One of my very favorite things about summer is how the day’s warmth lingers after the sun sets. There’s something so lovely about eating dinner outside and then idly chatting as it grows darker, all the while staying perfectly comfortable. Here in the Midwest, the pitfall of a summer evening is the flood of mosquitoes right after sunset. Over the years I have learned that you can wait it out and eventually the mosquitoes go to bed too. If you can outlast the bugs, your reward is a lovely summer night, warm beneath the stars.

While camping in the Quetico last week, a beautiful canoeing wilderness area just north of the Minnesota/Ontario border, our group enjoyed some stunning stargazing. We ate a camp dinner, washed up the dishes as the sun was setting, and huddled around the smoky camp fire until the worst of the bugs passed. As the darkness fell, we walked out onto a few big rocks along the shoreline of our campsite and laid down. We gazed up at the stars, tracking satellites across the sky, picking out the handful of constellations that we could recognize, and eventually spotting a shooting star.

My seasonal nudge for this week is to take the next chance you have to do some stargazing. If you live in an area with a lot of light pollution, could you squeeze in a quick weekend trip before it gets colder? Perhaps a cabin somewhere out of the way or maybe a weekend camping? If you can see the stars already where you live, make an intentional effort to step outside for 10 minutes (which might just turn into half an hour) the next time you have a clear night. You might even catch a shooting star.

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also enjoy:

• summer outside: catching the sunset

• summer outside: after dinner walks

• spring outside: a weekend camping (Northern Lights in this post!)

Thank you for reading! If you’d like more nudges to live seasonally, please subscribe to seasonal things.