Okay - Let's talk about

 The Northern Lights - 

 

in THE SOUTH, y'all...

Oh. My. Goodness.

Can we say

Bucket List? CHECK.

MAY 2024

Of course we'd read about the possibility of seeing them far to the south... but I wasn't sure about how the REALITY of that might play out. We kinda sorta said we'd set an alarm to remind us to get outside about midnight...

 

We were a couple of hours north, camping in Tennessee...

And we both got a text around 9:30 pm from friends and neighbors at home saying they could see them outside their HOUSE. So we grabbed some shoes, got in the car, and drove to the campground boat ramp - with a clear view of the northern skies.

 

When we first got there we could see the shapes of light shadows

 - columns and swirls...

So I picked up my phone camera...

AND WOW.

These photos are SOC [Straight Out of the Camera] 

- no editing at all.

I was VERY HAPPY I still had the night setting on 6 seconds - 

When we first saw them there were so many blues, greens, yellows, and of course those gorgeous pinks! I had to turn to the west a bit and grab this photo of the Falls Creek Falls Lodge with the moon, stars and Northern Lights.

It was beautiful.

 

After I got my wits about me, 

I sent a photo to a camping buddy with the message: 

Boat Ramp. NOW.

And she replied without hesitation - ON OUR WAY.

LOL

The guys got lawn chairs out and we walked around taking photos until we were too cold to stay out any longer - quite the pajama party! 

[LOVE how we could see the stars shine through the lights!]
 

The longer we were there, the less blues and greens we saw...

And maybe our eyes adapted... but we could definitely see a bit more of them with our naked eyes too... [Those are boats stacked up in the foreground...]
 

And the swirls and columns just continued to change shape

and almost surround us 360 degrees....

So I turned to the south and the lights were almost completely RED.

Definitely something I have never seen before...

 

Craig will joke and say this saved him a trip to Iceland.. but the truth is - if we were guaranteed to see them, we'd be on a plane as quick as we could arrange it. 

[That's the lone light near us, on the boat house -]

Because they are

JUST THAT AWESOME.

Our Creator God is an incredible artist.

And what a way to show His Glory to all the earth.

 

And yes - I know it's science, and molecules, and air, and sun bursts - 

But I believe He is the Creator of it all - what a delight it was for Him to share His Glorious Lights with us in the deep south! 

It was hard to process just how awesome it was -

And I feel blessed to have seen them!