Summer skyline & 4th of July

Summer’s here in Alaska and I am one happy camper.  While the lower 48 states are experiencing a heat wave, up here it is still a chilly 40-50 degrees with sunny skies :-) I guess the weather is one good reason to stay here – as my friend Hazel used to say, “You don’t sweat too much for a fat girl”. Yeah, you don’t sweat at all here.  And the skyline in Dutch is just amazing – from pale blue to brilliant oranges something that I haven’t seen in Cebu. Or maybe because we lived near the mountains then and now I live near the sea? Does it make a difference?  And the cloud formations are peculiar - see below.

Beam me up Scotty!

Red sky at night, sailors delight...

There's gold in them thar hills.

The palest turquoise blue - my favorite color.

The usual gray Pyramid Peak turned red in the late night sun.

The 4th of July, 12 midnight - You can tell that the city is an old hand at this and knows how to make a spectacular fireworks show. The amount of fireworks lit that night was about the same as the nightly Disneyland show which we were fortunate to experience last May. The only thing lacking with the fireworks display here was the background music to accompany the beautiful peonies, willows, diadems, roman candle fireworks that lit up Summer Bay road. One more experience that I will store in my memory bank – umm.. errr… faulty memory bank, that is.  Every time I see the diadems pulsating, I remember the time we went up the 10th floor of my office building and watched the fireworks display at SM. Do you remember we laughed so hard our stomachs ached, Joan? 

Bonfires on the beach, waiting for the show to start.

When you look at these photos, remember the sun sets in Alaska
past mid-night sometimes even at 1am!

This photo was taken past midnight when the sky grew darker.

Peonies. Daylight or nightlight (?) diminishes the effect of the fireworks. 

Shells

Disney fireworks - in contrast