"The aurora borealis is a fickle phenomenon. A week can pass without a flicker ---- then bang!
The Northern Lights come on like a celestial lava lamp."
~Nigel Tisdall
Seeing the Northern Lights was a main item on my Original Bucket List. I won't be doing this activity during my YEAR 77, but it is one of my favorite memories. Our running team, the Foothill Flashers, ran the Klondike Trail of '98 Road Relay on September 17, 1988. This was a 110 mile/10 person relay from Skagway, Alaska, through British Columbia, to Whitehorse, Yukon on the Klondike Highway. This relay is my favorite relay memory because I ran a night-time leg and I unexpectedly saw the Northern Lights, also know as Aurora Borealis. What a beautiful and surprising sight. When planning the trip we had not even discussed the possibility of seeing the Northern Lights. As I was running along a road in the dark, the sky in front of me lit up with many dancing colors, like those in a rainbow, but brighter and covering much more of the sky; very impressive. I would love to take my family on a trip to see the Northern Lights, but with schedules being difficult, and the lack of certainty of seeing the lights on any specific trip, it probably won't happen.
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A Little History: None of my athletic adventures have been more fun than traveling around the country with the Foothill Flashers running team and competing (not to win) in road relay races. Our first relay was the DeCelle Memorial Lake Tahoe Relay (7 person/72 miles around the lake) which I ran seven times between 1983 and 1999. Our last relay was the Wasatch Back Relay in June 2006, and was a 12 person/174 mile run from Blacksmith Fork Canyon in Cache Valley, along the east side of the Wasatch Mountain Range, ending in Park City. In between these relays I did the 176-mile Jasper-Baniff Relay twice, the 63-mile Are You Tough Enough Relay twice, the 191-mile Oregonian Hood to Coast Relay, the 185-mile Cabot Trail Relay Race around Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and the 126-mile Overland Desert to Ocean Relay (Borrego Springs to Oceanside). Much great fun and camaraderie on these runs.
Photos from the left below - The seven guys from the original Foothill Flasher Running Team - John L., Jarrett, Ron, Howard, Steve, Pat, and John M; Me running the 3rd Leg on the Lake Tahoe Relay (note: I could actually get my foot up more than an inch off the ground when running back in those days); The Flasher Team that ran the Wasatch Back in 2006 - back row Martin, Ted B, Jeff, Jim S., Chris, Jarrett, Richard; front row Cynthia, Rene, Robert, Art W, Ron, Jim B.
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