Second the Grand Canyon and Hale-Bopp (super cool)…
Impact Crater in Arizona
Valley of Fire - hiking back through the red rock was so cool and beautiful it was almost creepy
Double Rainbow in the flat lands between Las Vegas and Arizona
Aurora Bourealis in Michigan (again, so cool it was almost creepy)
A drive up the CA coast in Highway 1 - so many beautiful vistas
I’m sure there’s more.
Florida is full of beautiful, natural sights. But my favorites are the small/commonplace ones. Butterflies. Wildflowers. Birds.
I saw the most beautiful autumn leaves in New York/New Jersey one year. Sunsets in the Keys. Waves breaking on any beach. Thunderstorms, especially over water.
Yesterday, my heart was so full of joy, I thought it would burst. I was sitting on my screened patio, watching the rain fall in my back yard and flower garden, with cats in my lap, and a dog at my feet. The sun was shining in spite of the rain, and the cardinals were playing in the trees, and flying to my feeder. Ordinary and commonplace, and yet so beautiful.
Many things, both great and (very) small.
A total solar eclipse (Straatsburg, 1990 or so).
Rain (and the ensuiing bloom) in the Arizonian desert.
The Milky Way, that one time I was on an island so far away from city lightning so I could see her for the first time. The times I saw falling stars in August.
The Grand Canyon, although it was rather too great to fathom; I kept on feelign I was watching a movie of the Grand Canyon all the time I was there. I enjoyed the ground squirrels hopping over my feet more.
Lots and lots of beautiful landscapes, seen on holidays in my own Netherlands. France, Belgium, Sweden,
The pinewoods of Spain near Sevilla, that looked like a park.
The wild orchids of mid-Italy, each aping another insect, and the Italian fields laying bare, covered with wild pink lilies…
Landscape parks and gardens in England.
The Dover coast in England, with the white chalk cliffs, filled with ammonite fossiles, and the pools during the low tide that were filled with strange cute sea anemones, scenty seaweed, hermite crabs and what I think were manganese nodules, silvery clumps of metal that came rolling from the seabed.
The time I lay on my belly on the Dutch Vlieland beach, looking at a muddy flat where all sorts of tidal plants grew and critters scurried around, and I imagined what a strange vegetation all that would be if I was smaller or they larger.
The way the world of vegetation just expanded with every new plant species I learned to distinguish. How much richer and more detailed and more meaningful the world became.
Friendly contact with animals:
The first time I discovered all the little critters in the garden pond and watched them for hours in fascination.
My cats. All friendly cats I met.
The time I wandered into the forest with a friend, sat down to talk, and after fifteen minutes or so, a wild boar, apparently tired of waiting untill we’d leave, but not afraid of us either, crossed the road, no hurry, on it’s dainty hoofs, occasionally looking at us as if to say “Please, carry on”.
The cows who came looking what I was up to if I sat quietly in what I thought was a meadow inaccessible to them. Suddenly, there’s a warm wet wind and a very loud “HH-hrmpf” at your ear.
The time I sat down in another meadow (I mapped vegetation at the time and occasionally sat down to organize my notes) and I saw a deer walking cautiously in my direction, clearly curious. I froze and she passed me at less then five yards, looking at me, but she never bolted.
I stood in a dorm room, high in one of the residential towers at Washington State University, and watched a thunderstorm out over the Palouse–a band of black cloud with lightning underneath. Stunning.
The Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. I see why they have pull-offs on the Blue Ridge Highway…you could drive your car off the road trying to take in all the scenery.
One day, I’ll go back in the fall…we were there in the summer, and I can only imagine how much more breathtaking is the autum foliage.
I come from Indiana, so my “wow, nature!” moments will probably seem mundane to many people. That said…
The Green Mountains in Vermont. I’m from a flat state, and I’ve always driven through flat areas. So, going through Vermont last year blew my mind. I always thought I’d see mountains and think “huh, mountains.” Instead, I was in awe. I watched a cloud get snagged on one mountaintop. (And, yeah, they’re small mountains, relatively, but they’re my first ever…)
The Mississippi River. Again, I’m used to “rivers” that are just upgraded creeks. I saw the Mississippi a while back, during a near flood stage.
Sharks and rays swimming around my feet in the Gulf of Mexico, on a vacation in Florida.
Various times through telescopes that I’ve gotten “live” views of various things. Seeing Jupiter “up close” through a giant telescope at an observatory was really neat. (To this day, just thinking about the gas giants is just… mind blowing.)
One thing I wish I could see, and should have seen considering where I live… I’ve never seen a tornado. I’ve been in them, I’ve slept through massive F4/F5 storms… but I’ve never actually seen one in real life. Not even a funnel cloud.
Lots of things.
Fields of wildflowers near the Maroon Bells in Colorado.
Bobcats pouncing on small creatures in a grassy field at Point Reyes.
Sea otters off the coast of Monterey.
The volunteer violets, crocuses and daffodils sprouting in the lawn outside our apartment in Pennsylvania and the magnificent flame colored oaks in the same town in the fall.
Can’t believe I fort to mention this on my list.
Stumbling on a cloud of Monarch butterflies migrating through Wisconsin (at Merrick State Park, on the Mississippi).
Being surrounded by bison in South Dakota - we poked our heads out our sunroof, it was like being in a pot of boiling water.
The Badlands in South Dakota – the wind, the rocks, the way the vultures sunned themselves.
The Petrified Forest (and the drive to it, through Indian reservations) - The Grand Canyon - Sedona, Arizona.
Pt. Reyes National Seashore (and the drive to it, along US1, about an hour north of San Francisco) - Muir Woods - San Francisco Bay with fog rolling out.
Everglades, including alligators and dolphins and the hawk that swooped down to yank a snake off the road.
Jungfrau, in the Swiss Alps and the trip to Interlochen (can’t name those lakes) in Switzerland
The light in Italy.
Blue seashells in the cold sea of the Netherlands.
A black bear eating frogs from road near Porcupine Mountain, in Michigan.
There are a lot of natural things I’m glad I’ve seen, but here are two of my favorites:
Comet Hayakutake: Comet H | beowulff | Flickr
Taken near Globe, Arizona
Comet Hale-Bopp (and Andromeda): HALEBOPP1 | beowulff | Flickr
Taken at Organ Pipe National Monument, Arizona
The ocean.
The redwoods in Cal…
Death valley.
Let’s see, in no particular order:
The Wye Oak.
The eye of a snapping turtle as we carried him to safety – a clear jewel of great depth, an utterly alien stare.
Sun Dogs.
Driving for eight hours in thunderstorm in Big Sky Country…we could see so far we realized the bolts come down in a sort of pattern, one following the next, far apart, like the strides of giants. Lacking cover, the pronghorns curled up in the open and endured, watching us as we passed.
The last surviving baby bird from a clutch, vigorously feeding from the syringe – she wanted it so badly I knew she’d live.
Snorkeling in the British Virgin Islands, I went farther from the boat than anyone else, and when I looked down, the bottom was out of sight, just a blue abyss.
A frost covered field at night that seemed to move…when I held still long enough for my eyes to adjust, I saw about a dozen baby rabbits being watched over by an adult, outlined in moonlight.
When the rescued 6-month puppy at last closed her eyes and fell asleep in her new home.
The lost carrier pigeon we found, who rested quietly in our palms.
Reaching into the murky water I was wading in and pulling up a mud puppy before I knew what they were.
Cold green Atlantic rollers broken by the backs of cavorting dolphins.
A spectacular fireball meteor over Baltimore decades ago; a blue-white ball like a mercury vapor lamp, trailing a red tail.
Sailboat
Niagara Falls
A double rainbow
Local blue herons
Eclipses, partial and total
I lost my virginity under Hale-Bopp
Having lived in the Appalachians for a few years before moving down here to FLA, I must second this. I miss the cool summer nights and lush smell of the mountains more than any other place I’ve lived. And you MUST visit in September when the hills are aflame with color. It’s like walking around inside one of thse beatiful background images for your PC desktop.
So Most of the places I’ve seen in the Appalachians are top of my list. But many of the others listed here qualify: Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Glacier and other national parks and monuments. The night sky at most of those places was amazing to this suburban boy.
The everglades viewed from a comfortable seat when you’re all alone on a hot day is very zen-like.
When I was about thirteen a tornado came through the small town in South Dakota where we were living at the time. Once we’d gotten the all clear, one of my brothers and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the watertower at the edge of town. The sky overhead was split evenly down the middle: one half was really impressive rolling purple-black thunderclouds with tiny flashes of pink lightning, the other half was a very clear, cloudless, intense sea-glassish green. I’ve never seen a sky like that before or since, and we laid out in the field for a long time just staring up at it and not saying much of anything at all. I have to ask my brother if he remembers that day the next time I talk to him.
-The Pacific Ocean at Carmel, CA, by moonlight. I really thought I had come to the end of the earth. It was beautiful beyond my capacity to describe, and right out our cottage window.
-The hills of the Lake District in the north of England, like a mountain range in human scale. You walk up and up and up through the fog and wet, passing ponds and falls and herds of sheep, seeing fields and lake far below as you climb, and more hills far away in the fog.
-The Canadian Rockies, a few hundred miles of 'em anyway, from the transcontinental railroad.
-The Blue Ridge Parkway.
-The Rigi (6,000’) in the Swiss Alps.
-The Grand Canyon, even if only from 7 miles up in an airliner. It’s still spec-friggn-tacular. Kind of pink, actually.
Halley’s Comet.
The Grand Canyon.
The Turon River valley, from Merlin’s Lookout, in Australia.
The light in my sweetie’s eye when she smiles at me.
