Shut up, Texas!: Stargazing

I finally got my debit card, so I bought gas and went out the other night to try and see the Perseid meteor shower. It supposedly peaked around midnight on Friday night. I didn't have the slightest idea where to drive, since, you know, I'm not from here. I headed for the Hill Country, out west of San Antonio. I don't know how far into the hills you have to be to actually be in Hill Country, but I drove west until I was driving up and down some hills, and then I looked for a place where I could see Cassiopeia in the northeast sky.

(Cassiopeia is the one that looks like a W. Perseus is below it. No, I'm not an astronomy whiz; I just know where to look for the good meteor showers--for the Perseids in August, look at Perseus. For the Taurids in November, look at Taurus. Got it?

[Actually, I always wanted to be an astronomy whiz. I just had other things on my plate. Plus, I have ADD, and lying down looking at the sky without getting bored was more than I could handle as a kid.])

I drove around the hilly hill area, which may or may not have been in the Hill Country, looking for a place to a) see the sky, b) not get eaten by coyotes, and c) not get eaten by crazy Texan serial killers. I found myself on a hilltop among some mansions...by the time I got there, I knew I wasn't going to see any meteors, because the moon was so full and bright that it might as well have been daytime. Still, I found a stretch of gravel road where there wasn't a lot of artificial light and I watched the sky for a while. Then I took pictures of the moon for a while. Then I took pictures of the mansions for a while. When I got tired of smacking mosquitoes off my ankles, I packed up my tripod and headed for home. It wasn't until I got in the car that I realized there are scorpions in Texas. "And snakes," says Tom. Yes, and snakes. "And spiders!" says John. Yes. There were probably snakes and scorpions and tarantulas organizing a feast as I stood there fiddling with the shutter release on my camera. I was more worried that someone would come out of the mansion with a shotgun and ask why in the hell I was taking pictures of their house with a long lens at 1:30 in the morning.