Great photo!

The sky at night looked just like your photo. The stars were so close it seemed I could just pick one out of the sky. The whole sky was like sparkling diamonds as they twinkled in the blackness. I’ll never forget how beautiful that sky was.

well maybe not fun, more like sad actually.

Fewer than 20% of the people currently alive on the planet have seen the Milky Way.

I grew up on a farm in what was rural north east Ohio so I just took what I saw every night, when it wasn't cloudy or a full moon, for granted. Then I spent 25 years living urban after marrying a woman whose nursing specialty was not available in rural hospitals. She retired, we moved back to rural America, in fact just a bit west of where that picture was taken, in north central Washington.

Now I get to see the glories of the cosmos whenever I want but I never take it for granted anymore.

I am truly blessed that I am able to live where I can see it any night of the week if there aren't clouds in the way. The most memorable viewing I think I've ever had was eight or nine years ago where I was watching a lunar eclipse with some friends. We were up at a fire lookout in the middle of a lake and when the eclipse was in the dark period we could see the Milky Way clearly reflected on the lake, it was magical.

And you just know that some of them are moving around up there.