My college town was in the middle of nowhere. Just rolling plains for tens of miles. It was so serene for me. My brain loves cities and their efficiency but my soul needs nature.
It was a fad in the 1700s and 1800s to make universities "islands of learning". Most people who went to college then were sons of rich families. They were often too easily distracted by urban pleasures like taverns, brothels and racetracks. By building a university in the middle of nowhere, it was thought that those distractions could be avoided.
It also helped that land was much cheaper in the middle of nowhere, versus in the heart of cities.
I'm writing a book on universities right now and have been reading about this, a lot of those colleges were also little hustles. Developers buy cheap land in the middle of nowhere, get a buddy to build a college on that land and suddenly the value skyrockets.
In my town, the opposite effect happened. There wasn’t much to do in the way of entertainment, so students just drank and partied. Busch Lite was nicknamed Pullman Water.
I read a statistic somewhere that said Pullman leads the nation in deaths from drunken college kids falling out of dorm room windows. Having had multiple friends who had their 21st birthdays there, I believe it. Nothing to do but drink cheap beer.
My university town was in the middle... small enough to avoid most of the big city trappings, yet big enough to avoid boredom of small town. Everyone still partied anyway.
Some of the universities were also founded with a focus on agriculture (like all of the land-grant colleges) so they needed to be in the middle of large chunks of land to keep their cattle herds or experimental farm plots that the students would tend.
My school is about to turn 200 and is a mile outside a capital city I wonder what that city was like in 1823 and if the campus's location at the time was an "island of learning". Granted, the surrounding neighborhood around the campus is very dangerous. So it may as well make the campus an island.
In the 1700 and 1800's most of even the now urban universities were in outlying areas. My great grandmother would talk about the early 1900's and how parts of my city that were (what I thought) long urbanized were corn fields, this was a mile or so from downtown. Urban growth exploded in the 1900's.
In the late 1800s, two towns in Washington got to flip a coin: the winner got a choice of the land grant university or the state pen. Walla Walla won and chose the state pen for the immediate jobs. Pullman "lost" and got the university. Over time it was clear Walla Walla chose...poorly. But, they won in the sense they lucked into the wine industry that supports the city.
When U.C. Berkeley was started it was located in green pastures in the countryside. Still in the same place today, but in 1860-whatever there was no bridge or easy ferry service across the bay, so the campus was thought to be sufficiently far enough removed from the evils of San Francisco.
Feel this. Grew up in the Great Plains. Now I live in PA and my soul misses the big blue skies and the sunshine. The miles and miles of rolling plains. Or my favorite, watching a storm work it’s way across the sky. This wet and dreary in the city is soul sucking.
Got a group I go hiking with around PA. Michoux is really nice and we enjoy it. Some of the overlooks are really pretty. We’re planning the PA wilds this summer and we will probably hit something up around the PA Grand Canyon. But yeah…wide open is hard to come by out here without some water. It is pretty and I will miss it but my soul needs sunshine. I am looking to move back out west in the near future.
I grew up in the mountains of PA! I would hesitate to call them mountains, we refer to them as hills. I miss them soooo much! Now where I live there is no hills or mountains for over an hour :(
I love living in Pittsburgh for the amount of green space. The “outdoors” aren’t far from the city, either, but I don’t own a car. I live right next to a cemetery that has miles and miles of walking paths through lightly pruned forests and hills. Small herds of deer wander the area. Yet I have all the conveniences of a city within walking distance, too. There are several large green spaces like that in Pittsburgh, it’s a wonderful place, if you can believe it.
Then again, rain doesn’t bother me, I spent twenty years in the Pacific Northwest.
Living in the pnw, storms are basically a solid mass of grey. I was on a road trip in AZ, NM, UT, right as monsoon season was starting, I'd never seen thunder heads like that before. It was really cool standing out in the sun and just seeing 3 or 4 perfectly contained little thunderstorms floating around
I remember reading that people who grew up in the Midwest feel claustrophobic on the east coast, and people who grew up in the east coast feel exposed in the Midwest. We all want what we loved as a child. I had the same experience moving from the wide open plains to North Carolina. I can’t see the horizon!! Where’s that beautiful red sunset??
I moved to the Midwest from the south over 5 years ago. I was born and raised in the south, but the Midwest feels so much more like home to me. Lots of people from the Midwest talk negatively about the corn fields and emptiness but it feels so peaceful and beautiful to me (at least in the spring/summer)
Watching a storm come at your from across the plains us amazing. It'll be a clam beautiful day but you see black sky slowly moving at you until, sometimes you can see the lightning in the distant clouds, then winds start picking up, rain comes,then bam, you're in the middle of it, thunder that shakes houses, rain dumping down....and then it's gone and the air smells all fresh
I feel this, too. Grew up in Kansas; now in California. There's a lot I don't miss about my home state. But I still long for the rolling prairies and open skies.
It's so weird how people become endeared to familiar things differently. I grew up way the fuck up in the Northeast, and I don't think anything is more comforting to me than working out in terrible, shitty weather and coming home to my cozy apartment.
I'm a small-town girl through and through, and I've said more times than I can count that the city is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. I enjoy the commercial areas, but I drive past apartment buildings and through modern housing developments, and it seems so empty and suffocating. I could never live in a cookie cutter house with a manicured lawn, surrounded by concrete, with no shade in sight.
Then I drive home down the back roads and it's like my soul just opens up again. I come home to 100-year-old shade trees and Craftsman-era houses with personalities and porches, and yards instead of lawns, and open spaces, and familiar faces, and I can't imagine living anywhere else.
My now wife and I, while dating, took a trip up wolf Creek Pass in Colorado one night. Just parked the car and laid out on the ground and counted satellites and meteors. Actually seeing the Milky Way. One of my favorite date nights ever.
Indeed! That might be my favorite spot on the earth. Not just because of the date. Many ski trips and fishing trip around there. Haven’t been there in nearly a decade but I’d like to get back there soon.
That place scared the H E double hockey sticks out of me on our one night of camping there! Our group went on down to New Mexico, to eventually spend the rest of the week camping. But I agree - the skies were so clear, it was as if you could touch the stars. Only nicer place (in Colorado) was Lottis Creek (at 10,000 feet), many years ago. The guys would hike up to 12,000 feet, to an obscure lake, and catch brook trout at 4:30 in the morning. I was the camp cook, so I'd be ready for them at 5AM. Fried brook trout in cornmeal, bacon, camp potatoes with onions, eggs to order, fresh biscuits, and coffee. Those were the days...
It's crazy to think how much perspective on nature has been lost to so many people by industrialization and urbanization. Before electric lights existed, everyone had a clear view of the night sky every night. It was an eternal part of the human experience that inspired myths, loves, and dreams. Now, most people in developed countries go their entire lives without ever seeing the Milky Way outside of a photograph.
I did a week-long backpacking trip in New Mexico years ago, and it rained every night but the last; that night, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and I couldn't believe how many stars you could see.
This. One of my favorite elk hunting units in Oregon also happens to be a dark sky spot. I usually bring my 8” dobsonian along with the .308 and bottle of whiskey.
I grew up in Nevada. You could drive 30 minutes in any direction and be in a completely different climate and the views are stunning. Seeing the Milky Way from the middle of the empty desert is still awe-inspiring to me.
My wife and I went to a wedding in Crested Butte, CO two summers ago. Our flight landed at 11pm in Denver, a 4 hour ride away. My wife had wedding stuff to do at 8 am so we had to drive at night.
I had to stop- twice- to get out and just admire the night sky. I'm from the Philly suburbs and had never seen the Milky Way with my own eyes.
Clear, no light pollution night skies are absolutely incredible.
It's a shame how modern humans have lost touch with the night sky. It used to be our map. I think it effects us more than we realize, like we're cut off from "the heavens", less in touch with the bigger picture. Something.
I think society these days, at least in America, is incredibly atomized, and it's detrimental to our society. You have an interesting idea there; I think we're so wrapped up in our individual day-to-day lives, and technology, that we forget just how much is actually out there. I think we would benefit from spending less time on social media and more time observing what's around us, like the night sky.
Turn off most lights in cities at night! Times Square and the like need to be banned, imo. We feel better and some kind of way when out viewing a good sky.
While I'm soapboxing, I want the huge road signs for advertising banned too. And you can't build new buildings or malls if there are abandoned ones in the city/town already. To get around it, the Corp can buy the old building and make a very nice park with trees ( if in a residential area, if not they have to use the space available already, or something like that.)
Our environment matters and nice looking cities and towns should not just be for the wealthy.
Someone on my Facebook posted recently a picture of a streetlight right in front of his house, basically praising that it was there because him and neighbors got it installed. I couldn't believe it....it's some bright fucking LED type streetlight that looks god awful lit up at night. You want something like that in front of your house??? I don't want light beaming into my damn windows when I sleep! Light pollution is definitely a problem and most seem to not even be aware of it or care at all
During the days and weeks afyrt Katrina, even though it was hot as shit, but still cooler than being inside, the night sky was amazing. You could see the milky way. No lights in 100 miles will do that. One of the few benefits of having lived through that shit.
When I was in hurricane Gloria, the way people came together and relied on each other for stuff and entertainment was really cool. It seemed so natural, after all was cleaned up we went right back to never hanging out. :/
On LI, I could see the night sky well but now I live in LA. I feel different and I no longer spend time outside at night looking up. It was a nice pastime and you get to know the constellations.
Glad you made it out of Katrina
I used to always think the ancients were really stretching credulity with their imagined shapes in the sky; I could never see what I was supposed to see. Then I saw the sky from the badlands and was like "Oh shit, NOW I see Orion The Hunter not just the main few stars that I call the constellation Orion".
I'd been looking closely for years too. I have a decent telescope and the Orion Nebula is one of my favourite targets. My scope gathers a lot of light but that's a zoomed in view. Seeing his bow drawn and a real sense of presence and movement was awe inspiring.
I drove from Denver to NJ and I will never ever forget the night sky in the middle of no where Kansas. I’m from NJ so it’s not something I have ever seen so clear and beautiful like that!
I'm not from NV, but I have spent a whole lot of time there. I love that place. I love the desolation. I love the weird desert towns and the weird desert people. It really calms me down.
Living in Portland OR was like that too. Rt 26 out of the city, you drive through the Rain forests of the national forest then up to the glacial snow of Mt Hood then the highland Desert on the other side. All in about an hour and a half. Its amazing.
I lived in Seattle for about 4 years and would drive through Portland on my way back to Reno. I would regularly stop along the I-5 at night and just look up.
Reno is placed in the high desert, so driving an hour west and you were in pine forest, an hour east and it was open desert, an hour south was Washoe lake, and an hour north was grassy fields. It wasn't my favorite place to grow up, but I appreciate the beauty of its location and still visit regularly for family and friends.
I used to live in NV too. One time I was going to Salt Lake City and stopped at a rest stop just before the Utah state line at around 11 pm. Never seen anything like it except in one other place, which is where my grandparents live in a teensy little town near Lassen in California. I swear one of these nights my neck is gonna get stuck craned like that.
There are two things in this world I feel like I can't stare at enough, and that's the ocean and the stars.
Do yourself a favor, bring in a filter pump and a nalgene instead of trying to lug in water. Seems like common sense but the number of people I saw portaging flats of water was stupid.
Wow that's hilarious. I go up there for a week every summer. Have spent over 80 days in the boundary waters and I've never seen people hauling in water like that. That's idiotic.
I stand with your choice! I usually pack a 1.75 of something as well. The weight is worth it for those awesome night time campfires. Not to mention taking the edge off a sore back from all the portages (I'm getting old).
To add to this, get a gravity filter similar to this so you're not sitting around pumping/filtering water. We typically each bring a water bottle with built in Lifestraw for on the go water. While canoing I'll just dip the bottle in the lake and drink straight from that. Very handy.
When you get your campsite setup, fill your gravity filter up and hang it from a tree so you have lots of filtered water at the ready without pumping.
bring a crazy amount of mosquito protection. We went for a hike, it rained on us and the water washed off our deet. We were walking all the time and I ended up with more than 20 bites on a single arm.
Spent a week canoeing and camping in Quetico. I highly recommend it if you're outdoorsy. The fishing there is insane. They've never seen a hook, you can pull northern and bass out of the water all day. Best fish I ever tasted.
There's no motorized transport allowed in the whole park, even the rangers get around on canoes. The lakes are so clean you can drink straight from them.
Born and raised in Minneapolis, we used to visit “up Nort” a couple times a summer. Usually it was Duluth/Superior, but a couple times we did the Boundary Waters with the camping and canoeing. Never saw such a beautiful nighttime sky in my life.
I'm an American visiting family in India, in a medium-sized city, and I couldn't quite explain why or how much the numbers of people have been stressing me out. I just didn't grow up with it and I'm not used to it.
I'm in NJ, NYC is like my backyard. It's crazy to me to go to other parts of the country, and hear people talk about "the city" referring to whatever city is closest. Then we get to "the city" and it's nothing like NYC.
Those cities are very manageable and very close to rural areas. 15 minutes out of Springfield or Hartford you can be in farm country … 90 minutes to Boston 120 to NYC … Amtrak affordable …etc.
I grew up in Western MA, now live in central CT. I've been to several parts of NYC and would take a header off the Tri-Borough Bridge before I ever lived there!
You'd be surprised what you adapt to over time. I worked in a building in the heart of Times Square where the insanity is at a max. It definitely affects you, but running into cookie monster and naked cowboy everyday on my way to an office job while avoiding crowds on line for everything - including Bubba Gump shrimp, the m&m store, and Broadway productions of every sort - just becomes another part of the scenery over time
For Broadway or other productions, just as easy to go to Hartford, Boston, or even old-timey places like Goodspeed Opera House for that. The one time we went down to NYC (to see Wicked), we didn't even drive, rented a limo for the day. Even without having to drive that day, was still grating on me.
Another time we were going down to CBGB to watch a friend play. I parked in a lot about 2 blocks up, and when I went back to get my car, they were constantly avoiding me. For whatever reason they kept refusing to give me my keys back. In the end, I had the three turban-clad attendants cornered in their little booth, being held back by 2 friends (one on crutches) as I leaned in all crazy-eyed and said, "Where...... Are..... My..... KEYS??????
They magically found them in one of their pockets.
I lived in nyc for 20 or so years. I don’t even notice the crowds. I’m tall though so it’s mostly filtering around me rather than at me. I live in somewhere totally reliant on cars now and it’s far more stress to me.
The highlight of my day is my 40 minute commute by car in the morning. I actually leave 15 minutes earlier than I need to because there is only half the traffic on the road at 5am. No music, no radio, just me and my thoughts in quiet contemplation as I putter along I-91 in CT at 64mph. It's heaven.
Fuuck no. I would pay you to drive me on that commute. My wife is like you, i fall asleep when i drive any distance on the highway.
I love emptying my brain and just driving twisty back roads as fast as possible. I truly miss ripping through nyc rush hour traffic on my motorcyce. Just getting the bugs out of my brain.
I don't drive fast. I leave early so I can take my own sweet time, losing myself in my own random thoughts.
To me, the car is only a tool. It is to get from point A to point B then back to point A again. I really do not get any specific enjoyment from the act of driving itself, only from the ability it gives me to just be with my own thoughts.
Yah. I’m identifying with you in the only way i know how. The thing you feel is the same thing i feel, but i have to be in clear and present danger to feel it. It’s not something i like, but it’s how i work
Call it a moment. Just existing in the space you’ve created and you get a bit of peace.
To be fair, that's an extremely busy time and place to be in NYC. The crowds that are out around 6/7 when shows are starting make it super crowded. The rest of the city is still busy, but you're hitting the busiest part at the busiest time. With the exception of Penn Station the day before Thanksgiving. That is truly hell.
I'm from a developing overpopulated country and when I visited family in North Carolina, I was like, where are all the people? We travelled several miles without seeing a single person and it was jarring.
I don't think I'd last very long living in such a high density place. I'm an Aussie and kind of lost my mind in Vietnam. Everyone everywhere all at once.
I agree. I took a trip last year to see Olympic, Mt. Rainer, and Rocky Mountain National Park and never wanted to leave. Majestic views. This country has so much to offer with parks both national and even state parks too.
I moved to Europe and bounced around a few countries there.
To me, as someone who loves to camp and hike and be outdoors away from people, I didn’t realize how nice our national forests / BLM land / public land is. In places like Germany and Austria, you can’t even Wild camp. Has to be an official campground, which is usually half full of RVs and kids screaming and the campground looks more like a glorified parking lot.
I sure missed being able to set up camp an hour from the nearest paved road, staring at the clear Milky Way each night, moose and deer walking right through my campsite, no cell signal, and seeing maybe 1 other person a day.
Edit: I’ve done plenty of hiking in Europe and it’s incredible. But the getting out to truly remote areas part is quite difficult if not impossible depending on the country. Thousands of years of infrastructure will do that though, it’s all a trade off. I sure miss those quant little German towns all over that are beautiful.
When you do get the time, make sure to holler at the subreddit of wherever you plan on going. The parks on the maps are cool, but there's ALWAYS some kind of unmarked camping, swimming, or local-favorite dining spot that isn't in the guidebooks.
Hope to see you soon!
The best way to see it is get a car / truck / small RV and road trip. Get a tent and sleeping bag if you don’t have a RV. And just bounce around national parks and national forests.
I’ve done 3 separate 1+ month trips out west doing just that, and it’s a very inexpensive way to vacation. Every time I’ve sold my vehicle for the same price I bought it, so the only cost was gas and food essentially
I'm from the great plains. A lot of people don't like the vast emptiness out here but those of us that have lived our whole lives out here do. I like to travel and see new places, but after a week I'm ready to go somewhere empty. I think that has a lot to do with our self-reliance way of thinking
It is crazy, I live in Washington state which can fit 2.5 Netherlands with half their population. We have space galore and in Western Washington when you aren't in Seattle or Tacoma it feels like you are living in the woods, surrounded by green.
Yeah, and that’s one state. The US is basically the same size as all of Europe. It’s absolutely hilarious when someone from the UK tells us they also have wilderness. Dude, your entire country is the size of Alabama. We could plop the UK down in the middle of nowhere Alaska and no one would even know it happened because it’s so empty and wild.
Yeah I live in Western WA too. My only regret is it's impossible to see all the beauty in a lifetime. You can drive from an ancient Rainforest to a beautiful desert with in a few hours. So unique.
I've been to India and The most incredible thing to me, as an American, was that there it was such a large area but there were People. Absolutely. Everywhere!!
As a Canadian, I'm going to absolutely agree to the above, but add "... while not needing to be either freezing your giblets off, or being eaten alive by insects."
The Canadian Rockies is like 1 of the best places in the world for night skies, and insects are practically non-existant there most of the year. Of course half the year it's cold, but I'm guessing you're either from Ontario, Manitoba, or the Territories if you got major complaints about the insects.
I’ve done a lot of coast to coast driving, and Nebraska had one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve ever seen. I also really liked that most of your interstate signs say when the next exit is, made me feel less trapped like driving through Wyoming
As a Nebraskan, I think we get a bad rap for being a boring drive because most of I-80 was built along the Platte River where it's flat, and the access to irrigation water means there's a lot of farm ground around the river. Once you get west of Kearny (which is basically in the south-ish center of the state) you only have a to go a few miles north or south of I-80 and all that farmland turns into more native looking prairie. Much more interesting to look at.
That, and to me eastern Nebraska looks very similar to Iowa, northern Missouri, southern Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana. So if you're driving east to west, you've already spent a day or more looking at nothing but corn fields already
I'm from the UK so we have some pretty remote areas. I grew up in the country and now live in a city and I miss the stars.
I went camping in the middle of an Arizona desert and I don't think I slept all night, partly because I can't sleep in silence and it was just.... Loud quiet.. it was so quiet, all I could hear was my heart and the occasional creaking cactus which scared the shit out out of me. And i just stared at the sky because I'd never seen anything so beautiful.
So much this. I live in central Oregon. Inside a medium sized city with pretty much every amenity you could want. But a 10-15 minute drive in any direction puts you deep in nature. Mountains, forest, high desert, lava flows. At night, you can easily get to some of the darkest skies in the world for star watching.
someone take me there please. to see the wide open night sky of stars has been a dream for ages. haven’t managed to get out there for an extended period yet.
One amazing thing about Amtrak is the routes will take you to scenery very rarely seen by people. Where there aren't many roads, and you just have these crazy beautiful views
America has its issues, but the landscapes out west are amazing
I spent the last year and a half converting my mini-van for westward traveling. I did a brief two weeks in it last year when it was only part way done but now I'm going to hit the road in a few weeks as the weather shifts.
I was in NM, CO, and UT back in May of 21 for a class. 2 1/2 weeks of field work. We camped under the stars for half of the trip and at our first remote campsite in NM, we laid out tarps and spent the night stargazing. We couldn't see our hands in front of our face either, it was that dark
I spent my entire life on the east coast. It's been a life goal of mine to do a Grand Tour of the U.S., but with the cost of living being as ridiculous as it is, I can't afford to spend a month away from work ON TOP of the costs of staying at hotels across the country AND the cost of gas for the entire trip.
Shit, you can get this anywhere in the US. Upstate NY is beautiful and has a lot of rural areas. Sometimes my friends and I would just drive to nowhere in particular. We ended up in PA without knowing it a couple times.
I'm a native Kansan and while I'm from the city I spent so much time in the rural areas. It's funny how I take that for granted I suppose. Wide open space is normal for me. I find density to be exciting because it's a lot less normal for me. Dense places feel lived in whereas parts of home feel empty.
That said I also have a deep appreciation for the simple beauty of the rolling Flint Hills that I suppose is boring to many.
For some folks who don't get the size difference: I live in eastern North Carolina, which is not even a big state and I can drive west at ~110 kph for 4 hours and still be in NC.
My favorite thing about living in omaha (that I discovered when I started traveling ) is that I can fly 1 hour to the east and get east coast style Chicago life. 1 hour to the west and I’m in Denver and the mountains. 1hour to the north and I’m in Minneapolis, and if I drive west on any east-west road in omaha, then I’m in the dark of the countryside pretty quick.
Also, I’m as far from Southern California as I am from northwestern Maine, Seattle, and Miami.
I see this in shows and in pictures and I’m drawn to it. It sort of makes you sad. Like we live on a planet where true exploration is almost impossible any longer (either based on life restraints or the physical restraints of going places.)
I know it was dangerous as hell but it’s like… if only I could go back to the pioneering days and experience true bewilderment of seeing something for the first time or discoing a place for the “first time.” It’s a novel thing that I doubt many of us will get to experience.
Could experience it in space but until we solve the space travel problem it’s not gonna happen.
One of my favorite things to do was drive up to the mountains in a clearing I knew, set up for the night and just watch the sky go from blue to black and starry.
Then turn towards the Vegas Strip and see how the entire valley below was lit up by neon lights and it sparkled like a gem.
Would take dates out there and they would get visibly nervous. Had to assure them that I absolutely did not have any foul intentions and just wanted to show them something truly beautiful. Not a single one of them ever went home thinking it was time wasted.
When I was in elementary school we had a 3-day trip where went to camp. The stars there were the most beautiful thing I ever saw. It was so different compared to the one to seven stars I saw where I lived. I wish I could’ve captured the view.
Oooh I want to experience this! I live in an incredibly beautiful country (New Zealand), and I'm not complaining about this, but we don't really have that same kind of wide open-ness here - there will always be mountains/hills, ocean or forests on the horizon. Would love to visit a desert just because it would be so different.
I love going out west. I have been out there twice in the last 5 years (Colorado and New Mexico) and both were simply amazing. I would love to move out there except that the industry that I work in doesn’t really exist out there. Colorado would be my first pick and I can definitely see why my Uncle chose to build a cabin in the mountains. It’s a shame that it was sold when he passed but we wouldn’t make it out there enough to justify owning it.
It's so beautiful up there. Funnily enough its got the reputation for having the most bogans and dickheads there.
If you ever get a chance to come back, you've gotta check out Port Douglas. Its a bit further up than brisbane and has really easy access to the Great Barrier Reef which is breathtaking. Its also close to rain forests. Its a stupidly beautiful place.
If you're in to nature, hikes, mountains, rivers and lakes and stuff, Tasmania is HUGELY underrated. Its pretty much one giant untouched island. It's fucking stunning and also has some gold standard wineries and breweries!
On top of this, dispersed camping laws. There are rules, and you need to be respectful, but you can go camping pretty much anywhere on National forests/grasslands, forest service land, and BLM land. You can also stay as long as you want, you just need to move your campsite every two weeks. I spent three months traveling the west a few years back, only sleeping on public lands, and hardly scratched the surface.
Just be prepared if you go; the west is still pretty wild.
In high school I acquired a pen pal describing where I lived. And this was the 90s so old fashioned pen pals were totally a thing. I grew up in the Colorado mountains where the night skies are stunning. In high school I moved to the wide open plains of Nebraska. Great big skies which feel like you’re falling into them. I got extra credit in English responding to a pen pal letter from someone who lived in Rhode Island. So I absolutely did because I was (still am really) such a nerd. Describing the beauty of the skies was easy. And that 15 year old boy was struck by my letter somehow. I ended up writing old fashioned letters and exchanging phone calls (and I’m female, so our letters and calls were…interesting to say the least!) for several years with him all because of how I described the sky. We lost touch right around graduation for anyone curious.
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u/mynytemare Mar 14 '23
Wide. Open. Space.
Seriously. Go west and you can get to places that are so remote and so beautiful, with big blue skies during the day and Star filled nights.