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The Best Five Seconds I Can Remember

Posted by Doug Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:30:24 GMT

Last night was the Perseid meteor shower. As it was also a new moon an relatively clear skies, it was to be a particularly good year for viewing. It seemed like a good idea to me to try and work something out so the family and I could watch the show. For those who don’t know, I have four kids ages 9, 6, 5, and 9 months. You never know how an event like this is going to go. Sometimes our best laid plans fall to ruin and sometimes spontaneous things work out.

I did some checking yesterday afternoon to verify if I really wanted to attempt this “trip”. Was the weather going to be ok? What was the cloud cover supposed to be? Where’s a good location with a dark sky? I decided on Cowan Lake State Park as an out of the lights but still close by location. There was a cookout at church last night, so my plan was to leave from church around 8:00pm and setup a “mini” campsite at the park to watch the stars.

As things go, we didn’t actually leave at 8:00pm. It was more like 8:10pm. Then we had to stop by the grocery store to pick up some last minute items. Oh, and by this time Amanda, our 9 month old is pretty frustrated she’s not home in bed. So we didn’t actually start for the camp ground until around 8:45pm. We got off the Interstate at about 9:05pm. The part office closes at 9:30. It’s actually getting dark now and we’re driving on back roads of Ohio trying to find the camp ground. Something goes horribly awry and we end up back at the Interstate about 10 miles further up than we got off. Luckily there’s a sign for Caesar’s Creek so we just decide to go there.

We don’t get 2 miles down the road until we come across an accident in the road. Policemen, firemen are everywhere. There’s a boat turned over off it’s trailer in the middle of the road. No one is going anywhere. I decide to turn around and head back to the gas stations at the Interstate. I get some drinks and a bundle of firewood. Here’s the lucky part: the road to the camp ground at Caesar’s Creek is different than the road to the boat launch into the lake. So, we’re able to get to the camp ground in another 10 minutes or so.

It’s now 10:00. The baby’s pretty much been crying non-stop since 8:30. We setup camp; whereby I mean we setup our lawn chairs, spread out the blankets, and build the fire. We also brought the pack-n-play as an attempt to let the baby sleep. That was a no go. Carla walks around the camp ground a bit carrying her trying to get her to sleep. Meanwhile the fire is doing fairly well, so the rest of the kids an I roast some marsh mellows. Of course, I’m pretty interested in seeing the stars; but the kids can only think about the fire and marsh mellows.

Finally things start to settle down. Carla’s gotten Amanda asleep in the pack-n-play. We got all the kids, Carla and I laying down on the blankets. Carla and I are trying to keep the kids fairly quiet. It’s pretty close to 11:00 and there are folks nearby trying to sleep in other camp sites. So we arrange the kids in a star pattern with all our heads together in the middle. That way we can whisper and still hear each other. It seems idyllic, but of course isn’t. There’s kids wiggling, bumping heads, complaining about being touched, complaining about not having enough of the blanket, complaining about pretty much everything. I’m trying to stay calm and enjoy the moment. I’m trying to explain why we’re supposed to be seeing so many meteorites. I’m trying to explain the 5 minutes of astronomy I know. By this time Carla and I have seen a handful of meteorites between us. Of course, with the kids carrying on they haven’t seen any. Justin, my 6 year old, claims to have seen a dozen by now… about three each time Carla and I see one.

And then it happens. For about two seconds everyone is quiet. Whoosh! A meteorite flashes across the sky brightly. It’s so bright it seems to leave a smoking trail in the sky. All five of us see it with gasps of awe. There’s shouts of “I saw it!” and how cool it was. As soon as it happened we all calmed down again expectant of another. And then the wiggling started back up.

I tell you though, that was probably the best five seconds I’ve had all year. It was a moment of perfect family unity, excitement and awe. All my planning and hopes had paid off. We laid down under the stars and saw a meteorite!

We probably could have packed it up right then and headed home, but we didn’t. We stayed another hour or so. Each of the kids saw a handful of meteorites. Carla and I saw quite a few. Josh, my 9 year old, was a little disappointed he wasn’t seeing all the ones Carla and I were. As the night was wearing on I declared that the next meteorite we saw would be the last. Thankfully, Josh saw it at the same time as Carla. By this time it was about 12:15am. Three of the four kids were sound asleep. We threw all the junk back in the van, loaded the kids up and went home.

On the whole, the night was a huge success. I hope I never forget the emotional high of those five seconds.