The Perseid Meteor Shower happened last week. We love to watch cosmic displays when possible. One year we took our blankets, pillows, and pet to a well-attended park to see the phenomena! It was going to be an amazing time!!! It started out so great--people laughing, talking, oohing, and ahhing when a meteor was spotted! And then, two hours into it, all the sprinklers came on, dousing us and everyone else. I'm not going to lie, it also kind of doused our own enthusiasm and we left in a hurry.
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We hadn't tried to go again until last Thursday, the 11th of August, because this time it was going to be an "outburst"--meteors showing at double the rate! I said something like, "Let's go! We are so much more experienced than before and have our acts together. We're seasoned and will be able to navigate this. We won't hit a park, no siree, we're going up to the heights of the mountain, out of the light pollution, to see it in as much glory as we can possibly see it, without traveling hundreds of miles." (After all, this was very spontaneous.) So again, we gathered our supplies--the anti-gravity chairs, the tarp, the sleeping bags, blankets, some snacks, and headed up the mountain to Alta! Our destination was the Albion Basin Campground, high above Salt Lake Valley.
We set everything up out in a meadow, near the parking lot. It was a cool crisp evening, almost 25 degrees cooler than where we live below. But I was fine, I had a blanket and a sleeping bag to snuggle in on my own anti-gravity recliner! But soon I felt the need to keep my entire face covered because it became uncomfortably cold, not the ideal position to be in if you want to see a few meteors whizzing by! I must have fallen asleep because my husband patted my head and asked if I was O.K. I said "yes, but I'm freezing!" Apparently he was too, because he wanted to pack it up and go. He wasn't dressed as warmly as I was, having worn cargo shorts. So once again, a rather anti-climatic end to a rare show in the night sky. That's OK, I saw a few meteors and they were beautiful. I just didn't experience the deluge of falling light that I had envisioned. But, all it takes is one shooting star to make a wish come true! I also love the quote below, along with a beautiful image by someone who planned much better than we did!
Image by Ryan Jones |