I wasn't able to leave the pizza shop until 10:30pm and as soon as I got on I-64 I knew it was going to be a night to remember because I could see the Milky Way while I was driving! Got to the site about 11:30 but Don wasn't there to meet me yet. ( I didn't know he was lost in the tall weeds and trying to find his way out). Don arrived momentarily, introduced me to the landowners whom I had made a little nervous by waiting at the bottom of their driveway. We proceeded up the hill through a LOT of brush. When we finally got to the top it was very nice and open with temps in the 50's. Transparency - 8. Limiting magnitude - 6+. Seeing - 8. Don Kemper, Rodger Blake introduced me to John Kelley and we got immediately to the issue at hand - observing. Equipment - Rodger's 20" obsession, John's 6" Mak-Cass, Don's 10" Cave, and I had the club's 10" dob. Little did I know but the scope would perform beautifully, better than it ever has for me. Throughout the night we exchanged views through each others scope, every view was superb. Rodger was able to show us NGC 6826 - Blinking Planetary, all three elements of the Veil Nebula ( a first for me), M97 - Owl Nebula and M51- Whirlpool Galaxy - this was another first since I could see the structure of the spiral arms and dust lanes. That 20" is really something. We looked at a lot of clusters and nebula through the cave and the Mak-Cass. I was able to log M8,17,20,54,69,70 in Sagittarius, M16 in Serpens Cauda, M11,26 in Scutum, M31,32,110 in Andromeda. We started looking for the North American Nebula - NGC7000 and for the first time I could actually see it without a filter. Rodger verified this for me and loaned me his UHC filter and that made the view come alive. While I had his filter I wanted to find the Veil for myself - it took a little while but I was able to find all three elements NGC6960,6992,6995. I had never seen such a sight. My next filter will be a UHC. About 2:30 we heard some rustling from around Rodger's end of the field, a flashlight revealed a white tail sticking up out of the tall grass. A cat maybe? NO!!! Rodger had found another skunk to play with. I never knew he was so lucky with animals. I had noticed a change in the sky but we couldn't tell why it was getting dimmer until we realized that the moon was going to rise shortly. This gave me a chance to try out my new moon filter - very useful little gadget. Everyone else decided to start tearing down and packing up since we could actually see our shadows from the slender crescent of the moon. After a long session of packing we noticed the conjunction of planets and Aldeberan. ( Guys, that was Venus not Jupiter with Saturn) Jupiter was much later in the morning with Mercury. I didn't get home until it was getting daylight but this will be a night to remember. Good company, great equipment, and a superb dark sky, what more could a person ask for? Until next time - Clear Skies Tim Lester