Oh those summer nights

I love summer nights. The first thing I love about them is that they happen so late. As a kid I loved being able to play outside until 8:00, and even today I love that I can be outside to late. Plus, there's something about dusk that appeals to me. While the essentially look the same as sunrises, sunsets are just better to me. Perhaps that is because they don't occur at a time that all sane people are asleep. I do have plenty of experience with sunrises, however, since when I worked at Bolthouse I would usually have to drive into them. And I much prefer sunsets.

Usually in Bakersfield, our sunsets are huge things. They're almost always colorful, thanks to all the crap in the atmosphere. When I was up in Spokane, they would have half the color that we have in Bakersfield and think it was an amazing sunset. I had to disagree. Most evenings, there is color all across the horizon, from the horizon line to about 60 degrees above it. But tonight was different.

I don't know if it was because I was out at a later time (I don't think so), or because the rain wiped away most of the pollution, but tonight's sunset was the way that I like them. Instead of just oranges and reds, there were purples and blues, plus orange. The clouds made for different colors, and patterns in the part of the sky where there were no colors. Plus, since there wasn't as much pollution to diffract all the light. It was more concentrated. Instead of being spread all across the horizon, there was a concentration of orange, but most of it was darker. It felt more like dusk.

Of course, I'm not doing a good job of describing it, but it was pretty cool. It was a much better end to the day than I started, since I had to call a plumber (who then had to rip out a part of the downstairs ceiling) and later my car wouldn't start. At least the week can't get much worse (I really hope).