Good Morning! <BR> <BR>For some reason I was thinking about this experience today and I'm curious to know when everyone here has felt in "awe" of nature. I was going to post under "what took your breath away?" but I'm looking for nature stories. (sorry if this is a repeat, i'm pretty new around here ☺)Anyway..it doesn't have to be just Europe...here's my story.. <BR> <BR>8 years ago I went to Europe with my History teacher. My most memorable experience was in Westendorf-Tirol, Austria. There were rolling green hills all around and the mist of early morning made it seem like we were walking through the clouds. I get a similar feeling each summer when I'm driving from my home in southeast Pennsylvania to visit family in Ontario. Usually it's about 6 or 7 in the morning when i reach a sign that says "now entering the Endless Mountains region" (near the PA/NY state border) it's so quiet and peaceful, not many others on 81 at that time, and that traveling through the clouds feeling is almost magical when the mist clinging to the valleys makes it look like you're above the clouds. kinda strange to always think of Austria when i'm about to enter New York state! <BR> <BR>Steph

Let's see--driving through the Green Mountains in Vermont in October, flying over the Alps in Switzerland, standing on a beach and gazing out at the ocean anywhere, and standing in my backyard watching an approaching thurderstorm in August!

Many years ago we went to Australia and I went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef. I almost drowned oohing and aahing at the most incredibly coloured beautiful fish I have ever seen in my life. I was overcome with emotion. Only other time I felt so emotional was when I took a boat trip off the coast of Newfoundland and saw literally dozens of whales so close to our boat we could almost touch them. Not ashamed to say, it brought me to tears.

Hi Steph, my VERY favorite places to commune with Mother Nature are : Volcanoes Nat'l Park, HI and similar to "Bashfuls", 40 ft under water with scuba gear and coral reefs.... God MUST be there IMO! Judy

Every time I go snorkling, I feel 'awe in nature'. We have often snorkled off Cozumel, but also Belize and the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. Truly amazing. <BR> <BR>Most recently we took an excursion from Morelia, Mexico to see the monarch butterflies. It was incredible - literally millions of monarchs. When I think of their migration to/from Canada, I am amazed.

That one is a little hard to answer. <BR>One event came the first time I saw the Grand Canyon when I was old enough to know what I was looking at. <BR>The second time came when I was on Half Moon Pass in the Colorado Rockies. <BR>We were above timber line when a lightening sleet storm caught us. <BR>The storm moved down the Cross Creek drainage toward Minturn and we were looking down on the storm from the pass. <BR> <BR>At the time I was not so much in awe as I was scared stiff. We abandoned our metal pack frames and sought refuge under a boulder that seemed to grow smaller by the second. <BR> <BR>The third biggie was my first view of the full splendor of the Berner Oberland Range when we were riding the gondola from Grindelwald to First.

REX! <BR> <BR>get the hell away from the computer terminal and enjoy Italy. <BR> <BR>you sick and twisted man. I pity you... <BR> <BR>I didn't know they had computer terminals in mental hospitals.

My memory is of a different nature. <BR> <BR>We were traveling from La Paz, Bolivia to Cochabamba for a softball tournament. There was a 18 wheeler broken down at the crest of a mountain (Andes Range), blocking most of the road. We had to pass on the right, and the view out my passenger window was straight down. We got so close to the truck, we pulled the trim off the wheel well.

Steph - Like Bob Brown my first view of the Grand Canyon. Nothing you can see in pictures can prepare you for this astonishing sight. <BR>The other sight that brought tears rolling was in the Norwegian fjiords area, actually many areas in the fjiords. <BR>The view outside Chauteau Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies is pretty special too.

My first trip to Trier, Germany. Somewhere along either A62 or A1, there is a rest area that overlooks the Mosel. I stop there every trip and now have pictures of the view in every season, with people, without people... It's like it should have a sign that says "Kodak picture spot".

I'm from Newfoundland and so may be biased, but since its already come up, the sighting of coastal whales (first spotting their "footprints" on the water'a suface) is a thrill matched only by Gros Morne Park (Northern Newfoundland)...I've been lucky enough to visit 9 provinces, 30 states and 12 European countries and I've been swept away by water meeting land many times in a dozen different manners,all wonderful in their way, but never anything like the raw drama of untouched nature in Gros Morne.

Flying over the Alps or the Rockies. <BR> <BR>Driving over the Atlas Mountains in Morocco on a track that's one jeep width and no guardrail. <BR> <BR>Looking straight down from Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. <BR> <BR>In Tennessee, watching thick black clouds start to swirl together, the air literally being sucked out of the atmosphere like the clouds were a giant vacuum cleaner; then watching the sun break through and the clouds scatter. <BR> <BR>The old growth trees, some trunks 6' across, lying around the Bois de Boulogne like pickup sticks, the result of the December 1999 storm. There were so many trees uprooted that a year later they still weren't cut up and cleared away; even with all the building going on in France, there's too much wood to use. <BR> <BR>The caves and grottoes in Perigord.

We were in Costa Rica a few months ago. Even hiking though well-work paths, the surrounding jungle is just teeming with life. There are huge "strangler fig" trees whose roots seem to grow up out of the ground and twist around each other to form a whole tree trunk about 20 feet up. On our hikes we spent a lot of moments just standing still and listening to the sounds. Among other things, we heard whole choruses of poison arrow frogs, a swarm of bees flying around their hive in a tree about 100 feet above us, tropical birds squawking in the distance, leaves constantly rustling with creatures that I don't even want to thing about being so close to! And coming across monkeys in their natural habitat was amazing. Not even the most well-done zoo habitat could do the real jungle justice. <BR> <BR>The feeling has stayed with me; I've started looking at birds and insects more closely in my own suburban backyard now, even though the majority of the bird life consists of Blue Jays and European sparrows instead of tucans and macaws!

1. My first view of the Grand Canyan <BR>2. Standing in the middle of a grove of <BR> giant Sequoia trees. <BR>3. Looking at the Alps rising out of <BR> the other side of the lake at Lake <BR> Lugano. <BR>4. The Fall colors in Main, Vermont <BR> and New Hampshire. <BR>

Standing on the edge of the lake at Two Medicine campground in Glacier National Park. <BR> <BR>Stepping onto the terrace of our room at the Porto Roca in Monterossa al Mare <BR>overlooking the Ligurian Sea. <BR> <BR>And I agree with Bob and Marie about the Grand Canyon. I somehow had expected a dusty old hole in the ground. Then we arrived just at sunset...

In order of occurence in my life: <BR>Standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon <BR>The Sedona landscape. <BR>On Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast in fron of the Monolithe. <BR>The caves in Nerja,Spain. <BR>Hiking the Cinque Terre. <BR>Looking out over the Tuscan countryside from the 12th century castello we were staying at (and going back to this summer!) <BR>

Flying home from Italy last ,we were near Iceland and looked down on a sparkling ice world with huge triangular diamond-looking ice bergs sticking out everywhere. B-r-r-r-r I've seen much friendlier looking sights but that one looked like another planet and was nature in quite another outfit. <BR> <BR>BUT, I still love those red rocks- and where ever they occur. Amalfi and Sedona sure have their share.

A few of my most memorable: <BR> <BR>1) My first view of the Grand Canyon and visualizing the Colorado River, and the uplifting plateau, carving this glorious site. <BR>2) Camping and traveling by 15’ rubber boat in an area with a 36’ (11m) tidal range. Watching the tide progress back and forth between 100 ‘ and 5 miles along the coastline twice a day. That was amazing. <BR>3) Starring a humpback whale in the eye (10 ft away), and seeing the intelligence of a creature that came back to investigate our noisy ship out of curiosity every day for a week. She even picked the spot to hang out where the humans could get the closest to the waterline. I say she because she traveled with a baby. <BR>4) Looking up at Vesuvio from Herculaneum and imagining the mud flows that engulfed the city in 69AD, and extended the coastline 100 m to the west. Read Pliny the Elder’s account of the events of that day. <BR>5) Crossing the barren sandur plains of southern Iceland (10-20 miles wide). Barren because of catastrophic glacial meltwater floods which periodically sweep away roads and bridges. The Icelanders have long known not to build homes in this region. <BR>6) Walking the excavated streets of Ostia Antica and realizing that three story buildings had long ago been slowly buried in the flood plain muds of the Tiber River. <BR>7) Walking through any early human construction (Serpent Mound in Ohio, Avesbury in England etc.), and recognizing the amount of labor that it took to build such things and why. <BR>8) My first walk on a glacier. <BR>

Crossing the Chott al Jarid, an immense salt flat, in Tunisia. <BR> <BR>The Gorges du Tarn, and more specifically the road we took to get there - most frightening road I've ever been on - and the incredible ever-changing geology of the Cévennes. <BR> <BR>Watching a storm develop all day long over the Vézère valley, then explode. <BR> <BR>The stars on a clear night in southern Morocco. <BR> <BR>And the time I nearly died on a rafting trip. <BR> <BR>

The view from the Nuuani Pali on Oahu--and most anywhere else in Hawaii. <BR> <BR>The mountains driving from Garmish P. to Innsbruck. <BR> <BR>Aboard ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where you are apparently sitting on top of the round ball of our planet with nothing else in sight and you finally understand what they tried to tell you in high school.