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.