A Mid Summer Night's Light Show

This weekend is the Perseids meteor shower. Tonight, Sunday, is supposed to be the peak of the shower. I can't possibly stay up late and watch it and feel like a human at work tomorrow so I decided to get the sneak preview last night. Even that was awesome!!!!!

My grand scheme was to go out to Fishtrap Lake, well away from city lights, and float around in my kayak and watch the show. I got out there about 8:00 and immediately got into the water and paddled towards the end of the lake, which is about three miles in length. I paddled only about 2/3 of the way down to the narrows and sat in the boat waiting for it to get completely dark.

I have paddled many times (even on this lake) when there was a full moon and that is some of my best paddling, but I can only remember one other time paddling when there was no moon at all and that was on a small lake near Spokane also during the Perseids. Morgan and I were out floating in our old Coleman canoe watching the meteor shower, but as I recall it was not totally dark, especially along the shore. There were a lot of cabins with some light. Well, in all honesty, I did not enjoy my time on the water after it got dark. Not because I was afraid of the dark or the obnoxious bat that kept fluttering around me, but because it was too dark to have any sense perspective of whether I was right side up or upside down. At one point, even though I was paddling, it did not feel like I was moving at all. I can now totally understand why pilots get confused with their senses and then crash. So ultimately I had to turn my headlamp on, put it on the side of my head, and paddle near the shore so I could have some kind of perspective. Just having the dim light from my headlamp on the periphery of my vision was enough to keep my other senses working.

So I paddled back towards the little resort until I could see the lights, and then hid in the next cove in the dark. All I had to do if I started getting that weird sense thing was paddle out a few feet and see a horizon line. So sat and waited for about an hour and did not see a thing. By that point, I had been sitting in my kayak for about three hours which was too long so I paddled back towards the boat ramp. Just as I beached the boat, the second most amazing meteor I have ever seen came streaking across the sky. It was brilliant. The most amazing was in the boat with Morgan and there was one we could actually hear. Anyway, I got the kayak on top of the car with my eyes trained up and saw several more. I then drove down the road and pulled off and hung out there for about an hour looking up. I do not even know how many I saw. It was amazing and I am so glad that I did it. The Milky Way was a mass of stars and the night was perfect. At one point, coyotes were howling. That was cool.

This afternoon Walter and I went back up to Mt. Spokane for a stroll in the woods. We stuck to the cross country ski trails because they are less crowded. We did not see another person. We had a nice lunch break on Eagle Crest and a bit of a nap in the grass. Then we headed back via Shadow Mountain and made our way back home. It has been a pretty darn good weekend.