If you were camping in Fairbanks, Alaska, there was a chill hanging in the night air and you looked up and saw this sight you would know exactly where you were and what you were looking at- the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. It’s one of the unique things you go there to see, one of the natural wonders of the world and well worth the long and expensive trip to get there.
Turns out Florida has its own not-so-natural light show. You can see it at Thousand Trails, Orlando on any given night, while you are sitting around on a balmy evening in your pineapple shirt and short pants. That’s right, it’s the Southern Lights! Imagine our delight sitting after dark under the awning, having finished a lovely dinner with friends (but that’s another story) when out of the silent night appeared a spectacular array of eerie and almost supernatural lights moving mysteriously down the road past all the parked coaches. Blinking. Flashing. Pulsing with the energy of the night.
Amazed at the awesome beauty of the unanticipated sight, we broke into applause in appreciation of the splendor of it all.
There is always magic to the darkness. Things easily explained in the light are not so in the night. And many things visual and perceptual are enhanced by the trickery of the dark. Santa Clause doesn’t attempt the chimney thing in the daylight. You don’t go to see fireworks in the afternoon. You don’t howl at a full moon that rises at 10:00 AM. And you don’t tell ghost stories at breakfast!
So what brought us the surprising and color rich spectacular appearing before our very eyes this night? Six happy campers. Grownups with tricked out Go Carts, a fantastic sense of humor, and the kind of genuine joy that you find around many a campground. On their second trip past our open air dining table, they slammed on the breaks in response to the hoots, hollers, and rousing cheers and pulled off a magnificently complex Chinese fire drill. In the darkness, their mounts were glorious chariots, but the flash of the camera betrayed the illusion and exposed the golf carts to the momentary normalcy of the light.
We spoke in the dark for a while before it was time for them to go. ‘Twas like Santa eating the cookies and milk before heading back up the chimney, then dash away, dash away….before the light of day.
Turns out Florida has its own not-so-natural light show. You can see it at Thousand Trails, Orlando on any given night, while you are sitting around on a balmy evening in your pineapple shirt and short pants. That’s right, it’s the Southern Lights! Imagine our delight sitting after dark under the awning, having finished a lovely dinner with friends (but that’s another story) when out of the silent night appeared a spectacular array of eerie and almost supernatural lights moving mysteriously down the road past all the parked coaches. Blinking. Flashing. Pulsing with the energy of the night.
Amazed at the awesome beauty of the unanticipated sight, we broke into applause in appreciation of the splendor of it all.
There is always magic to the darkness. Things easily explained in the light are not so in the night. And many things visual and perceptual are enhanced by the trickery of the dark. Santa Clause doesn’t attempt the chimney thing in the daylight. You don’t go to see fireworks in the afternoon. You don’t howl at a full moon that rises at 10:00 AM. And you don’t tell ghost stories at breakfast!
So what brought us the surprising and color rich spectacular appearing before our very eyes this night? Six happy campers. Grownups with tricked out Go Carts, a fantastic sense of humor, and the kind of genuine joy that you find around many a campground. On their second trip past our open air dining table, they slammed on the breaks in response to the hoots, hollers, and rousing cheers and pulled off a magnificently complex Chinese fire drill. In the darkness, their mounts were glorious chariots, but the flash of the camera betrayed the illusion and exposed the golf carts to the momentary normalcy of the light.
We spoke in the dark for a while before it was time for them to go. ‘Twas like Santa eating the cookies and milk before heading back up the chimney, then dash away, dash away….before the light of day.
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