Most awesome thing you've seen

When I was about 5 or 6, I was sitting in the screened in back porch with my grandmother when a summer storm rolled in. The sky got very dark very fast and we were waiting for the downpour that was sure to start any minute.
That was when the lightning bolt struck the back yard not 10-15 feet away from where I was sitting.
Never heard a boom, just a loud crackling noise. I remember that it appeared like a cartoon lightning bolt when it struck.
Left a round patch of burnt grass where it struck. Can't remember exactly how large it was, maybe 10 inches though not certain.
Wouldn't step on the spot for weeks thinking I would get electrocuted if I did.
Been fascinated watching lightning ever since.

 

My first thought was seeing the Rock of Gibraltar and watching the shore just a short distance away while going through the Suez Canal. I remember seeing the cars drive by on the road.
and it may be "routine/boring" but watching an unrep (underway replenishment) from topside was special, especially considering I was typically below decks for those kind of things.

 

as dumd as it sounds, the most awesome thing that ive ever seen is my daughter being born. to me that was just awesome

 

Wow! I am envious

OK, some of mine:
Standing in the cell where St John of Patmos wrote the Book of Revelations
Cheddar Gorge ... rock form in England.
Low flying helicopter passing by me at 30 feet distance

 

this should have been the first thing on my mind - the miracle of pregnancy and child birthing are the most amazing things I have seen personally.
Especially when you hear your unborn daughter has a 25% chance of surviving a normally routine surgery that her mother needs to have.

 

Pretty much in order:
Both sons' births
Lava flow from Kilauea into the Pacific from a helicopter
Full lunar eclipse on the south rim of the Grand Canyon while the Hale Bopp comet hung in the heavens above us
A Shuttle launch

 

It wasn't just being in the room. It wasn't the miricle of birth.

Here it is

My wife (now ex) and I were about to have our first child. I was prepared to do the waiting room thing you see in the movies, you know smoke a lot and pace up and down. I knew that some guys were allowed in but I thought that thosde were the guys that had been through some training, you know those guys that were there so often that they were on a first name basis with the recptionist at the hospital. I DID put in my time, i was excited that I would be blessed with an extention of me, really an extention of us.

It was in one of those new hospital rooms. there was a new thing going around that had hospitals trying to make their rooms more like home. I resolved to stay until they put me out for the birth....they didn't.

Watching him come into the world was great enough. but once he was out, the doctors/nurses handed him to me.

This kid wasn't wailing, wasn't crying at all. He was looking around, he was checking out his surroundings. I know infants for the first few months have vision of only a few feet, but he was looking around. Yeah it was only a couple seconds but it happened. Then he looked into MY eyes. I knew he knew me. He didn't look away, he still wasn't crying, just looking. God was in that embrace, God was in that shared moment. it seemed it lasted for minutes although I am sure it didn't. I remember walking a couple steps away before I turned and put him in his mothers arms.

It wasn't the birth it was the recognition.

It was awesome

 

^^^
Awesome indeed! Major respect from me.

I just remembered another awsome sight .... it was a cople of years ago when Heathrow Airport was brought to a standstill by the massive snowstorms. My friends in Canada and almost everywhere else cracked up at my AWE. However ... it had been many, many years since I had seen snow liek that in England. England was suddenly liek I remembered in my childhood .... and those Snow Drifts heck ..... NINE ... TEN .... even ELEVEN ....
.... inches high. The snow was falling so densely I could only see a few hundred yards in front of me. In my little world, this was ... Spectacular!

 

I once saw a one-legged seagull in Galveston holding his own against the other seagulls while going after the Cheez-its I was feeding them.

 

Crossing the Bay of Biscay and seeing and hearing the whales - captivating. Then sailing out of San Miguel in the Azores at dusk, standing watch in the wheelhouse in the dark, illuminated only by the lights of the instruments and hearing the radio - 'radio San Miguel, Radio San Miguel' - like you are the only person in the world, and all around is ocean and starlight.
True Virgins Make Dull Company.

 

Nice timing.

I'll have to think about this one a bit longer...

 

I've seen some awesome things, but the thread requests the most awesome. I have to relate one of my childbirth experiences.

Our third child. Home birth. My beautiful daughter making her grand entrance. Calling her brother into the room to cut the cord. He steps into the room and comes to a full stop. The look of awe, joy and pure love on his face is one of my most precious memories. Those two grew to become best friends. Nearly 20 years later and a thousand miles apart, they still are.

 

The most awesome experience of my life was delivering my daughter, on my 25th birthday. That was awesome.

This one is on my mind because it was recent. This year, on the way home from my trip to New York, I was lucky enough to witness the homecoming of a young soldier from overseas. I didn't know him, or his family, it was just dumb luck that I was there. That was awesome.



I could keep going for a long time, but those two stick out in my mind.

 

I watched a tornado tear up the main drag in a small town. Watching it was pretty dumb; but damn, it was cool.

 

I once saw a dude fall three stories and compound fracture his leg. Got to hold a huge wad of sterile gauze on the wound while waiting for an ambulance to show up. He was tagging on a roof and fell while climbing down. It was surreal.

 

Watching the leonid meteor shower in 2009. I was in the back yard and my camera was on its tripod. Nothing much was happening ... London, quite a hazy night, and some cloud cover.
Then ... a fireball .. slowwwwww ..... lasted two seconds, had a tail, burnt yellow, red and smoky ... then was gone. Wow.

 

My reflection.

 

The most? Hmm, not really sure it's the "most" but in 1992 one of two WWII era blimp hangers burned down in Tillamook, Oregon. May not sound like much but we're talking about a 1000ft long, 300ft wide and 200ft tall (do the math it works out to something like 5-6 arces of building) wood building go up in flames in nothing flat. I was on the volunteer fire dept. at the time, there was nothing we could do but watch and hose down the side of the other hanger in hopes of keeping it from touching. I can't remember how far they were apart but maybe a 1/2 mile. So we're at hanger "B" spraying it with water and the paint is peeling and the rubber is melting off our trucks. It got so bad we had to take 10-15 mins shifts on the hoses and wear OBA's (air tanks.) It was such a huge ball of fire and heat I'm not sure I've ever seen anything that massive before.

I can think of another time in my youth some friends and I went back backing in the central Oregon Cascades. We camped at a lake, maybe Craig lake been a while, and partied pretty hard. I found myself sitting on top of a ridge one morning, no idea how I got there, watching the sunrise over one of the Three Sisters mountains. I remember thinking this is the most awesome thing I'll ever see. But that might have been the shrooms talking.