midnight sun festival

as you probably already know, june 21st is the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere
well in fairbanks, this is a special day of celebration
i mentioned before that during the summer, there is hardly any night-time at all
the sun just barely dips below the horizon before it is seen rising again
the sky dims for a bit, but there is never any feeling of 'night'

since we moved into our apartment, hiuyan and i are much closer to the downtown than when i was in the tent
it's not big, about the same size as hilo, and it too has that certain 'small town charm'
so when we heard about the 'midnight sun festival' we got pretty excited
we weren't really aware of anything more than its existence

we biked into town around 6 and hung out at a coffee shop for a while before plunging into the throngs on the street (probably all of fairbanks was there, which isn't much, but still a noticeable change from the norm)
yeah, there was a rock wall
surprisingthere was a breakdance ring
people could enter their names for the competition which was a bracket-style series of face-offs
that was pretty sweetcaribou-steak w/ honey mustardlive music was all over
best spot was sittin on a curb listening to some jazz and eating a caramel apple with m&ms stuck all over itcute?
...or disturbing? old-timersone of the star-attractions was the midnight baseball game, featuring fairbanks' team, 'the gold panners'
it starts at 10:30pm and no artificial light is used
nearly everyone is drunk by this time and there is considerable shouting
this pic is probably at about 1am - this is as dark as it will get
really fun to watch this year was the panners' pitcher whose name, which we determined from the all the yelling, was 'bill' - a 60+ year old player who pitched for over 5 innings
wow
there was one spectator who repeatedly encouraged 'bill' to go 'all the way' and we were soon caught up in this sentiment
the panners won decisively
it was not a thing to miss, and we were glad that we decided not to
despite being tired, it was so cool to bike home at 2am in the warm dawn
i still haven't gotten adjusted to daytime/nighttime here