Alaska has two seasons, the old joke goes: winter and road construction. We all know about road construction. You can’t go hardly anywhere in the state without running into some sort of repaving, unpaving or widening project. Seasoned summer travelers know to take a big fat book with them on trips around the state. You do remember books, don’t you? A book is like a smart phone, except authors write in complete sentences and your connection doesn’t go down in a power outage.

Oh yeah, that’s another big deal. We had a big outage on Monday, defined as anything more than 10 minutes. At the end of a working day, that means you get to go home early.

Driving home during the power outage, the Betster saw a remarkable thing. At the Lake Street stoplight, the lights went dark. Amazingly, people did the right thing. As each car came up to the light, the driver stopped, looked all directions and proceeded when clear. Wow. For a few hours, we functioned without power, a bit easier when the sun sets close to midnight as we come up on the summer solstice.

Which, you know, is Saturday. On Friday and Saturday, we’ll get a whopping 18 hours and 44 minutes of daylight. Yee hah! So get out and embrace the light, because after a dark winter, you deserve it. There’s lots to do, like these Best Bets:

BEST GET AWAY BET: Want to celebrate the solstice in one of Alaska’s coolest small towns? Head across Kachemak Bay for the Seldovia Summer Music Festival, running today through Sunday. Start the festival off with the ferry jam on the Tustumena at 11:45 a.m. today or head over later. It’s a weekend packed with concerts, workshops, open air painting and lots more. See story, page 9.

BEST DANCING OFF THE STREETS BET: Don’t be like those women who wound up in the Police Blotter for dancing in the middle of East End Road. Be safe and dance in the big solstice celebration at the Ulmer’s parking lot. The festival starts at 7 p.m. Saturday, with bed racing, cosmic rides and other goofy stuff in this town Huffington Post called “quirky.” That’s us. See story, page 3.

BEST MIX IT UP BET: The Homer Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center calls mixers “After Hours Events” now, but it’s the same idea: visit a local business or nonprofit, meet people and grab some snacks. This month the After Hours Event is 5:30 p.m. today at Kachemak Heritage Land Trust at the end of Klondike Avenue. Park on Klondike or at Bay Realty, a short walk on the Poopdeck Platt Trail from KHLT. The Home Ukulele Group provides music.

BEST ON THE ROAD TO FAME BET: Today, Homer; tomorrow, New York City. You could be an improv star if you have the wit and talent. Try out today with auditions for Homer’s local Improvisation Theater Troupe from 8-9 p.m. at the Art Barn on East End Road. For more information, call Martin Zeller at 509-294-0451.

BEST BOOM BOOM BET: Alaska’s independent film and video community is doing some awesome stuff. Check them out with “Legion of Boom,” a showing of their work at 8 p.m. Friday at Bunnell Street Arts Center.