The Night Life

This past week I was able to go on my first camping trip. It was a great experience even with all the heat and worrying about being killed in the middle of the night. My favorite part without a doubt was sitting around the campfire and looking up at the sky. I get tremendous joy every night when I look up at the sky and see the shining stars. I am lucky enough not to live in a city where most stars are not visible, but I also don’t get as clear a view as I would if there was no light pollution. So, being able to go camping in an open area without all the light pollution was the best thing that could have happened to me.

If I was not looking at the mesmerizing campfire I was looking up at the sky trying to find the amazing constellations. I took a few astronomy classes back in my school days and was able to find many of the summer constellations. The only down side was that my all time favorite constellation, Orion, is not visible this time of the year. I had a lot of fun trying to remember all the summer constellations and share them with my sister. She was the only other person who was actually interested. If I could go every night to an open sky and just lay down on the ground and look up I would never have a bad night. I feel so connected with myself and our universe with this simple act.

Here are some pictures I took of our campfire and the sky. I also took some of the moon, and tried to take some of the night sky but my camera is not equipped for that.

The sunsets were amazing.

The sky looked so peaceful during the day.

I loved taking pictures of the fire with my camera. It was great practice for my photography skills.

The bottom of the moon is a bit fuzzy, but I think I still did a pretty good job taking this picture.

This pictures are just a few of the many I took. I was happy to get out of my normal routine and enjoy nature, but truly the night life is what I live for.