Sarah Coffey - Utah

 My favorite trip that I've been on was my vacation to Utah with my dad, when we went the summer before my junior year of high school. We flew into Salt Lake City and then drove down to Moab on the first day. I had a lot of great experiences on this trip and garnered a deeper appreciation of the west.

One of my favorite memories from this trip was when we went to Arches National Park at night to see the clear night sky. We found an empty parking lot and got out to enjoy the view. The weather was perfect; a warm summer night, slight breeze and dry air (growing up in the east, I appreciate not being in humid weather). There was a bright moon in the sky that was illuminating everything around us, and we could see everything in the distance. We could hear the crickets and insects around us and the breeze. We ended up laying down on the parking lot because our necks started hurting from looking up at the stars, and we just stared at the sky. You could see the Milky Way if you looked closely, but the moon was washing out much of what we could've seen otherwise.

I've always been fascinated by astronomy, so looking up at the sky and seeing so many stars and our own galaxy, as well as having the beautiful scenery around us was an amazing experience. I felt so calm and at peace, like I could spend the rest of the night just laying there. I would love to go back out and visit that area again with my dad.

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