The Perseid meteor shower has become a grand tradition in my brief Utah life. In 2007, I was backpacking in the Uintas during the show. I didn't even know it was coming. I just looked up at the sky and saw lights shooting across the sky. The tails streaked from horizon to horizon. It was like a cartoon meteor shower!

Last year I forgot about them until the day they peaked. I grabbed a date after my night shift, packed a couple of sleeping bags and hiked up to Catherine Pass above Albion Basin. The city's light pollution hurt our view a bit, but by 5 a.m. the sky was hopping. The next morning we awoke to gleaming mountaintops and fields of wildflowers.

So the Perseids and I had a lot to live up to this year. I couldn't see their peak early Wednesday morning because of work, so I rounded up a lawn chair and a bottle of Buffalo Trace a day early. Siegfried Jachmann, vice president of the Salt Lake Astronomical Society, suggested viewing from Little Mountain, but he warned that the moon would be sitting high and mighty early in the week.

Yeah, wow. I got up Emigration Canyon road about 11:30 p.m. Monday. Conditions were great for making shadow puppets. Not much else. Some high schoolers showed up to get stoned. Even they weren't dazzled. They left after 6 minutes.

I saw two meteors in two hours. Stupid gibbous moon.

The good news is that it's waning. Siegfried told me it would interfere with this year's peak, but the shower will keep going for the next couple of days while the moon gets smaller and rises later.

So if you're out and about, be sure to look up.