http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/08/11/pmeteor.shower/index.html

"A fine display of shooting stars is underway and peaks overnight Wednesday into early Thursday morning. Astronomers expect the 2004 Perseid meteor shower to be one of the best versions of the annual event in several years."

By Dawnk777 on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 04:18 pm:

Cool, kids and I love meteors and I don't work until noon, so we could stay up late! A few years ago, we got up at 4am to watch the Leonid meteor shower! It was in November on the opening weekend of the gun-deer season. So, we saw lots of people on the road waiting for sunup! We saw so many meteors that night. Then stopped at the grocery store for doughnuts and went back to bed for a while. We were tired the next day, but it was worth it!

By Kernkate on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 05:14 pm:

Thanks...we will have to be watching if the skies clear up here.

By Dawnk777 on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 07:49 pm:

Yeah, that is a problem here, too. It has been mostly cloudy all day. There are some clear spots, but certainly not the whole sky. Shoot.

By Dawnk777 on Wednesday, August 11, 2004 - 11:34 pm:

We drove to the state park 6 miles away, around 9:30pm. As we are zooming down the freeway, I realize I can see a few stars. We drove to the parking lot near the beach and it happens that there is a bench nearby, so that is where we sat. We had a huge clear spot right above us in the sky and we ended up seeing two meteors in the half-hour we sat there. One was HUGE! By 10pm, the sky was starting to cloud up again, so we went home.

It was fun smelling the wonderful smell of many campfires while listening to waves lap the shore. Plus, without computers or tvs to distract us, my kids talked and talked and talked! I love going down to the lake anyway. It was kind of fun being there in the dark! We probably should have brought a flashlight, but we were sitting so close to the car, that it really didn't matter. (I never thought how dark it would be down there!)

By Bea on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 12:16 am:

We went to see it last year. The meteor shower It was fantastic. We arrived at the Yorktown battlefield at 5:00 a.m. The place was crowded. There were cars all along the road. We were lucky and found someone leaving from the middle, so we grabbed the spot, got our chairs and blankets and walked across the field. It's really dark out there and we needed a flashlight to see where we were walking. There was no moon. The show was up to our expectations. There were meteors zooming all over the sky. We snuggled on a ground cloth and blanket. It was better than up on chairs, as we could see more of the sky. It was chilly, but thankfully there was no wind. The battlefield is next to the York river, and it can get breezy up there. They were falling every few seconds; sometimes with several together. I'd never seen the tails so long before, glowing a faint green behind the larger ones. We watched until the dawn was infringing on our view. Breakfast at I Hop was fun. We weren't the only ones who were out watching. The place was full. After a hardy plate of buttermilk pancakes and sausage, we headed home to sleep a few hours more.

By Dawnk777 on Thursday, August 12, 2004 - 06:49 am:

Sounds like fun, Bea! I wish we wouldn't have had as many clouds. Maybe tonight will be better.