The Sky Falls Twice
Death Valley National Park
We'd been planning for the Geminids for a while, and when the rains brought back Lake Manly, I knew we had a rare opportunity. We hiked out to a quiet spot along the shore, set up our chairs, and just settled in. The air was still and cool, the kind of quiet you only get deep in the desert. The water was like glass, turning the whole landscape into a perfect mirror of the cosmos. We saw plenty of smaller meteors, but then this one just ripped across the sky. It was so bright, a brilliant blue-green streak that lit everything up for a second. Seeing it and its twin simultaneously streaking across the water was just unreal. It was one of those moments that makes all the planning and waiting worth it.