42 Dreams of Arizona Bay

It’s quiet, except for the crickets and the sounds of far-off dogs. Behind us is a faint aura of light, pollution from the city below and behind.
Above is a darkened sphere, revealing the most stars I’ve seen in years. I gasp a little when I first see the sky.
It’s so beautiful. And the air is warm, comfortable. Feels almost like home.
The first streak of light catches my heart as they all do.
“Did you see that?”
“No.”
Wait a little longer, and then another. This time, my companion in nighttime travel, Heather, sees it too. It’s beautiful, etching a long trail across the sky, with a vague afterimage burning in my eye.
This would be a perfect night. It’s too late for many bugs. But we’re also parked on a turnout, up in the foothills outside Fresno, past Friant, nearing Auberry.
Just over a hill I can see an alien outcropping of lights, of cell phone towers, I guess. But they don’t pollute my view of the meteor shower.

What does spoil this late night journey is the thought of getting hit. There is some traffic even this late, driving slowly past, robbing me of my night vision. I don’t want to leave the hazards on: they’re distracting, and might cause people to stop to see if they can help. I don’t want to put a blanket down, and do stargazing as I’ve always done, on my back. We’re on the side of the road, and already not terribly visible in the turnout.
Heather also remarks after a while that perhaps what we’re doing isn’t the safest thing in another way. The paper always has stories about bodies showing up in orchards. We could easily be pushed off the side of the road, not be found for days.
This place seems perfectly safe, quiet. Danger of random, malicious acts didn’t occur to me. It’s as if I thought I was in the midwest again, perhaps pulled off to the side of the road in some corn field, instead of in the hills.
But as one vehicle drives by for what we paranoidly think might be a second time, we get in the car, and drive back down the hill.

Meteor showers always have been magical for me. I’ve watched this particular one, the Perseid meteor shower, since I was a child. My brother, mother and I watched from our front yard. You might fall asleep in the moist summer air, and wake up with a face moist with dew.

The best display I remember was when I was about 12. The meteors came so fast it almost looked like rain. My brother and I got tired of calling out when we saw them. We lost count, but I think we saw close to a hundred an hour.

I’ve never been able to recapture the magic of that night. Mostly because that display was pretty rare.
There’s any number of factors to spoil a shower, ranging from just being a mediocre year, to clouds or light pollution.
A few years, I’ve taken time off to watch the meteor shower. I went to my grandparents’ and then to my aunt’s in hopes of not having so much light pollution.
But August is just as unpredictable as the rest of the year. I’d get thwarted by clouds and rain. Many years, I stayed home, and just dragged myself out of bed between 2 a.m. and 5, on the hour, trying to see if the clouds had cleared up yet.
But a few years were worth the effort. A handful of years ago, I was fortunate to catch a display of aurora borealis or nothern lights during the meteor shower. It became so bright that it became hard to see meteors.
Other years might substitute quantity for quality, with a few long-burning streaks in the sky.
This year was pretty good. I only stayed out for a half-hour, and a day past the official peak. But I saw at least 12 during that time, discounting barely seen movement that could’ve been my eyes playing tricks.

It’s always been a dream of mine, to watch a meteor shower from high in the mountains. I only got to the hills this morning. But I’ll have other chances and other showers.