It’s a perfect, sunny summer day in Lake City, and we just returned from last night’s camp out, high atop the Vicker’s property, at about 10,500′ elevation and only accessible via 4×4 jeep roads.

We ventured up to see the yearly Perseids meteor showers, which are at their peak this week, after 2:30 AM.

I’ve always wanted to watch the Perseids. When we lived in Humboldt County, we never saw them because the skies were always too overcast. Finally, last night under a carpet of twinkling stars, we watched the show. I counted 62 shooting stars between 2:45 am and 4:15 am.

This morning I awoke to warm sunshine, and looked out in awe at the beautiful lake, aspens and spruce trees. I thought; “We used to backpack for miles to get to untouched wilderness like this. Now here we are, the entire place to ourselves, and we got to it in less than 20 minutes!”

This was all I needed to remind myself that, despite the hard work we’ve been doing all summer, this unusual life of ours is still like a dream. I don’t ever want us to wake up from it.