The clouds broke and we had a clear sky! Unfortunately this happened AFTER the Perseid meteor shower, so at the best viewing time all I saw was a mass of thunderclouds and rain. When the weather did finally clear up on Wednesday evening, it was still pretty humid and the sky was a bit hazy, but it was a comfortable temperature so I removed to the out of doors for a quick view. I was not long to wait! I wasn’t outside all of 10 minutes when I saw a massive fireball streak from the area of Cassiopeia (the "Big W" in the Northeast) horizontally southward right across my field of view. I was amazed, and I watched it break up, trail into pieces, and disappear behind a few trees. Satisfied that sitting out would not be in vain, I ran inside to gather the rest of the folks. Emily was near sleep and nobody wanted me to drag her outside (she had been watching Snow White with Grandma and seemed really content) and Cathy was upstairs feeding Erin. I left to get the bug spray out of the car and became glued to the sky on the way back however, I saw no others.

I was becoming annoyed by a gathering light down in the valley. There are no industries or malls there that would generate this kind of "light pollution", the valley being just farms and woods, but I imagined the humidity was amplifying a closer light source in some strange kind of optical illusion. Then I noticed a bright light at the top of Woodlawn mountain. At first I thought it might be headlights, but then I realized it was at the top of the mountain and there are no roads at the top of Woodlawn. The light grew in intensity until I suddenly realized it was the just-past-full moon rising behind the mountain. I could make out trees in silhouette against it as it rose. It sped skyward at what seemed an incredible rate, but once it crested the mountain and hung free in the sky, it slowed to its normal leisurely pace again.

Rising with the moon, and to it’s south hung Mars, and although it is said to be closer to the Earth than it has been in 60,000 years, it did not look any different to me.