The Winkest Link

By Wink

I suppose, like all guys, my friends and I like to think of ourselves as the ‘outdoorsy’ type. We are not, but we DO make an effort every year to prove our manhood.

So we head off to the great wilderness. Once we get there we will camp for several days and kayak. It doesn’t matter which river we are kayaking, so let’s just call it… ‘the Colorado River.’

Our version of the Colorado River has many swoops and drops (and one loop-the-loop), and we almost always lose one or two of our group in the rapids. Oh well, this is a small price to pay to achieve maximum macho-isity.

(By the way, if you still canoe rather than kayak, you need to have your head examined. Put your canoe into the river and let it float, empty, to the Gulf of Mexico. Then go get a kayak. If your nearby river does not empty into the Gulf of Mexico, you must move closer to a river that does.)

So camping is the number one reason we go, and death-defying kayaking is number two.

Is that enough reason to go? Well, yes, but we have a BIG reason number three.

We choose this time of year to camp so we can get away from the big city lights during the Perseids meteor shower, which peaks this year on August 12th.

I don’t know where you are, but you should make it a point to get into the countryside to see this. If you do (and if it is not too cloudy) you will get a chance to see hundreds of meteors screaming across the sky over a few hours.

As I age, I am constantly trying to convince people that I have seen it all, and I HAVE seen this meteor shower each August for many years. It doesn’t matter, this event is breathtaking every time. I am never disappointed.

In these trying economic times it is nice to know Mother Nature will put on a big-time show for free.

Perseids fever – catch it.