Totality in our backyard
Today was an awe-inspiring, amazing, wow! event and we were blessed to be able to view it from our backyard.
For awhile it seemed like maybe this Eclipse thing wasn't going to match the hype. Working for a community organization in one of THE hot spot locations in North America to view the solar event of the summer, it was starting to feel like it might be a letdown. The weather report was sketchy, especially since the weeks before were wet, cloudy, and cooler than normal. It seemed like wishful thinking that 9am-1pm would be perfect skies and the clouds would wait... (but they did...)
I'll admit we scrooged a few weekend events and never made it to the downtown Eclipse festival. We weren't planning to attend anyway, because crowds, heat, and three kids don't particularly make for happy parents, but a late Thursday/early Friday bout of stomach bug erased the chance to check it out during my lunch break Friday (since I opted for sleeping and not sharing my sick).
I spent the morning watching the DOT webcams coming in to the state this morning and laughed at the people who thought they could quickly get here in time and have seen facebook pics all weekend, but I have no firsthand idea if the masses really came to Wyoming. We did stock up on groceries earlier last week, packed lunches to work, and ate dinners at home to avoid crowds and the price gouging at local restaurants.
Working at the Library, our whole summer has been Eclipse. From our theme (Look Up) to planned crafts and other events, I can recite Eclipse facts in my sleep... and actually did have crazy dreams about forgetting glasses and having a child run off and missing totality.
Thankfully the show in the sky didn't disappoint and it was beyond anything we imagined. While we would have loved to have the daddy home from work, to help wrangle little people and enjoy it with us, he got to walk outside and watch from there, and the kids weren't as hard as I imagined.
Our kids play outside on a regular basis. They already know you don't look at the sun. The little one had no desire to put the glasses on and look up because her toys and snacks were on the ground and she wanted to run, crawl in the wet grass, chase the bunnies, and do her thing. The middle one, who tends to be our unknown in new situations, could have easily laid on the blanket in the grass all morning with her glasses on and stared at the "orange circle sun and black moon". The geeky science kid took peeks through the glasses and was awed but preferred to be inside watching Boss Baby or Wild Kratts... any given day for these little people.
In Casper, the entire Eclipse went from 10:20 am -1:09 pm. As totality loomed closer, the things we were told to watch for happened. While the sky didn't completely black out, it quickly got dimmer like twilight. Things got silent and the air cooled. I got the kids to come to the back door to see the 360 degree sunset at the horizon and the amazingness of the total eclipse.
There aren't really words for what happened other than WOW. People in our neighborhood screamed and cheered. The moon blacked out the sun with the bright rays highlighting the dark blue of the sky. We saw the sun's corona, the Baily's Beads, a star (or a planet), and the shockingly bright Diamond Ring as the sun reemerged. 2 minutes and 26 seconds sped by in a blink. While the kids went back to their business, I continued to intermittently watch the moon cut across the sun and disappear to the other side. We made sandwiches and picnicked outside. The girls laid down for naps.
We knew that animals could act strange during the Eclipse. We saw a few of the neighborhood bunnies throughout the morning but they all hid for about an hour around totality. I saw two eagles about 30-40 minutes before totality. Right after totality, the kids went back inside and it wasn't long before they were screaming at each other, hitting, and having a WWE style wrestling match... can that count as weird animal behavior?
Now that the Eclipse is over, we are back to reality... Two more weeks of summer for the kids. Ten more days of summer reading chaos for me. But with one more story to tell and memory to treasure.
For awhile it seemed like maybe this Eclipse thing wasn't going to match the hype. Working for a community organization in one of THE hot spot locations in North America to view the solar event of the summer, it was starting to feel like it might be a letdown. The weather report was sketchy, especially since the weeks before were wet, cloudy, and cooler than normal. It seemed like wishful thinking that 9am-1pm would be perfect skies and the clouds would wait... (but they did...)
I'll admit we scrooged a few weekend events and never made it to the downtown Eclipse festival. We weren't planning to attend anyway, because crowds, heat, and three kids don't particularly make for happy parents, but a late Thursday/early Friday bout of stomach bug erased the chance to check it out during my lunch break Friday (since I opted for sleeping and not sharing my sick).
I spent the morning watching the DOT webcams coming in to the state this morning and laughed at the people who thought they could quickly get here in time and have seen facebook pics all weekend, but I have no firsthand idea if the masses really came to Wyoming. We did stock up on groceries earlier last week, packed lunches to work, and ate dinners at home to avoid crowds and the price gouging at local restaurants.
Working at the Library, our whole summer has been Eclipse. From our theme (Look Up) to planned crafts and other events, I can recite Eclipse facts in my sleep... and actually did have crazy dreams about forgetting glasses and having a child run off and missing totality.
There aren't really words for what happened other than WOW. People in our neighborhood screamed and cheered. The moon blacked out the sun with the bright rays highlighting the dark blue of the sky. We saw the sun's corona, the Baily's Beads, a star (or a planet), and the shockingly bright Diamond Ring as the sun reemerged. 2 minutes and 26 seconds sped by in a blink. While the kids went back to their business, I continued to intermittently watch the moon cut across the sun and disappear to the other side. We made sandwiches and picnicked outside. The girls laid down for naps.
We knew that animals could act strange during the Eclipse. We saw a few of the neighborhood bunnies throughout the morning but they all hid for about an hour around totality. I saw two eagles about 30-40 minutes before totality. Right after totality, the kids went back inside and it wasn't long before they were screaming at each other, hitting, and having a WWE style wrestling match... can that count as weird animal behavior?
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