Monday Eclipse

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Here's a full account of the day:

There won't be great eclipse photos here because our camera couldn't capture it. Ds's, on the other hand, is amazing. But he's on his way back to Ottawa now for his overnight shift on Wednesday night and we didn't have time to dump the photos onto my computer so we'll all have to wait until he has time to process them.

I woke up excited at 6:45 and our alarm wasn't until 8 so I stayed in bed as long as possible (7:30), listening to the local radio stations. There was some coverage but in general, no hype. The traffic was normal. Literally nothing to mention about that. They talked about the increase of out-of-state license plates and about how to manage viewing with children, but nothing breathless or over-the-top (unlike the cable news and weather channel.)

We went to breakfast at 8:25 and there was no food left, so we left and walked to a diner a few blocks away and had an excellent breakfast. Their WiFi hadn't been working for a while but we managed to all sign in. Bonus!

In our surfing for eclipse info, we came across this news story mentioning dh and ds:

http://www.kwch.com/content/news/Beatri ... 20923.html


While it was lovely and sunny out, the weather forecast was not good. We looked at all the cloud coverage estimates and rain estimates and had to make a call. Ds was leaving right after for home so taking a chance to drive 1.5 hours west didn't make sense in the big picture so we headed south, into bad weather, to hopefully get a longer time in totality. The difference was 1.5 minutes in Lincoln and 2.5 minutes in Beatrice. That extra minute is enough time for clouds to blow away, so they are more important than it sounds.

A stop at a Walmart for lunch supplies and then we headed off, leaving the south end of town around 11:15 heading toward the centre line of totality which would be about 30 minutes away. It was sunny in spots and we paid attention to the shadows. Suddenly they got worse and the traffic was heavier so we turned around and headed back about 10 minutes toward brighter skies.

We ended up on a dirt road close to the highway. Others had settled in there and we had a good deal of sun. We were chatting with another family (from Kansas) and when we mentioned we were interviewed yesterday, they said they had heard us on the radio, it was a family who had driven 3 days! So that was fun.

I had made up an eclipse play list which include the song Towards the Sun. It has the line "Turn your face towards the sun, let the shadows fall behind you." It is a lovely sentiment and will be the tag line to a sermon of mine one day, but for today, there was a problem with this.

As much fun as it was to look at the sun with a bite out of it, there were dark clouds behind us.

After about 40 minutes we made up our mind to move north and perhaps a bit west to some blue sky we could see because we could see the rain coming in.

So we tossed everything into the cars and headed off. Thankfully nothing fell off. Ds and I could hear something flapping on the roof rack. Turned out he tossed his life jacket up there. It held on (despite traveling on the highway at 75 mph at one point!)

Technology was not our friend since not only did ds not have any service at all, dh and I had cell service but it didn't actually work. I was riding with ds and dh had his cell phone working hands-free in the car but nothing worked. So we were waving and signalling back and forth.

We had 15 minutes to drive until we'd have to stop no matter what. We got off at an overpass (the only one I know of along that 4 lane highway, the rest are level crossings) and headed west a few more minutes before pulling onto another dirt road. There was sun and this was it, we had about 8 minutes until totality.

The clouds moved in. Moments before totality I was taking shots and looking up without viewing glasses. Didn't need them, the clouds were so thick there was no sun. Just in time the big cloud cleared and we saw totality.

We even got to see the "diamond ring" and enjoy looking around at the colours of the sky all around us.

Then, it was over and the sun came back. Of course, the clouds cleared as well. That happened to us last time!

It takes just as long for the moon to move off the sun as it did to move on so we kept our viewing glasses handy and would enjoy the show as we packed up.

We moved back into cell service and Google was telling ds to stay on our dirt road into Lincoln so he headed off that way. We were going back to the highway until we saw it from the overpass. Bumper to bumper as far as we could see.

So we stayed on the back roads and popped up into Lincoln from those. It took no more than 15 minutes extra to get back so we were lucky. I know ds had one slow down but not sure where. Then he hit stopped traffic outside of Des Moines. I had my lunch in the car and ate that while we drove along very slowly. We stopped for frozen custard before arriving back at the hotel.

I cleaned out the car and repacked our eclipse stuff (chairs, tripod) properly, all in preparation of heading back onto the road tomorrow morning. We went to the clubhouse and did a load of laundry while we used the internet there.

I wrote my travelog and put in the photos I have and then we headed out to dinner at 7. The rib joint we wanted to eat at had a 30 minute wait and no WiFi so we started to drive back into town. I'm sending this from a Perkins restaurant after having a nice turkey dinner.

We were going to walk tonight but it is almost dark (again!) and I'm very tired so we may just head back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we are back on the road for 5 days as we head up and over to get around Lake Superior.

And while we're driving, we'll start planning 2024, the next North American eclipse. We're thinking we'll be in the Eastern Townships of Quebec for that one...

[blessedw2]

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/85709199141983533/

the adler planetarium ran out of free glasses... 30,000 of them!

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/85709199141983530/

[lucylee]

Dh is finally feeling a little better.
I am feeling worse.
-- took Tessalon Pearles
-- took cough syrup
-- took Aleve
-- washed dishes
-- hung load of clothes to dry
-- headed to the recliner