Monday, June 21, 2010

Summer Solstice: Lovin' Those Long Days

Today is the first day of summer, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere. The above photo shows celebrants gathering at England's famous Stonehenge as the first rays of the sun shine upon them. It's officially summer.

I have always been a weather junkie and have enjoyed following the changing seasons wherever I have lived or traveled. I currently live in the southeastern Pennsylvania community where I was born and raised. Today's sunrise was 5:31am; sunset is at 8:35 pm. Tonight after dinner, I will enjoy sitting on my back porch to watch the fireflies and listen to the bullfrogs "dribbet" down by the pond.

In the early ' 70s I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska where I attended the University of Alaska. Believe me, you haven't lived until you've visited the Land of the Midnight Sun for the summer solstice activities in late June. Twenty-four hours of continuous daylight! In this blog I have posted articles on vacation ideas above the Arctic Circle; the locales include Alaska, Canada and Finland's Lapland region. To find them quickly, type "arctic vacation" in the search box on this page.  

Graduate school took me to the University of Arizona in Tucson. Fortunately for Arizona's desert dwellers, the state does not change to daylight savings time. In Tucson, the sun rose at 5:17am and will set at 7:33 pm -- when it's 103-degrees in the shade, who needs extra sunlight?!

Wherever you find yourself today, enjoy the extra daylight. And if you're reading this from South Africa or New Zealand -- well, you're out of luck!!

As I said in the beginning, I'm a weather junkie. To read my article "How to Teach Children about the Four Seasons of the Year," please click on the following link. Thanks!
How to Teach Children about the Four Seasons 

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