Stars and Sleeping by the Colorado River

2011 Grand Canyon Star Party Image by Dean Ketelsen.

It’s been a little more than a week since my friends and I came out of the Grand Canyon. But I still wake up at night looking for the stars.

Many of us wake up in the middle of the night worrying about life, and trying hard to go back to sleep.

For five nights in May, when something woke me on my blue cot on some sandy beach beside the Colorado River, I tried very hard to stay awake…to look at the stars and the Universe in all its glory.

I live outside of Houston, and look up at Orion’s Belt, faint in the sky. But in the Canyon, the stars of the constellations are brighter than streetlights in a neighborhood. The Little Dipper was our constant nighttime companion, but it was not alone, surrounded by more stars than I can see anywhere else I’ve been in the world.

When I’m in the Canyon, I miss my wife…I dislike the sand…I long for beer other than Coors (!).

When I’m out…I miss the stars and waking up in the middle of the night to see the galaxy above me.

The 2013 Grand Canyon Star Party is on the South Rim June 8-15.

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