Nature is Awesome

I've never really thought about when I find something cool in nature. Nature, living up here, is all around us. I also work at summer camp, so am surrounded by the woods when I'm there. I try to be in nature as often as I can. It may seem cliche but my favorite part of nature is the stars. Growing up I have many times gone star gazing late into the night, freezing my tail off, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes but it was all totally worth it. My grandfathers cabin in the middle of nowhere near Houghton lake is my favorite place to star gaze as there is no city light pollution. the time I am going to talk about was not even located there.

Although, I have had many stargazing experiences, one of my favorites happened at the end of this summer. I was at Cran-Hill Ranch, the summer camp I work at in Rodney Michigan. At Cran-Hill there is this beautiful back lake called Cranberry lake. This lake is undisturbed most of the time because you have to hike back to it, and bring your oars with you. I didn't go out in a boat this time because it was around 11:30 PM and it is not a good idea to go boating alone at night. Instead I went out on this super sketchy dock that creaks and literally sinks about 5 inches when you step on it, to get into a rowboat and just lay and look at the stars. It was probably around 50 degrees out, so nice and chilly, which made for an even better star gazing night. Not a cloud in the sky, as it had just rained the day before. I was out with my friend Jacob. it was the last night of summer camp, so my thoughts were already on all the awesome stuff around me, and all that had happened over the summer.

The stars that night were so bright and so numerous it seemed you could touch them. The moon was barely a sliver. Being on the lake there were no trees blocking my view, even though I could here the gentle breeze blowing through them. The frogs were croaking in a joyful chorus. The crickets were chirping in a slow rhythmic beat.It was like wildlife had its own symphony, and the stars were its music. When I laid down on the seat of the damp row boat, shivering, whilst huddling in my fuzzy sweatshirt, my breath was taken away by the magnificence above me. All I could say was wow. Billions of tiny lights. The satellites kind of ruined the image a bit, as well as an over passing plane,but that just made my mind wander, to what it must have been like before all of our technology came in and interrupted this vast expanse. I could only look one direction as the other had city light pollution coming from Big Rapids.

That night there was also a meteor shower. Shooting stars kept bursting forth instantly there and then gone again. So many wishes could have been made that night. Later another friend came down, and we joked about the scene in "The Lion King" when Timone, Pumba, and Simba did a similar act of star gazing, and we talked about what we thought the stars meant to us as kids. It was a beautiful sentimental feeling. We once again were quiet, when all of a sudden it happened. There was this flash of light so bright; it felt like when you turn on the lights after being in a dark room for a long period of time. It was shaped like one of the planets, sort of stretched out. It was oblong and beautiful, but it all happened so fast. We all said "wow, did you see that?". I'm not exactly sure what it was that I saw but it looked like an explosion billions of miles away in the sky. I will never forget the way that looked.  I was so happy that I decided to go stargazing that night as I'm not sure that I will ever see something that beautiful again. No camera could ever capture the beauty that accompanied that night. All the cold, and uncomfortable feelings from laying in a wet cold boat melted away, by the wonders of nature.

We looked for constellations. We looked for shooting stars. We simply sat and enjoyed the beauty.So much history, so much depends on the stars. The stars will always be a place that I dream of. The night sky looking down. It makes me feel so small, but so lucky to be a part of this universe. I love stargazing and wish I knew more about constellations and navigation. For now I will continue to search the night skies for something glorious like that light again.