First of all, before I talk about the eclipse, I have something to say to all those people who made a point of declaring their lack of interest: Nobody is impressed with you and nobody cares what you think. Just shut up and go on with your sad, pathetic little lives and leave the joyful people alone.
So, now that that's out of the way...
The sun was about 90% hidden here. It would have been only a two or three hour drive for us to get to an area of totality but when we thought about crowds and heavy traffic 90% seemed good enough. I would have liked to have been in the path of totality but what we did see was still pretty cool. We viewed it through those paper framed eclipse glasses, at first just going outside to look every 10 or 15 minutes then when it got close to the maximum we stayed outside and watched. The sun being almost directly overhead made viewing rather uncomfortable so we didn't watch continuously.
I think what I enjoyed the most was seeing it get darker even though it didn't get as dark as I expected. Ten percent of the sun's brightness is still pretty darn bright. It actually looked sort of like when you put on dark sunglasses. It also crossed my mind that this is what the light would look like on a planet that is farther away from the sun. The temperature dropped almost 10 degrees, enough to be noticeable.
I did watch some of the coverage on TV. It was nice to have a couple of hours when the country was focused on something besides politics. And you know, we could do that on any day - focus on something else, at least for a while. Most of us ignore the common, everyday wonders. Our sense of wonder and joy in nature are only awakened when a rare event occurs but there are wonders all around us all the time. I know that sounds like a cliche but it's true and if we don't, at least occasionally, slow down and enjoy those wonders we are not much different from those pathetic people who felt compelled to tell everyone that the eclipse was not a big deal.
