A trip to soothe my soul……..

This week end, I traveled with my thirteen year old daughter in order to experience life together away from the noise of school, homework, daily life, etc…When I first read about the synchronous fireflies at Congaree National Park, I just knew we HAD to go. Evidently, these male fireflies that light up at the same time as other males in the woods to attract female attention as part of their mating habits is pretty rare. There are only a few places in the world to see these, and one of the lesser known places is Congaree National Park. We traveled by car for about 6 and a half hours to see these beautiful creatures along a small trail in the woods that is known as the “Redwoods of the East” because of the many tall trees there. While I was there, I was thinking of my  experience as a summer camp counselor as a teen at a camp in the woods that had a beautiful causeway road where we used to lie in the middle and just listen……there was that magical moment when you could see the stars and hear the bullfrogs calling that always took my breath away.  That moment of excitement combined somehow with peace and solitude at the same time.  A sense of wonder and excitement that there was a whole life happening around us at the very same moment in time, even though that moment felt somehow frozen in time for us.  I felt almost like that somehow with the fireflies, especially when I closed my eyes and could hear the wood pecker and the birds sing earlier in the same forest around twilight during our two and a half mile hike.  It was one of those moments that take your breath away all over again, even in my 50’s.  Life IS good. It has been said that it is “the little” things that make life rich and full. These fireflies is one of those very “little things” that at the same time is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.