Full Moon and Empty Arms*

We had made a decision. Sunday over our last lunch of the season at Ellen's we had agreed to head for Marini Farms after Amanda got finished at work. It was still nearly a full moon and the skies had cleared after several gloomy, cloudy, and fog-ridden days and nights. Sunday night was crisp and clear. The moon would be just high enough in the sky shortly after Amanda's 7 p.m. departure from Stop & Shop.

When 6:45 rolled around, my Mom and I wondered if we really had the ambition to make the trip. That might be best read as whether a long weekend of hard work had left me too tired to make the hour round trip drive in the dark. Oh, what the heck, I'd probably regret not going so....

We headed out in Mom's mini-van to pick up Amanda. On the 10 minute drive to Gloucester we kept looking out the van towards the east. We couldn't see any moon! In disbelief we bantered about the weirdness of the moonless sky. Where was it? On Friday night we had caught a brief glimpse of the fog and cloud streaked full moon as we finished our last supper at Ellen's, so we knew the time was near correct. How come we couldn't find it?

As Amanda left work and approached the van we asked her to look directly overhead. Maybe that's where the moon was hiding from us, being we were too lazy to get out to look.

Nothing. Moonless.

Okay, we thought, we'd head towards Ipswich anyway. Once at the top of the Piatt bridge we'd look again. Surely the moon would be visible from there. If not, we would exit the highway at Rte 133 and instead of continuing to Ipswich, we'd turn around and head home. We passed a police car parked in the center of the Grant Circle rotary. We joked that he must be looking for the moon, too. Up onto the bridge and.....

There was no moon in sight. We turned around.

Totally weird.

Oh well, I mused, it saved a long drive in a van that I hate to drive at night.

As we rounded the curve and crested Great Hill, just a mile from home, there it was! Huge and orange directly ahead. A quick turnaround and we were back on our way to Marini Farm.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a wonderful trip with the three of us joking around about being tailgated. Honestly, the guy was soooo close I couldn't see his headlights in my rearview mirror. I was doing just over the speed limit so he just had to wait. We decided that he should have "gone" before leaving the office LOL.

We arrived at Marini Farm. The entire area was in darkness. I pulled in to the gravel parking area and stopped. We got out quietly leaving the van door slightly ajar. I didn't want the owners, in their nearby house, to notice that we were there. We crept toward the biggest hay person. Everything was perfect for a spooky, moonlit shot. I knew that I would need the flash setting on the camera to get the hay person to show up in the dark. The night setting actually flashes three times in quick succession. I looked through the viewfinder to blackness. I looked at the screen to blackness. I just had to make a guess....flash, flash, flash.

Done.

A mad dash back to the van before we were discovered. We giggled all the way home! Happy Halloween Hay People!

*recorded by Frank Sinatra, 1945