Meteor Shower: The Only Shower I Was Near All Day

"Don't you know, yeah, yeah
Don't you know that you are a shooting star,
Don't you know, don't you know.
Don't you know that you are a shooting star
And all the world will love you just as long
As long as you are"

I could never quite figure out if the lyrics said "shooting star" or "superstar". (Who knew that was Bad Company by the way. Rock on, Nuge.) But then I'd never seen a shooting star before either. Until last week. The Perseids meteor shower came fizzling through last week (the Perseids are caused by debris from the Swift-Tuttle comet's tail entering the atmosphere), and Jeff and I decided we'd find somewhere and watch. Decided about 24 hours prior, over the phone, while I waited in the airport on my way back from Alabama. Yeah, not exactly a well thought out plan. So we set out after work on Tuesday night and pointed the car towards Joshua Tree. It seemed like the best place within a couple hours drive to get a clear sky and open space.

And it was, apart from being a little cloudy. The only complications came from neither Jeff nor I being able to stay alert enough to notice interstate signage and the fact that apparently Joshua Tree closes quite a few campsites for the summer (including the first four we stopped at). Finally we found a spot, paid the fee, and threw our tents down. On the way back from the fee station I happened along a baby tarantula on the road.

baby tarantula

Really, it wasn't a whole lot bigger than all of the huge beetles that are roaming around. But it turned out to be foreshadowing for many other creatures we'd encounter in the next several hours.

It was already dark by the time we made camp, so after we unloaded our tents, we plopped the chairs down and sat back and watched. Well I did, anyway. Jeff's camera hack failed leaving him unable to take long exposure shots, so he entertained himself by trying out some medium exposure shots and doing some "light painting".

jeff light painting; a shooting star can be seen moving
up and to the left out of the middle of the joshua tree

Eventually he settled down - or ran out of energy - and we settled in to watch the meteor shower. It was really pretty cool. Almost as soon as we sat down, we started seeing them. I was able to catch one prbably every 15 or 20 minutes. The sky was a little cloudy so they weren't ultra bright - it can be kind of hard to pick up in my pictures - but the thing that struck me was they are so fast. Most were visible for a second at most, but during that second they would streak almost all the way across your field of view. Really neat.

meteor is seen faintly across the top third of the picture

While we were sitting there, we kept hearing the coyotes howling through the night. Some of them sounded really, really close. Jeff even got a recording on his phone. You'll have to turn your sound up likely to hear it, but I can assure you it was much louder sitting there.

And then as we sat watching the stars, we saw one run through our campsite. Probably the reason the one sounded so close. Around 2AM we called it a night as we planned to get up at six and drive back into work (without bathing and in the same clothes). However, leaving Joshua Tree we ended up taking (not intentionally) some of the wildlife with us. About a third of the way into the drive back, Jeff yells from the passenger seat and I look over to see a white mouse climbing up his pant leg. Jeff scared him away pretty good, but a few minutes after that another (?) one came out for a peek. That was all we saw of them, but I guess Jeff doesn't know for sure whether they're gone or not. Glad we took his car.

beautiful morning leaving camp

I was dragging the next day after only four hours sleep, but I'd do it again. All my pictures are here.