Starry Night: One Camper's Fondest Memory

The Sun kept reminding me I wasn't going to finish The Godfather before dark, and as much as I wanted to keep reading, the waning light and a group of hungry campers convinced me to close the book and help with dinner. The trade off wasn't bad; fresh trout is pretty delicious.

Once we finished up, we settled down to take in the stars.

I thought I had stargazed before, but on this night, as Earth moved through her courses, nothing prepared me for the unimaginable greatness of the night sky in the West. 

The vastness was chilling. It became impossible not to watch nature's movie all night long.

In the slowest of motion, we rolled by constellations, clusters of stars shooting randomly, dense packages of white with immense, unthinkable power. More than once, my heart raced as my skin turned to gooseflesh.

By morning light, most of us were dozing; some of us were completely spent, but awake and both stupified and speechless. 

Over the next few years, camping favored me with incredible spectacles. But that particular night: the one that began with Mario Puzo and ended in the stunning grip of the heavens, remains my all-time favorite camping memory.