I'm camped at this little trout lake ( Riggs Flat Lake ) at 9000 ft. It was about 4:30 in the morning,first light and I wake up as I always do when camping and the trees erupt in birdsong, hundreds of birds all singing at the same time. Now I'm completely wide awake and I think well I guess I'll go fishing. I walk down to the lake and it's calm and cool. There's a full moon upon the horizon, nestled between the mountains and shimmering in the lake. Layers of mist rising above the lake and glowing in the moonlight. I am completely alone,not another soul around.
An osprey swoops down and catches a fish and I can hear her wings as she flys to her nest in a high pine.
Down the shore about a 100 feet away a deer and her two fawns come down to drink.
I put a spoon upon my ultralight and cast out and immediately catch a fish.
Reel in, release and catch another fish. This went on for about 45 minutes,every cast a fish.
The moon sets and the mountains
Shine in the crimson of sunrise
Man it was just such a perfect start to the day
Tell us your magical moments in nature
Most of my moments in nature involved plotting snack raids on the other Boy Scouts.
I was a devious little bastard.
@clousems Wasn't me man, must've been a bear.
And here I was expecting Misty Mountain Hop.
Fire on the mountain, lightning in the air. Gold in them hills and it's waiting for me there. Marshall Tucker
u should have a chess in such marvelous surroundings.
I was a preteen. I'd spent much of the day circling under a very hot sun on an old Case tractor (propane driven), pulling an undercutter, trying to do it like the farmer taught me earlier in the summer.
At the end of the day, we all came in from the fields and supper was served. Fried chicken it was. Mashed taters with lots of butter. All the vegetables came from the field nearby. The farm wife of the couple for whom I was working had fixed it all up with her pretty, hard-working daughter, despite doing farm work themselves that day, as most days.
After dinner, it would have been a nice time for a frosty Mexican beer. But I was far too young, and farmers don't usually drink on workdays anyway. So I had no beer and didn't miss it.
But I did have a country evening to sit outside the bunk house, as the stars came out in a sky so otherwise dark and clear that I'll never see the like of it in this big old city, many, many miles and years away.
And as that evening came on, it cooled way down and a slight breeze came on, as well. The cicadas began to chirp. You can use the frequency of their chirps (chirps per minute, not Hz per second) to figure out the temperature, if you know a bit of math. As the temperature continued to cool, they slowed on down.
Then came the treat. Something I never got to see in the big old city. Winking tiny golden lights, drifting around about the fields. The fireflies were living in their own world and they had no idea that they were being watched by a young, skinny kid. They danced in the air, as the cicadas kept time.
I am from the state of Chihuahua, in Mexico. Its the biggest state of the country, but it is arid, surrounded by mountains and it is mostly empty. There are very few populated areas.
15 years ago, I moved to Mexico state (at the center of the country) and lived there for almost 2 years. It is as green as it gets. If you ate a fruit and dropped the seed, in a few days it was already flourishing. I thought I would never came back.
Yet, almost 2 years after I left my state to never return, I was on my way back. I got up to the bus kinda sad. Its a 25 hour drive.
I was awake for like the first 15 hours of the drive. I was watching how we were passing towns, cities, states. Though we were advancing, there was no difference in the weather. All green, flowers, threes, grass. Still was feeling down.
Eventually, I fell asleep at midnight.
A few 5-6 hours later, the sun began to rise and woke me up. I finally opened the eyes and I was in the middle of nowhere, on the majestic desert, surrounded by arid mountains, some cactuses here and there, an owl or an eagle here and there, if you get lucky, you might even spot a wild coyote somewhere. Any sadness was quickly gone and it was replaced by a huge smile in my face. I was returning home. I will probably never forget the moment I woke up in the middle of the beautiful desert. It is rough, inhospitable, dangerous, lethal, but still beautiful. Nature is amazing.
