Midsummer

The Swedish Midsummer is suppose to celebrate the longest day of the year. After midsummer the days actually get shorter and shorter. Living this far south all of a sudden makes this very different. In Alaska the longest day is 21 hrs and 49 minutes. With that long of a day, it doesn't really get dark. Here it is a lot different. 15 hours and 22 minutes. That is a big difference. I actually haven't really reflected over this fact until right now. 

Alaska

Here are some pictures, memories, from Alaska, solstice weekend 2014.

Last year the smoke was so bad, so I didn't even bother taking any pictures of the beautiful summer night. I did get a few of the smoke, and the blood red sun, yup, sun around 8-9 pm. We had bad smoke from the forest fires for several days straight, more than a week I think, to the point where I was actually wondering if I would ever be able to see the blue sky again. Luckily the smoke did disappear, and I took some pictures around midnight a week or so later. 

Madison

We celebrated the Swedish midsummer with some other Swedes around Madison about a week early. It was a really fun time, and the first time I really danced around the midsummer pole in the US. I made a dessert, strawberry mousse cake on a brownie bottom, needless to say, it was very very tasty! Compared to Alaska, it got pretty dark fast though, when we were biking home around 8 pm the sun was already starting to set..