Blood Moon. Not.

Last night we stayed up late and watched the moon disappear before our eyes.  Initially we were going to drive out of the canyon for a better view, but as we headed towards the car we looked up through the telephone wires and realized that the moon was right above us and perfectly visible.  So we rearranged the furniture on the front porch deck, pulled out some quilts and settled in for the show.

It really was mesmerizing to see the moon go from full to three-quarters to half to a quarter to a sliver of light and then poof! disappear within the space of an hour.

My only disappointment was that it stayed a creamy white the whole time.

Before I fell asleep I checked social media to see if anyone was reporting a red moon and saw that writer Anne Lamott, who also lives in the Bay Area, tweeted: “The eclipse of the moon is so beautiful.  But not red! They said it was going to be red. I want my money back.”  Reassured I wasn’t the only one who was disappointed, I drifted off thinking that maybe the red moon phenomenon was more subtle than advertised.  But this morning I read a friend’s facebook post saying she saw a red moon from her beach house in Stinson Beach—also in the Bay Area—in the middle of the night. And my sister posted an instagram image of a red moon from Boise.

Did I miss some vital part of the eclipse watching instructions?  Was it only later in the evening/early morning that the “blood moon” phenomenon happened?  I’d love to know so that I can catch it during one of the three lunar eclipses happening over the next eighteen months.