For those of you who didn't make it, the meteor excursion rocked. I got to the Palace of Fine Arts somewhat early, about 11pm, and found that I was the only cyclist there but there were 40-50 High School kids there partying. This was quite a cool scene, I talked to a few of them (I was dressed in blue gear and they initially thought I was a cop, I assured them I was the furthest thing from it). I found out that this happens pretty frequently. They come from all over the City to hang there together and drink etc. It's too bad they HAVE to do this (but that's another rant about society and public space) but they were all just chilling out and having a peaceful time.

By 11:30pm the crowd of cyclists had swelled to about 50 and Greg Howard (our Astronomer for the evening) gave us a brief run down on where we were going. The mood was extremely festive as we headed out towards the Presidio's Marina Gate for our little excursion to the Golden Gate Bridge and Marin. As per usual with this many cyclists there was plenty of chatter, sharing of drinks etc. and I met a bunch of new folks from near and far.

The Presidio and midnight is pretty special. Just a bunch of red blinkys, only 4-5 cars the whole ride to the bridge and only one BIG hill. We all made it up and stayed together. It was decided that we would take a bathroom break on the SF side of the bridge but of course the bathrooms were locked (hey, why let the homeless wash right?) so we regrouped and headed off to Marin.

Once we got to the Marin side we realized that we didn't quite know how to go, but in our usual consensus form we discussed it for about 10 minutes and then headed off towards Sausalito. Part way down the hill is a left turn through a single lane tunnel. Someone, and I can't remember who, knew this was the correct turn and posted themselves in the middle of the road as a human sign. The tunnel is a long uphill but there was plenty of whooping and bell ringing as we got through the tunnel.

Once out the other side there was much less sky glow and it was dark enough to see the arm of the Milky Way overhead. We were all awed as we stood in the dark waiting for everyone to regroup at this end of the tunnel. We then took the long downhill towards the beach. We spent a lot of time trying to decide whether to go all the way to the beach, where there would be more lights, and less stars, or to pick a place along the road. Finally we got to a large gravel and sand lot (complete with a porta-potty) and decided to stay there. The one light (on some park building) that was nearby was doused (peacefully so it could be restored when we left) by some volunteers.

The sky here was quite dark, there was little if any sky glow (the light from cities etc.) and no moon. We all put our bikes down, turned off our lights and broke out what provisions we had brought to share.

Greg then explained what we were looking for, where to look and why the meteor shower is called the Perseids (This is because the meteors seem to be coming from the constellation Perseus.) Greg put up with an awful lot of questions, some asked several times, but obviously was in his element and enjoying enlightening all of us.

The show itself was great! There were at least 1 meteor per minute, some quite spectacularm for at least one hour.

About 2am people started to leave in small packs. I was with one of these packs, and not the last to leave. I'm not sure how late people stayed.

The ride back to SF was equally as nice. Good weather all the way, very little wind, pretty as all get out. Once across the bridge our group split up and headed off in smaller groups to home. Riding up Lombard in all 3 lanes was GREAT.

Anyways... just a big kudo to all the Bike Summer folks and Greg Howard in particular!

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