Northern Journeys: Moose, Auroras and Ice, oh my!

We saw our first moose in Fairbanks a week or so ago. It was a massive female, and she was right on the side of the road so we got some good pictures.

Since then, we've seen a few more moose! We saw the aftermath of an accident - smooshed car and partially covered moose on the back of a clean up truck. The moose looked like it was in good condition... besides being dead. It was a very large male with humongous antlers! Luckily the car wasn't in too bad of shape - the engine was smooshed but the cab looked intact.

The next day we saw two more moose in the same area. At first we thought they looked like horses, but that would be silly, of course! It looked like a mama and an almost full grown child moose.

Kind of a where's waldo?

Oh, and one of the grad students here was chased by a moose the other day. Don't know the story... but sounds fun! :P

In other news of Alaska-y things, we have seen numerous awesome auroras. The only problem with that is that I find it very hard to stop watching an aurora... And that is a problem when they last hours upon hours!! So a few nights ago I spent about three hours watching the aurora, and I only stopped when the aurora stopped. So, last night I had to do something I had never done before - stop watching the aurora while it was still going. I had watched outside for an hour, and then alternated between inside and out for a good half hour (because you can see it easily from the windows as well)... but eventually I turned the lights on and ignored it. It was very difficult to do.

It was an amazing aurora last night though, it filled the sky completely at points and was the greenest looking yet. Even cooler - it was filled with awesome movement and detail. Possibly one of the best yet... Laura is the one who takes aurora pics, so maybe I'll have her do a seperate post at some point when she can!

The last relevant Alaska thing is the weather forecast. It has been an unusually warm fall thus far, according to locals. Normally the snow would have come and stayed by now. But now the cold weather has finally come! The highs have been in the low 30s this week, and they aren't supposed to get above 32 for the next week. Snow is forecasted for next week, and then possibly again the week after that.

I didn't do good cropping. Shush.

I'm really excited for the snow because, well obviously it's very Alaskan, but also the aurora lights up ground so much that I'm eager to see what it looks like when there is snow to reflect the light and make it even lighter!

To end the post... just a few random pictures!