Wow. Beautiful!
So after reading what I wrote, I realize my ability to express my thoughts well is, uncertain, where my children and grandchildren are concerned.
could you two please quit stirring up so much dust? It’s getting in my eyes.
I think you mean February, not September, 1980.
Further, i just want to say how much in awe i am at how well you all express your pleasure and delight. You guys can really write wonderfully. Thank you. It has been a delight to read this thread.
At Osaka bay sometime in late summer. 
I’m not sure it happens every summer though. My wife’s bum happens every day, but viewing is restricted.
It was a lava bomb, lying in the grass next to Hay Creek Road. About the size of a bowling ball, it had a smooth yellow face that gave way to fingers of annealed basalt and whorling faceted scars that defined its brief moment of glory as it sailed through the sky from whatever cauldron had launched it in fury how ever long ago that had been.
It was not what most people would call beautiful, but its surface told its story in the old language that spans millions or billions of years and resists translation into human words but flows with feeling. We collect rocks, and I often pick the ones that are not so very pretty but tell their tales of violence and ages of silence in their lines and twisted layers. And the places we stop have their own beauty. They are often those unremarkable places that everyone else passes by on their urgent way to somewhere else, that vibrate with a loneliness so quiet that you want to breathe delicately lest you stop hearing the peace.
Then there was that light Kelly’s eyes. She was a 30ish woman transplanted from central California. One January morning after work, she went out to her car around 3am to go home, but instead stood gazing in rapture at the crystalline fog that wafted and spun under the beam of the streetlight. Then the others came out and started their cars, the exhaust huffing it out of the sky.
Her name was Carla.
Lots of good ones mentioned already. A few more:
- Zion National Park in general, and more specifically Angel’s landing
- The Na Pali coast in Kauai
- Hiking in Meiss Meadows (in CA) in the middle of winter, in the moonlight. Nothing particularly unique in terms of the scenery, but an absolutely perfect combination of an absolutely untouched area, everything silent except for the crunch of my snowshoes.
I just couldn’t resist…
*Her name was Carla
She was a show girl
But that was 30 years ago
When they used to have a show
Now it’s a disco
But not for Carla
She sits there, so refined
And drinks herself half-blind
She lost her youth
And she lost her Son of a Rich
Now she’s lost her mind
At the Straight Dope…
She lost her love
*
I think I listened to too much Barry Manilow in my youth.
wipes away a tear
I’m lucky enough to have travelled quite a lot, so a few memorable ones.
Mt Arenal, Costa Rica; watching the lava flows at dusk, with fireflies drifting around. Then the lightning started, shooting down along the valley between the viewing hut we were in and the volcano, below us. Then the volcano erupted.
New Zealand, Kahurangi national park; I’d just walked up into the park, along the most terrifying road I’ve ever driven on (warning sign at the bottom said ‘For Experienced Drivers Only’, it meant it). It had just finished snowing, and the sky had cleared completely as it went dark. Just outside the hut I was sleeping in, there was a perfect view of the full moon rising out of the sea, and the sky was so clear, the stars seemed to be almost close enough to touch, with the light reflected off the fresh snow, and the native tropical looking vegetation all smothered in glowing white. Silent, still and unreal.
Most recently, Komodo National Park, Indonesia; SCUBA diving on a near pristine coral reef, clouds of fish, turtles, everywhere I looked there was something new and amazing. I’ve dived in other tropical countries a few times, but that place was something else.
Wish I’d seen the whale shark that they’d spotted the day before though 
Difficult to say one thing. There were a couple of sights I had this summer that were up there:
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The total solar eclipse. Two and a half minutes in Geneva, Nebraska. Everyone I talked to confirmed that nothing had prepared them for what they were going to see.
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A room full of Rembrandt paintings in London’s National Gallery. We have one of his pieces here in Omaha, but I never realized how much I loved his work in toto. Amazing.
Apologies, sir. I hope I didn’t strike a sensitive nerve there.
Sunflowers, by Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery. I burst into tears.
Some things are very moving like that. You reminded me of a similar experience. I burst into tears at the Martin Luther King jr National Historic site in Atlanta GA, as I followed his life timeline right up to when he was assassinated. What a beautiful man he was and what he stood for.
My wife and I were driving thru the Blue Ridge mountains and I got a picture of her with a spectacular overlook view behind her.
She was 65 at the time…happy, healthy, beautiful,…and unaware of an upcoming diagnose.
That picture was on the board during the visitation as she passed away 3 years later losing her battle with ALS.
You want to lay it on really thick, take a gander at the Doctor Who episode Vincent and the Doctor.
Well, here’s the money shot. Well worth 3:30 of your time.
Omg, I’m sitting here bawling.
Okay, anyway. I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things, and I don’t know if beautiful is the right word for it, but one of the most awe-inspiring bizarre incredibly literally take-your-breath away things I’ve ever seen is la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
I don’t know how to explain it, but, it’s alive. This building has been in a perpetual state of construction for at least a couple of hundred years now, it completely dominates the landscape, and it feels like a living creature to me. It’s like a giant insect crouching over the city. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I imagine that, when I lay on my death bed and look back on my life, four things will stick out:
[ul]
*Marrying Mrs. Homie
*Walking through the ruins of Pompeii
*Watching a night-time Space Shuttle launch
*The 2017 Solar Eclipse
[/ul]
I can’t pick just one.
This, and I can’t imagine it will ever be surpassed in my lifetime. It was just that cosmic and otherworldly. Maybe when I see the next one, hopefully in Patagonia in 2020.
For me it’ll be April 2024 in Texas, or between Texas and Maine.
I cannot overstate how impressive the visual was. In my mind, I was visualizing a little fringe of light around the disc of the Moon. When the totality actually hit, the Moon looked like a black diamond throwing off sheaves of light across the sky - several times the diameter of the Sun. We were lucky to catch the full view without any cloud cover - there were some clouds over the Sun at various times during both the waning and waxing phases, but none during the totality.
The traffic on Interstate 80 across Nebraska was daunting all day - I had no idea that the appeal of the eclipse would be so great. In retrospect, it was all worth it.
I’ve held on to some of my glasses for 2024. Whether I go or not is an open question, but it is an amazing visual.