It is the shortest day of the year!

That is a pretty low sun!

I am so excited.  I mean, it is just about the coolest thing ever.  On Dec 21, there will/was only going to be 8 hours 36 minutes of daylight in Cable.  That is a really really really short day.  That means there is more than 15 hours of darkness.  Just think of the amount of sleep that you can get if you are the kind of person that likes to sleep when it is dark out.  Some other fun facts about the shortest day are:

• The sun is 91.444m miles away from the earth on this day.
• The sun sets at 4:21 pm, and it is too dark to be in the woods without a headlight at 4pm.
• The sun direction is 272.11° W on the 21st.
• Already in a couple of days we will be gaining 30 seconds a day, and by the end of Jan we will be gaining more than 2.5 minutes per day.
• Although the sun starts going down later already on the 22nd, the sunrise continues to get later in the day by a couple of minutes through the rest of the month of Dec.

It may be a strange thing to like and look forward to, but I love the shortest day of the year.  For one, it is my oldest daughters birthday, but in addition…It is all upside from here.  Think about it, we get 6 solid months of the days getting longer and longer.

There will be skiing to be done, fatbikes to be ridden, motorcycles to work on, mountain bikes will eventually come out, then the race season will start and there will be a downhill ski trip and desert mountain bike trip and many other fun things happening, all while the days get longer and longer.

I love the winter solstice.

This graphic says it all.  And it is official, because the NOAA created it.