Long time ago, in the summer of the Son of Sam, I was in the Olympic National Park backcountry when the earth recklessly collided with those meteors.
The show went on night after night, though it clearly built to a two or three night crescendo.
Great stuff.
Back country dark skies and the Perseids. Good combination. The Perseid Meteor shower actually has quite a broad period of activity. I've seen them as late as the first week in September and as early as the last week in July.
That's about my recollection. I was in the back country for most of the summer, but as August began, you could definitely sense a build up. The night skies were growing progressively more active. At first I thought it had to do with moving up a valley to a higher elevation area in the park center. And I do remember a couple of nights that were just absolutely spectacular compared to what had gone on before--fantastic blue and green fireballs racing across the sky. Sort of the equivalent of a grand firework display, only in that sort of subliminally muted way that nature tends to pull these things off.
I was with a group, and sensing we were seeing something unique, we would lie in our sleeping bags trying to keep each other awake so as not to miss anything.
It wasn't until I got back to civilization that I realized we'd witnessed an annual event.
