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overcast skies came and went, about 4:00 am we got full overcast and could not see much after that. About 10 people in all showed up in total. Although lost the clear sky at 4 am I still felt I saw a great show. Just hope that those who had clear skies all night had an even better show.

Sallie Teames/Ruidoso, NM --  I was in Ruidoso and Alamogordo for a family wedding on the 17th, and was hoping for clear skies. It had rained onus as we were driving there on Friday night. But by Saturday night, it totally cleared from horizon to horizon!  I watched from my sister's yard. My son, John, and I counted 45-50 meteors every ten minutes between 3:00-5:00am MST. We counted several large meteors in the area of Cassiopeia and west of overhead, and many short, quick ones in the area of Leo.  Our view was slightly limited by tree tops and houses. The north and west skies were black, with some light pollution in the eastern sky. It was cold, with frost and ice on everything. I finally went inside when my feet got so cold I couldn't feel them anymore.  Good Times!! Really enjoyed seeing so many meteors!!

Harry Bearman/Reno, NV -- Thursday I got anxious reading the weather reports for the area, so booked my wife and I flights to Reno.  It was real cold where we ended up, about 30 miles east of Reno, so we spent a lot of time in the car trying to stay warm.  We stayed in the car, watching out the windows till around 3:00am PST. Then we got out and started counting. There were enough clouds that we both were looking in the same direction. During the next hour we counted 493 meteors. We estimate that given the cloud cover and the are of the sky we were watching, the actual rate was probably over 1000/hour. We got in the car for few minutes to warm up, then got out for another half hour. During this period I watched the clock a little better. The first 100 took 8 minutes, but I knew the shower was tapering off when the next hundred took 12 minutes. Together, during this 30 minute period we saw 256 meteors. The last was the most spectacular I've ever seen. It exploded twice! Quite a sight!

Bob Newman, et al/Davis Mountains, TX -- Five observers (myself, Becky Nordeen, friend Mike Hudgins, Tom & Lucy Czarnecki) began observing from Dreamtime Observatory. At 2:30 we went outside and after getting into chairs and blankets, we counted several Leonids about fifteen seconds apart, so we went back inside to warm up after a few minutes and returned at 3:05 AM. Within minutes meteors were blazing brightly from the Sickle of Leo. They were flashing in all directions so we attempted to get organized for a count. I got started first and had counted 21 in just a few minutes, when the other viewers started picking up the count as they saw meteors out of my sight. We had a 360 degree view so distributed ourselves to see about 80% of the sky. The count rose quickly to 60 then 70, then 80, then 100, all in just five minutes. It then became easier to count the seconds BETWEEN meteors, and count the meteors in groups (five and six at a time were common). Counting soon became difficult as the count was happening so fast that we couldn't keep up.  It was then that I got into a rhythm with the count, and the others soon caught on. We were averaging a meteor each second for 1 hour 35 minutes. Then, at about 5 minutes 'til 5, we had a huge burst right on top of M81-M82 in Ursa Major, leaving an ion trail that was visible in the dark Davis Mtn. sky for over 20 minutes. It was interesting to watch the trail widen and change shape for such a

long time.  From that point until 5:30 AM the meteors fell so fast we couldn't keep up with the count. Ursa Major, Draco areas had the most at this time. We just sat in awe and stared. At 5:30, three of us decided it was time to cast it in as we had to pack up and leave at 9 AM for home. We were dead beat! We went to bed with the meteors blazing across the sky in all directions. AWESOME! Tom and Lucy stayed up and we'll have to get with them to see how long the shower lasted.  In 50 years of observing meteor showers, from all over North America, this was, by far, the most wonderful shower I have ever seen. Nothing has ever come close to this one.  I know all of us will never forget this shower. In case you haven't calculated the amount per hour from the above info, we calculated the rate to be over 3800 per hour for that period we observed. It was hard to go to bed, but as we drifted off to sleep, we could still see meteors flashing by through the bedroom window!

Tom Wideman/E. of Tyler, TX -- I went to bed early (6 pm or so) and got up at 0115l. At that time, satellite loops showed a fairly consistent hole over east TX, so with Sarah Beth (9) and Emily (7) in tow, I left Grapevine at 0200 and went east on I-20 in hopes of stars. At about 0415 passing Tyler, we finally saw them break through.  A few more exits east, arriving at about 0430l we fond a dark place well off the highway on the back roads. We stayed there until about 0600 when twilight was arriving. At this spot, it started about 30% cloud coverage and increased to about 70% by 0600.  The meteors? We could tell that there was a good rate going, and the ones we saw were very nice, with some spectacular trails. I'm not much of a counter, I just say "ooh" (or "northwest" if I remember to be considerate and point out where I'm looking). It was a good show, but hampered for us by the clouds rolling in and out.  I enjoyed the show very much. For me, 1998 was still better (so many bright ones that year!), but this was clearly a second place finish to that, and was worth the trip.  One of the best meteors went through Ori as I was shooting there, so fingers crossed.

Doug Christianson/N. of Longview, TX -  Finding clear skies on Saturday night and Sunday morning was a challenge. With no clear forecast for hundreds of miles I finally selected a remote town north of Longview as my goal. By 1am, after driving in clear skies all the way from Dallas, I decided to stop at Tyler State Park. A few attempts to find a location with enough open sky put me, in a nice deserted parking lot just as Leo appeared above the trees.  I enjoyed the solitude from 1:30 to 3am, with meteor rates of about 100 per hour. Most were brighter than magnitude 1 none that I observed were less than magnitude 3. The longest trails were from meteors that were substantially brighter than Jupiter.  As I waited for the dramatic peak, I never reached counts higher than 25 in 16 minutes. At 3:45 more folks joined me in the parking lot just as the clouds joined us for the rest of the night.

Gene Dawson/W. of Abilene, TX -- At Midnight I took my last look at the satellite imagery and headed west for Abilene with my 16 year old son John.  About 15 miles west of Abilene (now about 3:00 am) we broke out into the clear. I kept going, hoping to get a few miles out from under the cover, but in another 20 (now about 3:20 am) we went back under the clouds.  At that point we turned around, backtracked for about 8 miles and

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