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(meteorobs) Leonid Odyssey (Nightmare)

Hello everyone from Southern California where the weather is always clear! 
Hah!
This is Tom Kucharski (recently awakened from hibernation and Kevin Kilkenny 
(who woke me from hibernation).
This is a story of three hundred miles driving to see a combined total of 6 
Leonids. 
First we start off at sunset from the high desert of Anza, Ca. Beautiful 
sunset, the Milky Way was visible before dark. Things are shaping up real 
good especially for Tom to show Kevin what the sky is like out here. One hour 
later fog is forming in the hills to the west, then to the east. Uh-oh, its 
over us. We decide to wait it out. After all the moon is still visible and 
teaser patches open up once in a while. By 8 the moon is gone and so are the 
teaser patches. We decide to try another spot in the Coast Range by the 
Ortega Hgwy about 40 miles away. 
What a site! Tom's driving down the dirt road, Kevin's hanging out the side 
window to see if the sky's clearing. We even turned our lights off to see 
better but no dice.
So off we go for sure to Ortega. We reach the highway outside of Lake 
Elsinore - seven miles to go and oh no! the police have closed the road! Back 
down the road to I-15 for an 80 mile detour around the Coast Range. 
Finally an hour and a half later we're in the parking lot across from the 
Ortega General Store. LM is below 5 so we figure to enjoy and not count. 
However, our parking lot neighbors have other ideas. One group is smoking 
some funny smelling stuff; another guy is walking around taking flash 
pictures of the sky. When the clouds covered the sky at Ortega we decided to 
drive back to my house in Mission Viejo, miserable, disappointed, and hungry. 
After midnight pizza we were in my backyard and Voila! LM a bit better than 
5.0. 
We brought the equipment into the backyard just as my timer for the lawn 
sprinklers went on. Ten minutes later it stopped so we got set up near my 
pool. Kevin forgot about the pool and didi some very nice windmill motions on 
the pool edge and didn't fall in.
Finally, we sat down and got in an hour of observing. As said above, we saw a 
total of 6 Leonids. You know what - wait till next year!!

 
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