Last night, we went up to Highway 35 – what we used to call Skyline when I was a kid – to watch the May 2022 Lunar Eclipse. The moon was supposed to rise at 8:04 but we didn’t see it until well after 8:30. Even before we went, I was wondering how they determine the moonrise time in a hilly area like Coastal California; it deems to me that, if we had moved two hundred yards to the right, the moon would have come up sooner. Whatever the method of measurement, the moon did rise and it was spectacular. Spectacular for Michele, for me, it was sort of a bust moonwise.

Everything but the feeble moon – almost dulled into invisibility by mist – was well worth driving up to Skyline for, however. When Michele – driving – and I first drove up to Skyline about an hour before the 8:04 moonrise, we both had the same overlook in mind but, when we got there, Michele plotted the exact moonrise direction only to find that we were in the exact wrong place. We ended up on a low ridge above the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve parking lot. The air was coolish and, unusual for the Skyline area, there was no wind. The sky put on a nice sunset which, of course, always comes with a full moonrise.

We had debated going to Twin Peaks or Corona Heights in San Francisco but the forecast was for fog and now, looking north to Mt. Diablo, we could see the fog filling the bay and signs of the wind picking up. Here, above the very improved Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District parking lot, it was calm as Michele patiently – and I, impatiently – waited for the moon to rise.