It's a Small World After All

So I'm sitting here, fighting sleep, experiencing something that will never again happen in my lifetime.  Or my children's, or their children's, or their....well, you get the picture.  It's midnight, December 21st 2010, a Winter Solstice which just happens to be hosting a full lunar eclipse.

I am utterly awestruck.

The stars are amazingly bright, the moon is this incredible glowing orb that seems so close you could touch it.  I can see all the faces of the moon, and every constellation in the sky is popping out like Christmas lights on a dark street.  Little transparent clouds keep passing by, lighting up like flames as they pass through the light. The eclipse is so awe inspiring, the shadow of our planet is creeping across the face of the moon, turning it into a waning crescent...yet you can see all the detail of the shadowed areas.

Incredible.

Even more amazing to me is that I'm sharing this once in a lifetime event with my dear friend.  Oh...did I mention that she lives 1, 200 miles away from me?  Yes, my friend lives in Canada, and yet we are looking at the same sky, at the same time, and the mountains running by my front door lead straight to hers.  It really is a small world after all.

*glee*