About the rise and fall of the sun
Social media has been positively aglow this summer with incredible photographs of spectacular Scottish sunsets. There is something quite special about watching the clouds turn bright red as the sun dips down beyond the Western Isles or the Highland mountains.
It seems that every day I open Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, one of my social media buddies has posted a glorious photo of the sun setting over Mull or Skye or the Forth of Clyde. Sunrises are equally stunning, especially on the east coast – Aberdeen, Edinburgh or the Moray Firth.
It’s enough to make an expat like me homesick. I used to love watching the sun slowly sinking over the horizon and the clouds changing shape and colour for what seemed an age. The Glasgow flat I stayed in before Leaving for America was on the second floor and was an incredible sunset vantage point.
And if I started work at 6am, which I frequently did, there was always the chance of a bright orange sunrise from the east. Scotland is lucky in that respect, the further north you are, the longer you have to witness these phenomena.
Scotland is also blessed with the Northern Lights. I only saw them once, when I was out at night helping produce a radio show with two guys who were monitoring the nocturnal activities of seabirds. We were sitting on grassy cliff slopes at Collieston, north of Aberdeen, when the Aurora Borealis appeared in the sky. Pretty amazing.
In Arizona this week I was lucky enough to catch the most incredible sunrise. I’ve already posted it on social media but make no excuses for doing it again. It was taken at 6am from my office window, on the 17th floor of a high-rise office building in central Phoenix. The window looks east towards a range of mountains called the Supersititons and I reckon there are few buildings in the city that can boast a better view.
There is, however, one key difference between Scotland and Arizona when it comes to sunrise and sunset watching. Over here it’s all over and done with in a short space of time. This week’s photo-op from my office had a ‘window’ of less than 10 minutes.
I’m no scientist, but I think this might have something to do with the tilting of the earth’s axis. For a similar reason, flights from London to Phoenix travel past Greenland and through northern Canada instead of what seems like a straight line. Please don’t ask me to explain this stuff.
Sunsets in the Arizona desert are one of the state’s biggest attractions. Real estate agents include details of sunrise and sunset times along with images of mountains and cactus plants with bright red or orange skies in the background for potential homeowners to peruse. The natural world is big business out here and why not?
It’s tempting to think of Arizona as nothing but a barren desert. That is true in some parts of the state but there is some incredible scenery – red rocks, rivers and lakes, waterfalls, lush valleys, and of course the Grand Canyon.
As you can see from these pictures, the sun can rise in spectacular fashion in the desert. But given the choice, I’d rather watch the skies at sundown over the west coast of Scotland.