The cold night air bites my face as I help my friends, Matthew Flowers and Emily Rogerson pack the car for a recent stargazing trip.
Once the car is packed, we head inside to wait for our friend, Brendan Constantino. Constantino is running late, as always. As we wait, I look at my sleeping bag and snacks in the corner. Resting beneath them are card games, blankets, and my shoes. I’ve never been stargazing before, so this should be fun.
Brendan finally arrives 20 minutes after the initial rendezvous time we set. As he raps his knuckles on the door, my friends and I go silent. I quietly make my way to the door, my hands are digging in my sweater pocket for my phone. I ready the camera as I open the door. Brendan waits outside, bewildered by my phone, which faintly cries “click” with every photo I take. After the initial shock, Brendan smiles; “Didn’t know paparazzi was here to catch me arriving fashionably late,” he starts as he heads into the house. “I would’ve brought my good sweater!”
Cheez-Its, Chips Ahoy, and Uno; all the essentials you need for a great stargazing trip.
My friends warmly greet Brendan with hugs and jokes before shuffling him back outside and into the car. As we back out of the driveway and take off toward the freeway, I look up and catch a layer of clouds hovering over Reno. I sit in the car, quietly thinking to myself when we should expect to arrive at the site we chose. We were nearly thirty minutes off from our original time schedule. If we were to stargaze at all, we would have to drive fast.
My friend speeds down the freeway in the farthest-left lane. The car’s engine roars loudly in my ears, even though I’m wearing air pods. I look at the dashboard; the red line of the speedometer steadily rises to 65, then 70, then 75, and finally resting at 80 mph.
After nearly and hour in the car, the doors are opened, and we begin setting up the blankets. My friend, Alvin Leung, sits in the back of the car and begins opening the box of chips we brought.
Natalie enjoys her Cheez-Its while Emily lies next to her. All of us were pretty cold, even with blankets and coats.
I shiver slightly from the cold. Since we left Reno, the temperature dropped to near freezing. Matthew’s breath comes out in big white clouds as he looks up at the magnificent stars above. I look around and practically stumble over Natalie and Emily, who have bundled together on blankets to fight the cold.
I find a spot on the blankets and start looking for constellations. As I lie down and look up at the sky, directly above me is the Big Dipper! I quickly pull out my camera and take a photo. My hands jittered from the cold as I tried to focus the camera; I just barely got the photo before having to put my hands back underneath the blankets to warm them.
Right above me was the big dipper, almost looking like a question mark.
I look around, trying to find other constellations. My friends huddled behind Matthew as he points out Orion, named after a hunter in Greek mythology, with a noticeable belt.
I look off to the right of our site and barely make out the mountains that surround us. I grab my phone and look at the mountains through it. My camera slowly detects the light from Reno and Sparks, providing me a wave of light looming over the mountains like a fog. I take the photo and stare at it in awe, thinking the light looks as if it’s the heavens itself, cascading over the mountains and shining on the Earth. I lie back and stare once more at the stars, content with how wonderful nighttime can be out in the deserts of Nevada, a quick drive from my home in Reno.