Weather.gov say's the outlook for Bryce Canyon is: Saturday night partly cloudy, lows 28 degrees, Sunday night rain mixed with snow, Monday night rain mixed with snow... Saturday 4:35 pm, just passed Beaver heading south on I-15 listening to Karen Carpenter's rendition of "Rainy days and Mondays" and looking at all the clouds. Checked in at the Bryce Canyon Pines Motel, dropped some gear off and headed to the park to meet with Mark Bloomenthal for a night of star gazing. Sitting out in front of Ruby's like a stalker waiting for Mark to show, the sky started to clear so I knew he must be getting close. For some reason, the sky clears when Mark appears. I can't remember when the Moon looked so good. Low in the west and "going down". I was temporarily caught off guard by the sight and contrast of blaze orange clouds, which covered the park, and the bordering dark blue sky. We drove to Bryce Point and set up our scopes. The sky was dark! I mean, I can't remember seeing a darker sky. Oh sure, you could see small open patches of stars here and there, but for the most part it was as advertised, a dark sky. And then the clouds lifted... Did you know that under certain conditions, the Milky Way might actually screw up your night vision? When you can spot someone peeing across the parking lot at 12:00 Midnight it's TOO BRIGHT! And where did all the recognizable constellations go? Thank God I have a GoTo telescope. I would have been in REAL trouble if I had to rely on any particular guide stars to hop to. Mark knows the sky pretty well and even he wasn't completely sure what was where. To give you an example of how many stars were visible, my GoTo has a on board data base of some 147,000 objects, and has an identification feature which will accurately identify an object centered in the eyepiece if the scope is set up and properly aligned. I put the scope on an object and asked it to identify it. The words "Bite me" scrolled across the controller in bright red letters. Shades of Wolf Creek crept into my consciousness as a cold breeze kicked in and knocked the temperature to a whopping 4 layers in a matter of seconds. It was cold enough that my ex wife could have been hovering in the corner of the parking lot and I wouldn't have even noticed. That's frightening! After 5 hours of standing around I was beginning to get pretty tired. We held off leaving until M42 cleared the tree directly in front of me. Earlier, I had to remove my "bucking saw" from behind the seat of the truck to make room for the 12 gauge otherwise I would have seen M42, much earlier. ;) Just kidding. Being tired and hungry we decided to packed it in and head for the nearest coffee shop for something to eat. WRONG! I thought Magna's streets rolled up early, this place shuts down at 9:30 PM sharp! I wonder if anyones actually had a door slammed on them. What no 7-11's??? Sunday morning: I awoke to the sounds of wind and rain tapping on my door telling me it was time to check out. The clouds had settled in for what may be the beginning of the end of the season. It was raining in my rear view mirror as I left Bryce. All I can say is good luck Monday night Patrick. Don't forget to pack your umbrella and a sandwich!