The camping trip to go watch meteorites? Definitely worth it. Early on I was a
little worried, because even an hour out of town, we could see the glow of Phoenix
to our left, and there were a few clouds early on, so that the sky was dark blue-
gray instead of black, and the stars were in "city" instead of "rural/planetarium"
mode. Thankfully, though, the clouds cleared away, the city's glow was only way
down on the horizon, and the moon was a fingernail sliver. Though it wasn't the
"raining stars" show of 1833 or even the "too many to count" one of 1966, it was
still more shooting stars than I have ever seen in one night, made more
spectacular because so many -- most of them, in fact -- were fireballs, leaving
trails of flame across the sky that faded out slowly, like afterimages. We slept
outside, not bothering to set up a tent in the dependable desert weather, to
maximize our viewing chances. Most of the shooting stars I had seen before were
the kind that just look like stars that move a short distance, or like satellites
that only travel a few degrees before going pffffutt. These were beautiful balls
of fire -- some even flashed and dimmed and flashed again as they burned into the
atmosphere.
Queue was going to come, but ended up going ATVing with
an old friend instead. T2 and Egret did come. Unfortunately, evil influences that
they are, they brought an entire fifth of Jack Daniels, most of which we finished
in the course of the night. This forced me later to have to leave the warmth and
comfort of my sleeping bag and assorted blankets not once but twice. Bleah. Or
maybe it was the hot dogs. I finally got to sleep for an hour or so, to be woken
around 2 by Rudder getting up for something (nonalcoholic) to drink. By then, he'd
been watching the show for a little while and told me the meteors seemed to be
coming closer together. We watched for a few more minutes, then woke T2 and Egret
to be sure they didn't miss anything. (The nice thing about rowers is that being
woken at 2:30 AM hardly phazes them.)
I fell back asleep as the
fireballs began to come less frequently, and woke again in time to watch the sun
rise in streaks of red and gold. We got up, packed a little, and headed out to do
a bit of climbing while we were in the area. Rudder and I hand' climbed in over a
year; Egret and T2 had only gone once, indoors, so we set up the top ropes for
three 5.7 climbs, in an area where we've taken a bunch of newbies. Egret, light,
wiry, and flexible was a natural. T2, being strong for his weight, would likely
had done well except that he doesn't like heights. They both turned out to be
rock-steady (sorry) belayers, which is always reassuring when it's your ass there
in a sling, literally. And now I'm tired and grumpy, and my fingers are so much
more abraded that I can't believe how much I've typed here.