Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Glittering Fields of Ithaca

6.20.10

After a long and eventful day at work (I collected soil samples around campus, read papers, had a Greek lesson, and typed up some reports.), I felt that an evening off was well deserved. My good friend and climbing buddy, Ashley, was having a bonfire at her house out in Brooktondale, NY which is about 8 miles southeast of Ithaca. Ashley had also invited my friend and department-mate Michaela and her husband Andrew to the bonfire. Lucky for me, Michaela and Andrew were more than willing to pick me up and give me a ride.

As we started driving toward Brooktondale, we noticed something strange and decided to stop on the side of the road. Andrew turned off the car lights and we all rolled down our windows as much as we could; it was a hot evening so we already had our windows partially rolled down. We looked out into the dark, swaying field of tall grass and saw thousands and thousands of lightning bugs. The three of us stared silently out of the car windows at the glittering fields before us. Even when we had the courage to muster up a 'This is incredible!' it came out as a whisper. Perhaps, we feared any loud noise would cause the insects to vanish indefinitely. Sure I had seen one or two lightning bugs together, but I had never seen this many in one place at the same time. It really was amazing and will not forget this experience.

2 comments:

Bill said...

wow!

I saw a whole "flock" of what looked just like white bats flying over the harbor in toronto last friday night. It was really scary but really cool. I have never seen that many "bats" in one place before..

speaking of bats, I've seen maybe 20 ppl with aquabats shirts in the last year.

you gotta tell me about climbing!

Ali said...

That sounds incredible, Sheilabeila! When I was 8 on a family vacation to Washington DC, we went to Arlington Cemetery one evening and there were thousands and thousands of fireflies there. It was really magical and I've never seen that many since.