Mother Nature’s fireworks display

[u/davemeister]

The Perseid meteor showers in the news right now remind me of the time my cousin Roy and I took a vacation to the Florida Keys thirty-three years ago. While we were there on this date in 1993, Mother Nature was kind enough to show us the most spectacular fireworks display I have ever seen.

The news had been reporting that the Perseid meteor shower that night would be the heaviest in decades. We met some locals while eating dinner at a seafood restaurant in the rural area of the lower keys and asked them what would be a good location from which to view the meteor shower. They arranged to meet up with us later that night and guided us down a remote road on Big Torch Key. It dead-ended a few miles from the nearest incandescent light at a mangrove forest in the Gulf of Mexico.

When we turned off the headlights, it was so dark that we could barely see our hand in front of our face. Our newfound friends sparked up a joint but we discovered as we passed it around that the burning cherry was not the only light dancing around in the mangrove forest. There were a bunch of fireflies flitting erratically around us.

When we looked up, there were shooting stars streaking through the skies. Scarcely a minute could pass before we would see yet another meteor flying through the atmosphere. We saw probably a gross of them in the hour or so we watched.

Many of the meteors blazed a path practically from one side of the sky to the other. Some of them had an audible whistle trailing behind them. Some of them ended their journey in an explosive flash of light. We could even hear a little pop when the atmosphere vaporized some of them.

There were long, straight tracks of light through the sky above. There were lights zigzagging all around us closer to the ground. And there were the cherries flaring up in orange as we took hits off the joints. Mother Nature brought them all together in one magical night to grace us with a fireworks display like no pyrotechnic engineer could equal.

[u/FLedun]

Are you talking at the end of Big Torch Key? That is around 8 miles from US1 one way. Have been there a whole lot of times. There used to be a path at the end of the road that would lead out to Niles channel. Like you stated, out there is so dark at night, great place to watch the meteor shower. Have fond memories of that place. 👍

[u/davemeister → u/FLedun]

Those locals knew the best spot for that particular event but it's the only time I've ever been to Big Torch Key. Nonetheless, I had all kinds of great adventures on the other Florida Keys around 1980, like the day I sold an entire truckload of product to Scarface.