Quote of the Day: You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.

Sunday night, and this was the plan for the Night of the Once-in-a-Whatever Great Dramatic Blood Moon: we would have dinner at a little restaurant on the edge of Long Island Sound, and after dinner, we'd either sit at a little outdoor table or we'd step down to the beach, and we'd see the eclipse and its reflections in the calm Sound waters. The restaurant was well situated for moon-watching, it faces the Sound and behind it and around it are marshes. Flat marshes. No tall trees. No streetlights. In past, it has taken us a little under half an hour to get there from Flintstone Manor, because the twists and turns all look alike, and the roads are mostly not lighted. Apparently the county believes that once a white line has been applied to a roadway, light bulbs and electricity are not necessary, and people should stay home after dark anyway. We left plenty of time to get there, wait, be seated, and have dinner before the moon was scheduled to perform.

what we hoped to see

And so we drove. And drove. And drove. It was a very dark night, except for occasional glimpses of the moon (doing nothing) through the trees.

early glimpse 

After enough time had passed that we thought we should be nearing the restaurant, we realized that we had no idea where we were. We couldn't even guess because every little house or shop we passed was dark. On a Sunday night out of season, this is what you get - people have left, people have gone to bed early, stores have closed, bars are only open Friday and Saturday nights...  the moon was still up in the sky where it belonged, but was showing no sign of activity.

We did a quick calculation: if we turned around and backtracked to where we thought we probably should have turned off the unlighted road to a lesser unlighted road, assuming that that even was the correct unlighted road, it might take us to the restaurant, but by then the place might be closed or if still open would probably have given our table away. Not an enticing prospect.

Another quote from the Sage: When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Or not.

With no better idea, we turned around and headed back east. We discarded (I discarded) a number of possibilities. The pizza place closes early on Sunday out of season. I won't even set foot in Himself's favorite rib & wing place because the one time I did, I'd just had my hair colored and when we left I had to go right home and wash the atmospheric grease out of everything I was wearing and my newly colored hair. Himself swears they've since installed a fan, but I'm not willing to take the chance. Our little Mexican shack on the highway was sold last year and the new owners didn't last long. No food there. On and on like that, and then we remembered that a Beloved Local Institution usually stays open weekends until after Halloween. I convinced Himself that we should call and make sure, and yes, they were open, and yes, there would be a table, and yes, there would be Sunday Gravy

We ate. I stepped out into the street a couple of times to wave my iPhone at the sky and check on the moon. Still no activity. We settled up and went home.

I checked on the moon regularly from our back deck - our little street has too many overhanging trees to get a good look in the front. At about 9.20 the moon developed a rough edge.  A little later there was a reddish tinge to the rough edge.

At about 9:45 I was asleep.

We should have listened to Yogi in the first place, that's all I have to say.