My sleeping bag is nice and comfy and warm. Nature is calling though, urgently, so I scramble out of the bag and fumble with the zipper on the tent’s door.
The air outside is cold, and I am shaking before I get three steps from the tent.
While I answer Nature’s call I take a moment to look up at the scene in front of me.
The night is not dark at all. The sky is perfectly clear, and the moon is bright, so bright it lights up everything around me. I can see the hills, the trees, the rocks. I can see single blades of grass. I can practically see the patterns of the bark on the trees on the ridge above.
As cars round the bend of the nearby highway their headlights flicker on a cliff wall.
Tonight this is my own personal ampitheater. I laugh out loud, simply because I cannot believe something so beautiful could be had merely by showing up.