Who Needs Airplanes?

When you can have REAL shooting stars?

Apparently tonight and tomorrow are prime viewing nights in the Northern Hemisphere for the Geminid meteor shower.  I'm up late so I can get in a few minutes of viewing during prime hours between 1 and 3 am. 

Possibly my favorite memory of my dad growing up involves shooting stars.  I was probably 10 or 11, just getting into the stage where I wanted to be treated more as a big kid (aka adult).  The whole family was camping on Indian Lake in the U.P.

Our camp site was next to this wonderful couple, the older woman was named Carol and I believe her husband is John.  We still write each other postcards because Miss Carol was a great entertainer in the woods during this trip.   One of the nights we were there, she told my dad that there was a meteor shower that night. 

Of course, the best time to see meteors is well past a 10 year old's bed time.  Buuuuut, my dad chose to wake me up in the middle of the night and we snuck out past mom and my sister for a quick walk. We stopped in a clearing and observed some shooting stars flashing across the night sky.

Being the daddy's girl I am, I wiled my way into a walk down by the river. Standing on the banks, we were overcome by a meteor. Literally, overcome.

The entire sky was filled with a brilliant white light.  So close I thought if I reached up, I might actually touch the star falling from the heavens.  And in the blink of an eye, it was gone.

Tonight, I'll look up at the stars and know the exact same ones are shining down on my family on the other side of the world.  The same sun will rise to greet them in the morning, just a good six hours after it makes me roll out of bed.

There's something about the night sky, something about infinity, that makes me stop and realize that the earth isn't so big.  I miss my family, but we're on the same planet, in the same solar system, in the same galaxy.  In light of the vast unknowns of space, they're really not so far away.