My Morgan horse. When standing still in the pasture, he made my heart overflow with the wonder of owning him. And when he trotted, I held my breath lest I interfere somehow with his ability to float over the ground.
Sorry, Pieta, he bumped you to second place.
I really want to see Yosemite one day. It’s on my list.
When working in a tulip field, sitting up and seeing color in every direction.
Yosemite
Canaletto’s the Basin of San Marco
James Harrison Superbowl XLIII interception and touchdown.
Holland demolishing Spain early in WC 2014
Point Reyes state park
For me, it might be when the bioluminescent jellyfish season comes and we go sailing silently through the water at night leaving a silvery sparkly trail in the water behind us. Or my wife’s bum.
When Phoebe Cates gets out of the pool in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
To the OP, I actually agree that the Grand Canyon didn’t live up to the hype. It’s just too big for humans. You don’t see a canyon; you just see a cliff, and then way off in the distance there’s another cliff. If you really want to see an impressive canyon, then you can’t beat Yellowstone Canyon.
As far as scenery goes, I’d have to say that the best is either Yellowstone Canyon, or the mountains in Glacier. For other natural phenomena, most of what I’ve seen has been in Montana: There are some truly amazing rainbows around SW Montana, and the clearest, darkest night skies you can see anywhere can be found in Lewis and Clark National Forest. Possibly the most impressive sight I’ve seen in Montana skies, though, was a sunset I saw out my living room window… which is impressive when you realize that my window faced east. Literally the entire sky was filled with orange.
Cradle Mountain is in Tasmania, World heritage and very well known This is the standard picture they use to promote it.
I’ve seen that photo and similar hundreds of times. But when we went there, and drove the car over the little ridge and there was the lake, the mountain, everything - it was jaw-dropping. The pictures do not do it justice.
The wife was driving and I literally had to do the ‘grab the steering wheel, because she was veering off the road, just staring at the view with her mouth open’ thing.
Of the nature variety: The Grand Canyon
Of the human variety: Henry Cavill
My husband told me that one of the coolest things he’s ever seen was St. Elmo’s Fire from the back seat of the F4 Phantom during his naval career.
You really need to get off the rim to appreciate the Grand Canyon. Take Kaibob Trail for about 1.5 miles (where the only rest room is) and you can walk out onto a point where you are surrounded by the canyon, there’s nobody else too close, and all you can hear is the wind in the canyon. If you aren’t up for going 1,000 feet below the rim there are points on the North Rim where you can get a similar effect without a big descent.
However, my choice is Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” at MoMA. The painting is placed so that you do not see it when you enter the gallery; you walk past a wall in the middle of the room, turn around, and there it is. I know it’s cliched and reproduced like crazy, but seeing the real thing was literally like a kick in the stomach (in a good way, if that is possible). When it is time to die, I wouldn’t mind it happening on a bench in front of that painting…
This whole piece is wonderfully written.
Been there, on my way to New Iberia. Cool place.
My childhood home had a deck overlooking dozens of acres of forest. There was an ice storm overnight, with really heavy ice coating everything. I remember stepping out onto the deck—I had to really work to get the door open—which was creaking and crackling as I walked across it. Not far. It felt like I was about to go ass over teakettle, and I could picture myself sliding right under the rail and out into the ravine. It was the middle of the day, but incredibly overcast and really still, but every once in a while you could hear branches, or whole trees, falling down in the woods. These loud cracks, then an eerie roaring sound like distant applause. And then the sun came out and everything was on fire with it, the most impossible silver gold light sparking off of everything I could see. It only took a couple of minutes for these little dripping sounds to start. I think that’s what made it so beautiful, knowing it wouldn’t wait around for me to get used to it.
USA 4, USSR 3 … Sept 22nd, 1980, Olympic Center, Lake Placid, NY … “Do you believe in miracles” …
Argentine soccer is a close second …
I’ve been a lot of really cool places and been fortunate to see many truly awe inspiring sights. The sun rising on Machu Picchu, setting over the Indus Valley as seen from the Zanskars, northern lights over virgin forests, bioluminescent plankton dancing in the south seas, and tropical islands too numerous to mention, monestaries from the time of Christ, volcanoes and mountain passes galore. I could go on all day!
But they ALL pale in comparison to holding in my arms again, the daughter I surrendered to adoption as a teen, 28 yrs later. I can not ever describe the true beauty of it. Beauty is an inadequate word! The fairy tale quality of that moment still shapes my life every day. It wasn’t a moment so much as shift in the matrix. My world remains enchanted beyond what people can comprehend, every day. EVERY DAY ! If I live to be a thousand, it will never wear off I know. Whatever suffering the universe may serve up for me, I will always be rich beyond all measure, and THE luckiest human that ever drew breath!
I had the exact same thought, with the birth of my grandson a year ago, and my granddaughter last month. I wondered about it, thought about it some and decided it something very primal and primitive, animalistic even, maybe. Grandkids, the ultimate proof of success as a parent, and validation of the fitness of your genes. Your progeny are fit enough and successful enough to expend the resources to reproduce and have this small being who is the NEXT generation of YOUR genes. I feel like my life has achieved completion. Breathtaking
A moment of compassion at my niece’s casket. Her mother and biological father were toxic together and for good reasons her mother had a lifetime restraining order against the bio-father. Her mother remarried and my niece & nephew were raised by her husband. My niece was killed in a motorcycle accident and the bio-father, who had only been in her life sporadically throughout her 23 years, went to the viewing. The compassion that my niece’s mother showed him after 20+ years of hate was astonishing. The sight I’m referring to was her mother and father on either side of her bio-father at the casket, all three holding each other and crying. The mother & bio-father were back to hating each other the next day, but that one moment of shared grief and compassion was incredible to witness.
Where and when is this? I might have to travel there. Seriously.
I like Robot Arm’s Paris pictures ! I know the effect. It is notoriously hard to photograph. 
When I am in the mood, I can sort of “sink” into a deep state of perception where I focus on the many, many details in for instance a plant, an insect, or just a rock. The details in details. The light on the details. A magnifying glass helps. And these details are so visually rich, so unfamiliar to the more familiar larger shapes, so astoundingly beautiful, that it almost hurts and overwhelms my senses. So I quickly focus back on the familiar level of “Oh look, lovely autumn trees”.
In a lucid dream, I was walking through empty corridors and looking into empty rooms looking for a girl to have sex with. Then I got into some cave that looked out on some plains and in the distance was a giant walking tree, with a city built on top of its branches, under an orange sky.
Most beautiful thing ever? Just one thing? There are many.
[ul]
[li]The total solar eclipse last August[/li][li]My three children being born; the miracle of childbirth[/li][li]Yosemite Valley from atop Half Dome[/li][li]Niagara Falls in winter, when hardly anyone else is there[/li][li]The zillions of stars on a dark night, far out in the desert.[/li][li]Monument Valley — and one day I’ll go back and watch the sunrise, from way before the start of twilight[/li][li]The Grand Canyon[/li][li]The Columbia River Gorge[/li][li]The Florida Keys[/li][li]The rugged, pristine beauty of Alaska’s Panhandle [/li][li]The fjords of northern Norway[/li][li]The Italian Riviera, and the Cinque Terre[/li][li]The Croatian coast along the Adriatic[/li][li]The rugged coastline of Northern California[/li][li]The rugged beauty of the eastern Sierra Nevada[/li][li]The frozen winter waters and islands around Saltsjöbaden, east of Stockholm, walking around, taking the cold, brisk air into my lungs, hearing the snow crunch beneath my boots[/li][li]Looking down to the Bay of Kotor, from the mountains and tight switchbacks along the narrow road to Žanjev Do, in Montenegro[/li][li]The baby grey whale 6 inches away from my fingertips, and its mother 30 feet away watching our little boat of 12 people, in Bahia San Ignacio, Baja[/li][li]Halley’s Comet, in the spring of 1986, from down south in the Mojave Desert[/li][li]Looking into the eyes of my now-wife, then on our first date, across the dinner table, having a great and comfortable conversation, feeling like “I am so ‘at home’ with her”, and realizing I’m falling in love with her; later that night we had our first kiss[/li][li]The beauty and glory of God and His love, in many times and places, including these[/li][/ul]
We are surrounded by beauty.