Let's see where this thread goes: amazing things you've seen

[catherine]

Spartana, I love your story about the Haitians. Thanks for sharing it. I'm getting teary-eyed thinking about it.

[Teacher Terry]

I really am loving all the great stories! It brought back one for me. When my youngest son was 2 my Mom & I took my 3 boys on vacation and I bought everyone some new outfits. He also had bright red hair. So one day we are sightseeing & are hot & tired so sit on a bench to rest. My youngest is on my right side where my Mom can't see him. She starts to tell me that he is getting too far away but I am ignoring her because I know where he is. Finally she gets pretty excited & raises her voice & I look and all the hair on my arm stands up. There is another little boy-looks like his twin wearing the same outfit. She thinks it is my son & then gets shaken up when realizes it is not. When the parents came along they also were shocked-neither of these kids were adopted & they had the same birthdate. Years later we wished that we would have exchanged addresses so we could have kept in touch to see if they looked alike as they grew up.

[Rogar]

I couple of years ago I visited Death Valley for my first time. My first evening there I drove out far from my campsite to what I think is called "badwater basin" to take photos of the sunset. It's a very large flat expanse that is covered with salt crystals with snow capped peaks in the far distance. The salt crystals are white and form polygons of different shapes and are a couple or few feet across. As the sunset, the white salt shapes reflected the changing colors of the sky as it went from a light blue to pastel pinks to crimson, so that both the sky and land took on the same color. At that time I felt very small and like I was standing on an alien landscape.

[Blackdog Lin]

So two things came to mind right away as I'm enjoying all the stories.

(1) Circa 1972, in my small-town-Kansas upbringing I'm probably one of only 5 people in town to visit Disneyland (pre-Disneyworld, Disneyland was all there was). And I got to go there every summer spending summers with my Daddy in Los Angeles. And one trip/summer I'm waiting in line for the monorail (remember A,B and E!!! tickets?) and hear someone hollering my name, and I'll be darned, it's a classmate/casual friend from my hometown calling down to me from the monorail. I waited, he got off the ride, and we spend a few minutes marveling over the odds of running into someone we knew at Disneyland!

And (2) night before last, I went out on the front porch to have a cig, and it'd been warm - very warm and even muggy, and then there was a cool breeze, and then it got cooler, it felt wonderful, and I could see the storm front out to the west, and the lightning was flashing and it turned into an awesome light show and the breezes felt awesomely cool on my face and I thought well, it just doesn't get any better than this. I got rushes (remember rushes, you druggies? This was rushes from real life.) Remember this particular moment, Lin, I told myself, because life just won't always reward you like it's doing just right now.....

[RosieTR]

A couple of friends and I were on a road trip to go lake camping in Nebraska many years ago. The weather was unsettled, and we had stopped at a gas station in eastern CO and were looking out at the thunderstorms to the west. As we stood there, a tornado just dropped out of the cloud right then and there. I had been through a few tornado warnings and even gone into the basement a few times but never actually seen a real tornado in person. This one was far enough away that I wasn't too worried, but it was definitely amazing to see.
Just about every day that the high mountains aren't shrouded in clouds, I see Long's Peak and it's still amazing, every time. Supposed to be clear tomorrow!

[Yarrow]

My (adult) baby girl giving birth to her own baby girl. What an amazing thing that was to see, and that I was able to share such a beautiful experience with my daughter and new granddaughter.