So I was this close to getting to sleep at a reasonable hour last night, but then I heard that the Perseid meteor shower was supposed to peak the evening of Aug 11/early morning of Aug 12. I tried to think of the darkest place within a reasonable distance. The Anza-Borrego Desert came to mind, but that was a good two hour drive into the middle of nowhere, so I figured driving through the Temecula Valley on the way to L.A. would suffice.

Unfortunately, as I headed east on the I-8, clouds obscured the sky, and I thought I’d have to go farther inland.

This is probably very obvious, but I just want to say: it’s probably not recommended to look for meteors while you’re driving. The clouds didn’t really break until I got over the mountains. While the mountains were pretty damn dark, you couldn’t really see too much of the sky. Once Highway 78 descended down into the desert and stopped winding so much, the sky just opened up. (My God, it’s full of stars!) Highway 78 is only two lanes, one in each direction, and I imagined this is what crossing the Mojave from San Bernardino to Vegas used to be like before they built the Interstate. I caught a shooting star blaze across the shimmering desert sky. I didn’t meet any cars at all once I left the mountains, which kind of freaked me out and made me think twice about stopping to look up at the sky.

I hit the shore of the Salton Sea sometime after 2 am, and I couldn’t believe it was over 90 degrees. Finally turning northward, I caught another meteor streaking all the way across the sky from east to west before fading out. There were more trucks on Highway 86, heading up from Mexicali. It struck me how many huge casinos now stood in the desert. Highway 86 is four lanes across, two in each direction with a good sized median, almost like an Interstate, except that there’s still cross-traffic. You could see the lights of the towns on the other side of the sea, kind of reminding of the Bay Area.

I finally made it to Interstate 10 at almost 4 am. Sometime before San Bernardino, I caught another bright meteor actually flaring ahead of me then fading out.

Even entering the San Gabriel Valley, I could still see a lot of stars, but by the time I got to Pasadena the fog had rolled in, and it was 30 degrees cooler than the desert. I made it to my parents’ house by 5 am. So much for meteor watching. I might try again tonight though.