a story of an unforgettable moment.

cue obnoxious phone alarm tone.

my body jolted awake. i'm not one of those people that wakes up calmly in the wee hours of the morning. i get scared awake. it's an awful way to start the day, so after turning it off, i laid there a few minutes allowing the adrenaline to seep away and listened.

nothing. there was nothing.

i looked up through the somewhat foggy window at the stars peeking through the branches. so many of them.

we slowly woke up and more or less, in a sort of robotic motion, rearranged the car into a drive-able state. which consisted of shoving everything in the back with a couldn't-care-less-because-it's-4-o'clock-in-the-morning attitude. we could fix it later. necessities first.

with dawn quickly approaching, we gathered everything up and as quietly as possible made our way out of the campground. we followed the winding road up the mountain again, backtracking the way we came the night before. or rather, just a few hours before.

the parking lot was nearly completely empty, and thus a spot of honor required no competition.

i grabbed my camera and tripod and we headed up the trail, the dim morning light lending us a bit of a guide.