The Persied Meteor Shower arrives every year around this time. They're the debris stream of the Swift-Tuttle comet. Tiny particles of dust enter our atmosphere as shooting stars. Saturday night was to be the height of the celestial show. Between midnight and 2:00 a.m. the moon would not have risen except for a sliver. At Lost Lake there is no ambient light from surrounding cities and the forecast was for clear skies.
Our plan was to set the alarm clock to midnight and go to bed early. We would get up to observe the height of the show, some fifty shooting stars an hour.
I got into bed, but almost immediately, we ran into trouble. The young couple who were tenting in the next campsite got into a big shouting match, him cursing her in the most abusive way. Sleeping through that was impossible as I wondered about him physically abusing her. I suggested calling the sheriff's department, but the matter was taken care of when we heard a car pull up. The young lady must have used her cell phone to call for help. She got in the car and that was the end of that.
Gary was making a lot of noise, too, opening cabinets and using his flashlight to look inside.
I tried to get to sleep but never managed. I finally got up and discovered Gary had left the camper. I pulled on some fleece, shoes, jacket, gloves and knit hat, grabbed a flashlight and walked the very narrow path to the lake. Gary was there looking at the sky.
It was only 11:15 p.m. but the show had started. Gary gave me a recliner and provided me with a blanket so I could look to the northeast. The Milky Way made a swath across the dark sky. There were so many stars I couldn't make out favorite formations. We saw lights moving around across the lake. The people at the cabins had come down to the beach to watch, too.
The first shooting stars were short streaks, but then the big show began. The meteors flew across the skies. Some of the biggest went adjacent, or so it seemed, to the Milky Way, looking like exclamation points. It was fireworks without the banging, but punctuated by shouts across the lake.
We grew tired finally and agreed to go back to bed....after the next big shooting star. Then we got excited and waited for the next and the next and the next until we staggered back to our campsite.
As I turned on the light, I heard something rustling around my bed. Surely a moth outside, I thought, never thinking that the temperature had dropped and moths were not likely.
This morning, the cabinet doors were still open and Gary was too wiped out to get up to make morning tea. He had been up most of the night chasing that elusive mouse. He found a new nest next to the water heater but never found the nest-builder. It could be it was bunking with me.
I left for Seymour at 10:00 this morning, leaving him to his rodent hunt.
Our plan was to set the alarm clock to midnight and go to bed early. We would get up to observe the height of the show, some fifty shooting stars an hour.
I got into bed, but almost immediately, we ran into trouble. The young couple who were tenting in the next campsite got into a big shouting match, him cursing her in the most abusive way. Sleeping through that was impossible as I wondered about him physically abusing her. I suggested calling the sheriff's department, but the matter was taken care of when we heard a car pull up. The young lady must have used her cell phone to call for help. She got in the car and that was the end of that.
Gary was making a lot of noise, too, opening cabinets and using his flashlight to look inside.
I tried to get to sleep but never managed. I finally got up and discovered Gary had left the camper. I pulled on some fleece, shoes, jacket, gloves and knit hat, grabbed a flashlight and walked the very narrow path to the lake. Gary was there looking at the sky.
It was only 11:15 p.m. but the show had started. Gary gave me a recliner and provided me with a blanket so I could look to the northeast. The Milky Way made a swath across the dark sky. There were so many stars I couldn't make out favorite formations. We saw lights moving around across the lake. The people at the cabins had come down to the beach to watch, too.
The first shooting stars were short streaks, but then the big show began. The meteors flew across the skies. Some of the biggest went adjacent, or so it seemed, to the Milky Way, looking like exclamation points. It was fireworks without the banging, but punctuated by shouts across the lake.
We grew tired finally and agreed to go back to bed....after the next big shooting star. Then we got excited and waited for the next and the next and the next until we staggered back to our campsite.
As I turned on the light, I heard something rustling around my bed. Surely a moth outside, I thought, never thinking that the temperature had dropped and moths were not likely.
This morning, the cabinet doors were still open and Gary was too wiped out to get up to make morning tea. He had been up most of the night chasing that elusive mouse. He found a new nest next to the water heater but never found the nest-builder. It could be it was bunking with me.
I left for Seymour at 10:00 this morning, leaving him to his rodent hunt.
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