PLUNGING INTO THE DEEPEST DARKNESS

GET OUT TO Central Idaho’s Dark Sky Reserve.

GEAR UP FOR Superlative celestial gazing.

PERFECT FOR Romantics, families, amateur and budding astronomers.

I stepped out of the car in who-knows-where Idaho and was swallowed by darkness so complete that it would have given me the heebie-jeebies if there hadn’t been a dozen other people with me on this stargazing adventure. We were there to see the Perseid meteor shower, and our location had been chosen because it is one of the darkest places on Earth. It lived up to that billing. There was no moon, no streetlights, no car lights, no house lights, no nothing.

I looked up and the Big Dipper dominated the view, like a galactic welcome sign beckoning us to gape in slack-jawed wonder at the universe. Before I even had time to look away—seriously, I had not been out of the car for five seconds—a meteor streaked across my line of vision, from right to left, 2 o’clock to 9 o’clock, just to the