If you were in the United States last night and weren’t outside at some point between 8 and 11 pm (CST), you missed out on a significant event.

Yes, that’s right. The Supermoon Lunar Eclipse! AKA the blood moon. It sounds like something straight out of a fantasy novel, doesn’t it?

I found out about it from my dad. He apparently heard about it via Instagram or Facebook. My dad has become rather tech savvy since he bought a smartphone, and it’s a good thing too or I would’ve probably been sitting inside watching TV instead of watching nature and space being amazing.

In case you missed the memo or don’t know why last night happened, here’s a cool video explaining the supermoon and the lunar eclipse from last night.

My dad couldn’t see the moon around 8:15, but I was curious. I headed outside along with my oldest brother. Sadly there were clouds everywhere and no hint as to where the moon was. However, there was some reddish glow. Could that be the moon? Or was it just something about the sky and clouds causing it?

I told my brother about Sky Map, an Android program which he quickly installed on his phone. (It’s on iPhone too) We used it to locate where the moon should be. Yep, right where that reddish glow was behind our large maple tree. Now if only those clouds would go away! We stood there for a while contemplating whether the clouds would disappear in time or not.

Then, being the jerk funny brother that he is, he found an image of a red moon and messaged it to my dad saying how beautiful it was. Mom and Dad came outside right as we were going in. They were bummed the moon wasn’t out, but they thought the app showing all the planets and stars was pretty cool.

My brother said we could try to find a better vantage point. That sounded like a great idea to me. Our parents were too tired though; they decided they’d come out later instead. So, my brother and I hopped in his jeep since he had the top off. No roof meant perfect sky viewing opportunities.

We started with our neighborhood, but there were too many trees.

Me: We need somewhere flat, up high with no trees

Him: The mall!

Me: The mall?

Him: Yeah, there’s no trees and it’s all parking lot. It’ll be perfect.

Me: Won’t it be too bright to see?

Him: It’s the MOON.

Me: True…

We zoomed around the city towards the mall. I used the Sky Map app to keep the moon in “sight” since we couldn’t see it just yet with the clouds.

Me: Wait! There it is I think! Maybe it’s just a light. I don’t know… It’s over there somewhere.

A red light stopped our pursuit momentarily.

Him: It’s like we’re storm chasers.

We laughed.

Him: Wait a minute! I know where we need to go!

The light changed and he sped off before taking a sharp right.

Me: Where are we going?

My brother just laughed. So there we were driving around to who knows where in our pajamas because neither of us expected to run into anyone. Honestly, we never planned on leaving the neighborhood.

As we drove down the street, I saw a Pepsi logo on a building.

Me: There’s my moon.

Him: What?

Me: The Pepsi sign. I thought it was the moon.

Apparently my eyesight is off. We went down a few more streets, and I realized where we were going. The parking structure!

Sadly the top floor was blocked off by a barricade, so we parked on the floor below. There were already others there and finally we were able to see the moon! We watched as the eclipse began. We could tell it was going to be a while still, so we headed up the stairs to see the fifth floor. No one was there, but a security guard soon showed up and told us it was closed. Granted there was no barricade preventing us from walking up there. Still, we headed down and continued to watch the moon from our perfect vantage point.

We both agreed that we made the right choice by hunting down the moon. We had a story to tell and it was more enjoyable than sitting down and watching TV. We talked about seeing it again in 2033 and wondered where we’d be by then.

It was a fun experience overall. It’s nice to hang out with my brother. We don’t do it nearly often enough, but now that I’ve moved back home, we get to do things like this more often. It was perfect. Sadly, all the photos we attempted to take just looked like a normal full moon. At least we have our memories to keep.

Your Turn

Did you see the supermoon lunar eclipse? What did you think of it?

If not, how well do you get along with your family? Have any fun stories about adventures with them?