Winter Solstice

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine the most expansive color of gray.  A sea of gray. Nothing particularly bright and shiny. Nothing particularly black and ominous.  Just endless greyness everywhere you look.  Now imagine if you will that it is below 20* outside while you are peering upwards gazing at the sea of gray. Now add the fact that you have waited for hours and haven't gone to bed yet and it is 2:15am and you are cold and tired and all you can see is gray. Who was that gray admirer? Why, yes - it was me.  All alone in my sea of gray, I was denied the beauty of the lunar eclipse.  We had quite the cloud cover last night and despite my super hero efforts to see the awe-inspiring lunar eclipse, I saw gray clouds in a dark sky. This morning the weather forecaster said that there was a lot of snow in the air last night.  None of it made it to the ground - but up in the clouds there was a veritable snow storm.  Now I suppose I should be thinking how awesome it is that I witnessed an atmospheric snowstorm on the winter solstice at 2:30 in the morning. I mean that is pretty cool - especially if you have a particular fondness for the color gray. I was however hoping for a spectacular display of a brilliant red lunar eclipse.  I did at one moment catch a small glance of the moon through the clouds so I can say I DID see the moon - which was in the middle of phasing - so technically I suppose I did witness the lunar eclipse but it was not what I had hoped for. The rest of my family slept through the entire event. I thought perhaps they would not feel the necessity to join me in watching the atmospheric snowstorm in the middle of the night.  This morning they let me know that I chose wisely.  I sadly gave up my eclipse vigil around 2:45am.  I figured that I saw all that was to be seen for the evening. I did get to see some awesome footage of the eclipse on the news this morning.  Mr. Yesteryear Acres said something to the effect that he got all his sleep, stayed warm and STILL got to see the eclipse.  Gee thanks Mr. Yesteryear Acres.  Well I got to see snow that never reached the ground! Oooh!!!  I think I win.  Let Winter begin!!!!