Sunset over the Cliffs

Reveling in our new found freedom, my friends and I decided to check out 'the cliffs', an overlook that we had heard about through some friends.

It was this rocky outcropping that overlooked this large lake. After only a little difficulty in tracking it down, we got there just as the sun was setting-- the term 'magic hour' has never been so applicable.

We had just said goodbye to all of our friends-- each scattering off to different states for the summer. There is just a handful of us who have to play at graduation and thus stay longer. It's like being on a ghost campus-- everyone is gone, the parking lots are empty, the campus deserted. There are just a few seniors and band/choir members who hang around.

We climbed down a little trail past the main overlook to find the rocks. They were slanted a what was almost a forty-five degree angle. The sloped with the curve of the hill, towards the water. We perched ourselves on them, gazing out over to water, lit with the warm light of the dying sun.

People had come before us and decorated the rocks. Colorful painting sprawled out over the slick rocks.

The creativity and skill surprised me; the angle was awkward, I don't know how they managed to get such beautiful results.

I stayed away from the edge, grasping onto the rocks. It's not that I'm afraid of heights, I'm just afraid of harsh drop offs that end in rocks and a painful death.

We must have been close to a military base-- military grade planes kept flying over us a regular intervals.

We stayed up there for a while, chatting as we watched the sun set, wishing that we could have shared this experience with all of our friends. Band affords us the surprisingly fun opportunity to stay on campus with no work or responsibility to hold us back from having fun. This fun is paradoxically set against the bittersweet goodbyes of all of our friends.

Once the sun set we patiently watched as the stars began to pop into existence. Finally we reluctantly made our only slightly precarious way back up the hill towards the road. We had, of course, worn footwear that was totally appropriate for scaling rocks-- flip flops.

So today hopefully will be spent hiking the nearest mountain-- aka really kind of tall hill. Expect more pictures :)