Frozen Fog

Oh, how I wish I had my camera. It is, however, in Spain with Lithus right now. Instead, I will have to try to describe frozen fog. I won't do it justice. You've been warned.

Interestingly enough, I don't have huge amounts of experience with really dense fog. Dense like 19th c. London Jack the Ripper dense fog. Boston, while it gets a little foggy occasionally, has nothing on 19th century London. The Portland/Vancouver area got it every now and then ~ but we could always see the street lights at least. There was one particular night when I was driving from New Jersey to Suffolk, VA at two in the morning where the fog was impressively heavy. And that's really about it. Until we got to Anchorage.

Anchorage gets fog. Fog as in you can't see out the windows fog. As in the lights get swallowed. As in please-God-don't-let-me-have-woken-up-in-a-Stephen-King-novel fog.

Friday night, such a fog rolled in. Yesterday morning, the world was covered in frozen fog. I've seen ice. I've seen snow. I've seen hail. Frozen fog isn't any of those things. If you've seen frozen fog, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, you'll have to trust me.

The world is painted a flat white. It's not glittery with ice. It's not reflective, like snow. It's a flat white. And once you get close enough to see it, you discover each individual, miniscule round kernel, packed together like the world's tightest, smallest and whitest bunch of grapes.

It is stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful ~ and unlike anything I've ever seen before.

We officially need two cameras.

Not A Wasted Day

In my world, no day is wasted in which we have learned something. No matter how dull it may seem on the outside, if I've learned some new factoid or piece of information, no matter how trivial, it has been, if not a good day, then at least a day unwasted.

Check it out:

These little cards are all over Valdez, AK. Seriously ~ everywhere. Since my camera isn't all that great, allow me to translate for you:

IF YOU FEEL AN EARTHQUAKE, A TSUNAMI MAY FOLLOW

HOW TO ESCAPE A TSUNAMI

1. Drop, cover and hold during earthquake.
2. Move insland quickly, or use local evacuation route.
3. Wait for official all clear before returning to beach.

Now, I will be the first to admit that these are pretty commonsense instructions so, in that way, I didn't actually learn anything. However! Valdez being so tsunami-prone that these little cards are everywhere is new information. New, intriguing, disconcerting information. But now we know how to escape a tsunami.

Aren't you excited? I knew you were.