"We should scream with awe"

Night hiking in Everglades National Park

by Haley Young

“We live in a world of such marvels. We should wake in the morning and as we put on our trousers, we should remember the seahorse, and we should scream with awe and not stop screaming until we fall asleep, and the same the next day, and the next.”
— Katherine Rundell, Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures p. 136

Between the waxing gibbous moon and artificial glow above the southeastern horizon, Key Largo some forty miles in the distance, tonight is bright.

We’re in Everglades National Park for a guided hike on Anhinga Trail. We walked it on our own earlier, but I’m sure we missed things out of ignorance—and in the wake of funding cuts, I’m happier than ever to support NPS programs. Our group dodges mosquitos and shares pleasantries before Ranger Ashley introduces herself with an easy smile beneath her wide-brimmed hat, a park service signature. “Half the park is after dark,” she rhymes. “Even though this sky isn’t all that dark.” I’m surprised by our shadows’ contrast as we set off.

We spot an alligator by the glint of a single orange eye, then a toad catching crickets along the pond’s brick wall. We hope for cottonmouths (some of us more eagerly than others) and whisper over the evening sonnet of singing frogs and flapping wings and rustling lilies. As we turn from an observation deck’s dead end, a woman gasps. “A shooting star!” She clutches her friend’s arm. “I’ve never seen one before!”

Last September Sean and I lay on our backs in the Badlands and the sky rewarded us with wonders between astronomical twilight and moonrise: the Milky Way, faint smatterings of other suns, several shooting stars. I’ve missed tonight’s here in the Everglades, but I don’t mind. I’ve seen so many that I almost take them for granted.

Almost. This group’s excitement reminds me I never should.

We’re pointing out planets when an alligator rumbles just beneath the boardwalk. Someone squeals, less surprise than awe, and we cease talking to listen to the night. There is a loud crack across the surface of the water—the gator’s slamming jaw—and another lengthy groan.

We lived on Florida’s Space Coast prior to hitting the road. When I first arrived in the sunshine state from midwestern roots, I couldn’t get over the marvel of palm trees and year-round flowers and small gators in every body of fresh water—but over time I habituated to my surroundings. I let the reptiles become commonplace.

Not tonight, though. I huddle with visitors from around the country, straining our eyes, hoping for another growl. “Alligators don’t actually have vocal chords,” Ashley tells us. “They make that noise by just vibrating their throats.” None of us can get our heads around that.

At the end of the trail we stumble upon a small bird. The group debates her feathered form: an Eastern whip-poor-will or a lesser nighthawk? Ranger Ashley sends a photo to two ornithology enthusiasts who each give a different answer, but I find I care little about knowing. Whip-poor-will, nighthawk, common robin, whatever. She’s wondrous.

Throughout the hour we spend together, some of our fellow hikers are consistently overwhelmed. “Wow!” whispers one woman—I never catch her name—to almost everything Ashley says. Though Sean and I bring the average group age down by at least a decade, there’s no shortage of childlike enthusiasm beneath this too-bright sky.

I’m reminded of a man we saw in Yellowstone National Park our first summer traveling in our van. As I greedily scanned the riverbed for a fox or wolf or bear, a stranger gasped when he panned his binoculars over a tree. “I’ve never seen a bald eagle before!” he shouted. “How amazing!”

Growing up in central Wisconsin, I’d seen what felt like hundreds of bald eagles. To me they were cooler than a gray squirrel or white-tailed deer and not nearly as interesting as a canid or ursid—but for this man at a viewpoint in Montana, they were the coolest.

A few weeks prior Sean and I had been on a boat tour in Kenai Fjords National Park. There, too, we were chasing more “exciting” sights: I cried watching an otter carry an infant on her stomach and laughed at several seals’ inquisitive expressions and held my breath each time a group of orcas—two adults and a yearling—surfaced yards away. But when the captain stopped the ferry so everyone could observe an eagle on a rocky outcrop, I wondered if it was really necessary. Wouldn’t our time be better spent circling the colony of puffins we’d glimpsed earlier? Or sticking around the end of our route in hopes of witnessing another glacier calving?

Then I looked around and saw a different feeling on our fellow passengers’ faces. Old men with cameras trained on the bird’s brilliant head; young kids eagerly pointing from their mothers’ arms; even the teenager across the aisle with eyes glued to the window. I was the one missing something. And despite vowing in that moment not to gloss over amazement again, experience after experience loosened my grip.

Tonight, in the Everglades, I’m embarrassed that my capacity for wonder has been stunted. How small I feel next to these strangers who are more awash in the world. Even I—nature-loving joy-seeking van-life girl—fail, too often, to scream with awe.

Consider this my renewed pledge.

Haley Young (she/her) is a freelance writer and full-time traveller. She lives in a yellow campervan with her partner and blue heeler, always searching for the next small joy. Her work has been published by ROVA Magazine, Juniper Magazine, Kinship Pets, and others.

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