Camping Adventures: Star Gazing and Cosmic Dreams

The fire was dying down. It was just a bright patch of glowing coals in the fire ring we’d built of stone. Every now in then the coals would shift, and some unused bit of firewood would be exposed. A small tongue of flame would flare up briefly and then slowly die down.

I pulled the blanket up around myself. The San Juan Mountains are cold at night but as long as I stayed covered, I’d sleep warm. But the dying of the fire just seemed to make it a bit colder. Around me, my dad, my brother, and my uncle snored.

I shifted slightly, the Earth hard against by back.

Overhead, the starts frosted the sky. My eyes traced the lines of the old constellations. There, Aquila, the soaring eagle arched overhead. The bright star Altair winked at me in the cosmic night.

Over there, Vega, a blue, white diamond in the night sky. Vega was only eleven light years away, a hop and skip in the measurements of the Universe. But it was millions of years away for us even with our fastest probes.

Something caught my eye. It was moving slowly across the sky, One moment brighter, and then slowly fading and then brightening again. An old satellite and long dead maybe. It’s mission over it was tumbling in orbit, brightening and fading.

Or maybe some piece of space trash, a faring maybe off a rocket.

I put my hands behind my head and continued to watch. The cold mountain air brought the stars out by the thousands. I studied them and thought of the Native Americans that had once roamed these parts. Did they look up at the sky in wonder. Did they, like us, people it with beings far and wise and powerful.

What a concept, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep. Out there someplace. Maybe on a planet orbiting that star I can barely see. Is someone sleeping on the ground of their planet. Are they looking up in wonder.

Someplace in the hall of the infinite, I heard the distant howl of a coyote.

It was my signal to sleep.

My eyes closed and I dreamed of wandering the star filled sky.

As I faded into dreams, I asked, “Is there anyone else out there?”

“Or are we alone in all this beauty.”

Either way, the answer would be staggering.