The Great Meteor Shower

By Sally Franz

We heard about the Perseid Meteor Shower when we attended Astronomy Night on the top of Hurricane Ridge in the Olympic National Park. We were stoked. As it was we had just looked through telescopes the size of torpedoes gazing at Saturn’s rings and many moons, the Andromeda Galaxy, several Nebula. I was enthralled to actually see things I had only looked at in books or on TV science shows.

We marked the upcoming Meteor Shower on our calendar. We packed both hot and cold drinks and snacks. Wow, an actual Meteor Shower August 12^th-17^th 2016 and we were going to be there. The night was crystal clear. The Olympic National Park was open to any and all visitors brave enough to come see the sights after the moon set. We got there around midnight.

We brought two folding lounge rockers, pointed our toes north and snuggled into down sleeping bags. Between munching and gulping we waited. We moved our chairs a few times. We munched. We waited. The meteors were to be whizzing from the north to the south in huge numbers. The astronomy-ranger the week before had explained that the meteors can be as small as a grain of sand that flashes as it burns up coming into our atmosphere or as big as baseballs. We were scanning the heavens waiting for Godot.

Then our first meteor showed up streaking the sky from east to west. Then another shot from the south to the north. We shifted our loungers to see about three-quarters of the sky. In all I saw eleven. My husband saw fourteen, or so he says. What we did not see was a Meteor “Shower”. It was more like a Meteor Mist, a Meteor Haze, a Meteor Suggestion. I was underwhelmed and a bit ticked off. To stay up until midnight is hard enough (and I had a long nap that afternoon). But to be outside “almost” camping was a massively big concession. I was cold and pestered by insects. I went from dripping wet from perspiration to freezing in my own sweat. We slogged home around two a.m.

I think my husband was hoping I would have such a good time I would actually consider camping overnight, as in until sunrise. Hardy har har. My idea of camping is someone forgot to heat my towels at the spa. No thanks, I did my camping when my kids were toddlers and we were too broke for a hotel. I recall sleeping on rocks with the tent’s internal temperature being around 103 at midnight. I sat up and said to no one in particular, “I own a king-size bed and an air conditioner. Why am I doing this?”

So, no, I will not be camping, I will not be half-camping looking for elusive meteors. Furthermore, the next day Facebook was deluged with photos from mega photographers with lenses the size of a healthy German Liverwurst boasting a ga-zillion meteors in the sky that night. Seeing photos of what I did not see made me feel like I was listening to Galileo bragging about the heavens and I was on the Inquisition panel. I can hear myself saying. “I looked up, I did not see what you claimed to have seen, so you’re nuts and I am sane. Silence this heathen.”

On the bright side I ate all the snacks and slept soundly until 10 the next day.

Sally Franz and her third husband live on the Olympic Peninsula. She has two daughters, a stepson, and three grandchildren. Sally is the author of several humor books including Scrambled Leggs: A Snarky Tale of Hospital Hooey and The Baby Boomer’s Guide to Menopause. She hosts a local radio humor segment, “Baby Boomer Humor with Sassy Sally”.