started.

It’s been snowing back home. And snowing, and snowing….. more snow than anyone can remember ever falling in McCarthy. Buildings are buried. And it’s still February. March is usually the snowiest month. Yikes!

Which makes me super grateful for where I am spending the winter, further south on the Pacific Coast. I have really been enjoying those Pacific Coast sunsets.

I spent January at a housesit in Anacortes, Washington. The weather was generally dark, drab and dreary, with snow, rain or fog practically every day. My SAD syndrome kicked in, but I kept reminding myself about what the weather was like back home and felt pretty thankful to be someplace safe and warm where I could avoid driving on those occasions when the streets were icy.

The day before I left, I did have one nice sunset.

Then my luck changed. I had clear weather for 3 days in Olympic National Park! What a rare and wonderful occurrence! The skies continued to stay mostly clear as I traveled down the coast to my February housesit, in Pacific Grove,  California.

Mostly clear, except every night as I passed through Oregon there was a thin band of fog on the western horizon in otherwise cloudless skies, effectively extinguishing any hints of color from the setting sun.  I’ve included a photo from an Oregon sunset I took on another trip, so you can see the potential and understand my disappointment when things looked so hopeful each evening but didn’t pan out.

Skies have been clear almost every night here in California.  There has only been one day with any precipitation at all. It was just a sprinkle, but I was able to capture some fabulous God rays between storms. Check out the feature shot and you’ll see what I mean.

I feel a little like Goldilocks and the three bears. Although I am grateful for all these beautiful sunsets, we could use some rain. Although there’s too much snow in McCarthy, the drought in the West is severe. According to dendrochronology, the science of interpreting past climate through tree rings, in some places it’s the worst drought in over 1500 years. So I pray for rain, and hope that if it comes, it also brings big waves, god rays and rainbows.

Thanks to Anne for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, Water.