Winter. Brrrrr.

Mt. McKinley from my window seat on our flight to Fairbanks, December 12, 2010. (We traveled to Arizona to visit the kids in early December.)

Escape to Winter. The temperature was around 30 below. This last December was our coldest on record in 30 years. We had a cold snap that lasted about 25 days.

Makes the window seat worthwhile.

I'm getting the hang of the moose picture thing. Moose get the munchies and tend to come into the city when temperatures drop. I had wanted to get closer, near the bumper of the Dodge in the foreground. I stopped and snapped this photo... just in case.

I continued onward, and I with my butter boots, slipped and fell on my butt! I giggled. Mr. Moose heard me and began to run away. I was lucky to capture this action shot.

The funny looking post is for car plug-ins. Most of the parking lots have them. The coolant in a vehicle can drop 35 degrees in one hour when it's 30 below. Employees in most locales will keep their cars plugged in all day.

This and the next two photos were taken Christmas Eve, one of the shortest days of the year.

The sun skirts the horizon and doesn't rise as high as we are used to in the lower 48. As a result, only the tops of the trees are lit by sunlight.

These photos were taken around 12:30 in the afternoon. We had about 3 hours and 42 minutes of direct daylight on Christmas Eve. Our shortest day of the year is December 21st, just the same as in the Lower 48. Sunrise on Winter Solstice (Dec 21) is 10:58 a.m., and Sunset is 2:40 p.m.