By pure stroke of foresight and luck I was able to read about this year’s Aurigid Meteor Shower before it was too late to do anything about it.  I’ve always had a geeky interest in amateur astronomy, but have never really been able to act on it since I always find myself living in ridiculously light-polluted urban areas.

A few weeks ago I discovered that our attendance of a wedding up in the mountains at Big Bear lake coincided (well, a day short) with the peak of this year’s Perseid meteor shower.  The Perseids are a reliable annual event, but still I’d missed it in all of my 25 years due to aforementioned light-pollution issue.  While in Big Bear we did get to see a few shooting stars, so that whet my appetite to see what other showers I might be able to plan for.

And what do you know, Sept. 1, 2007 marked the return of the rare and unpredictable Aurigid shower.  I’ll spare you the details, but the interested can read about it.  Basically, there was no way of knowing whether we’d end up with an amazing display or a total fizzle.

Optimists that we are, last night after a quick 9pm-1am nap, an intrepid trio comprised of myself, the boyfriend, and a friend drove about 90 minutes out into the desert of north Los Angeles County to a park called the Devil’s Punchbowl in Pearblossom, CA.  We actually saw our first meteor on the way in.  The Punchbowl itself is not open after sundown, but thankfully the gates to the parking lot were open so we spread out at about 3:30am armed with doughnuts, Dr. Pepper, and patience.

The show, which totaled about an hour and a half, peaking at 4:30am, did not disappoint.  Where the pre-Perseid shooting stars we saw in Big Bear were just simple brief white streaks, these were mostly much larger and more spectacular.  A handful were almost like reddish fireballs which left a bluish trail that lingered for a few seconds before fading away. They were also all over the sky, which made it hard to know where to look.  All-in-all, we probably saw 20-25 before packing it up to head back.

Other cool desert sightings - two jackrabbits and several Joshua Trees, which reminds me that we really need to take a trip out to Joshua Tree National Park.

The title is a Yosemite Sam reference, so this must be a post about my trip to Yosemite!

It was terrific.  Sadly I had a little not-altogether-unexpected anxiety attack over our original accommodations, so we ended up moving to the Super 8 hotel in the little former goldmining town of Mariposa, CA.  But that’s all we need to say about that!

The first two days were somewhat cold and rainy, but the last two were gorgeous.  Thursday we explored the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, home to the Grizzly Giant, a tree estimated to be around 2700 years old!  It lived up to its name.

Friday was so rainy that clouds descended over the whole valley.  We spent the day riding around the free hybrid shuttle and checking out Yosemite Village and the Ahwahnee hotel, a very fancy historic hotel nestled under the Royal Arches.

Saturday we tackled the hike to the top of Vernal Fall via the Mist Trail, which is a slick stone staircase climbing up the side of the fall.  I’m very proud of myself, because I was definitely riding the struggle bus (to borrow an expression) the whole way up.

Finally Sunday we drove back in early to get some photos of the valley in a different light, then walked out to Mirror Lake.

Sadly(?) we didn’t see any bears.  Mostly we just saw squirrels and birds - the Stellar Jay, the Red-winged Blackbird, and the Dark-Eyed Junco.  And lots of crows.

You can see some of my photos on the photos page!