On the light pollution aspect: I grew up about 45-60 minutes outside NYC. Pretty rural, but nowhere near a place like the Adirondacks or anything.
Anyway, one of my best friends grew up right across the river from the city and moved up my way sophomore year. We all used to hang at his house because his mom let us use the finished basement for band practice and one weekend, his friends from his hometown came over to watch us play a show and hang out.
After the show we went back to his place and were playing video games in the basement. A group of us went outside to smoke a cigarette and I’ll never forget the look on his friends’ faces when they looked up at the sky and realized they could see stars (second only to their faces the first time we had to slow down to let a black bear cross the road, but that’s another story). They were absolutely bewildered and ran back downstairs to get the rest of the kids from their hometown to show them. A couple of them didn’t believe me when I said this was nothing and they should see the sky from the campground my family visits every year in the Catskills. We all ended up just sitting on the back deck with the lights, off chain smoking, and staring at the sky the rest of the night.
It’s one of my best memories from that time in my life.
Absolutely. And as someone who grew up in the woods, I had the inverse experience when I visited my friend in Chicago and walked around at night to pass the time, instinctively looking up at the stars only to see a murky yellow-brown all across the sky.
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u/__M-E-O-W__ 9h ago
Waking up after a deep sleep, from a long day's work, cat gently purring next to you, fully refreshed, no obligations for the day.
Also stargazing. Just being out and looking into an open sky unburdened by light pollution.