The view I saw riding down the interstate with my parents, going home one Sunday morning after spending the day touring a potential college (I have no reason why I felt the need to be that specific, but oh well).
It was relatively early in the morning, must have been about seven. We had just left the town we had stayed in for the weekend and were driving down the interstate. It was amazing. The land all around the road was so OPEN. The land went rolling on and on out to the horizon. The sky seemed to be much larger than it is where I live. Hell, everything seemed so much greater in size. It was the only time I've ever gotten a first hand account of how large the Eath is.
Feels kind of odd that I've got all that from looking at the scenery from my vantage point in a car on the interstate.
One of them anyway was the Adirondacks in the autumn. Whole hills covered in red and yellow that made me want to climb a mountain.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.Maybe not the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, but worth adding to the other things that I've posted here:
I think it was last year, but I remember standing in just the right spot on my college campus around sunset. There were trees blossoming about 100 feet in front of me, and they were right at that point where the blossoms are starting to blow off in the wind. Beyond that was a fountain, and past that was snow-covered Mount Rainier. The colors of the sunset were reflecting off of the fountain and the mountain in just the right way. I wish I was better with words so that I could describe it better, but I hope you get the point.
Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.As far as natural features go? I think it was the Hans Jenny Pygmy Forest; some park with stunted trees, anyway. There were various deep puddles/pools in the path that I had to circumnavigate; minerals had leached into the water and turned them all of these different vivid colors.
Well, that, or a tide pool.
Most beautiful human handiwork I've ever seen? Hard to say. It probably involved silk, clay, clever architecture, or any combination of the above.
edited 25th Apr '12 12:45:34 AM by FarseerLolotea
The abandoned garden of an old mansion, nature reclaimed.
Exotic plants that were once immaculately trimmed were a wild mess, it was amazing to see the sheer size that garden plants could actually get to, rodedendrons towered overhead and cultivated roses were a great rambling mess, wild flowers were everywhere too, bluebells and dog roses, brambles, dandelions, though thistles and nettles were a rather literal pain, and that's just the plants, animals everywhere, blackbirds singing, woodpeckers hammering and jays chattering, and the odd pheasant freaking out about our presence, it was a truly amazing site.
I think gardeners need more often just let plants grow and see what happens.
Hm hard to say, I live in Colorado so the view around here tends to be pretty impressive regardless...
But I have to say a moment of nature beauty that knocked me silly is when I hiked up to Hanging Lake with my family the first time. It was right at the end of summer so it was warm and the sun shone but the aspen trees were starting to turn a riot of green, yellow-green and well yellow. There was some orange mixed in from other trees...
But yeah, so we're hiking up this mountain side mostly trees and rocks/dirt and trees... you get the deal. A small creek running down from the lake.. But once you get up those last steps it just knocks the breath out of you. The lake is a brilliantly crystal clear blue and green color.. Maybe turquoise is the best color description? You can see the fish swimming in the deepest part of the lake (not too deep but hey it counts). There's this old log that sticks out into the middle of the lake. It's big enough for a smaller person like me to walk out on to the center of the lake. Here just look at it.
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EDIT: Er forgot to mention the waterfalls.
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edited 3rd May '12 3:35:31 PM by JinxedBlackcat
Real Life rwby rose![]()
Ah, Hanging Lake is amazing! I went there with my family five summers ago. Isn't the moss growing along the waterfall beautiful? And the mineral deposits built up along the edge are really interesting, too.
Oh, and you can walk right under the waterfall. It's hard to see from that picture, but there are rocks to stand on. Great way to cool off after the hike.
edited 3rd May '12 8:58:29 PM by Enthryn
Has any of you ever observed the sea late at night?
A few nights ago, I decided to take a midnight walk, and went to the coastline.
Now, I'm not an outdoorsman. I hate outside. Filled with people. But, I walked across the beach, sat on a rock, and, in the middle of the night, it was fucking beautiful. Almost felt like it was alive for a moment. It was night, so there was not much there to see. Waves crashing against the rocks, small crustaceans walking about, and just sitting in the middle of this amazing spectacle of sight and sound, it was one of the most amazing feelings I've ever had. The only sound around me was that of the few seagulls that were still around, circling over the water.
A similar emotion is what I got last time there was a major blackout, and I sat on the roof and looked at the stars. They were brighter than ever. It felt as though there was no sky. For once, I started feeling like I got at least one millionth of the perspective I'd need to have in order to comprehend the vastness of everything. Though, that might be because the neighbors were smoking pot, I think. May have gotten a bit into my system. Kidding, kidding. But, really though, you sit down, turn off your brain, and just admire the size of it. It's all... fantastic.
As for man made accomplishments, I once was told what the actual scale of the CERN LHC was. Suddenly, I realized one thing: This is the biggest fucking thing we've built for this purpose. Science rules, man.
Speaking of which, seeing old documentaries about the moon landing, the space program, CETI, all that. Makes you real proud. That is what you can do when you put the brightest minds of the world together. You walk on the fucking moon. I can't wait to see the mars mission next. Speaking of space, Civilization III's Space Victory. I cried the first time I saw that.
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One millionth of the perspective? Is that so?
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And don't forget, even if you throw in the 10^500 or so alternate universes predicted by some variants of string theory, it's still tiny compared to the first (and smallest) infinity.

Night sky in the middle of nowhere, where its dark. I need to do it again soon.