We woke up bright and early, ate breakfast, and put away the tents and sleeping bags. The countdown is on!
We worried a bit that Josh might sneak his eyes around his glasses and burn his retinas. I saw this mask on Pinterest and made one for Josh. After trying it out, we found that it actually made viewing the sun better because it shut out more of the ambient light. So we made masks for all of us.
We tried to put our glasses over our phone camera lens for eclipse pictures, but our phone camera components are garbage and it looked like a hazy blob. So I could only take pictures during totality.
As the eclipse neared totality, the daylight turned an other wordly cast. The temperature got cooler and we put on sweatshirts or blankets. We could start to see Mercury appear in the darkening sky by the sun.
The real magic started when the eclipse hit totality. The sky darkened and it produced a 360 degree sunset. Everyone was cheering and shouting in awe. It was so chilly out. We could see stars in the sky. The craziest part to me was the view of the eclipsed sun. It was surreal. It seemed like a science fiction movie. The black sun looked big in the dark blue sky with beautiful, gently swirled solar flares that wafted out from the sun. They appeared white and flowing like wisping clouds. It was beautiful. Amazing. Awe inspiring. Incredible.
It ended after a little over 2 minutes. It wasn't long enough. It was so disappointing when the moon creeped past and the magic was over. We wished it lasted longer.
After totality, we decided we were all ok start driving home. We packed up our food and headed out around 12:00 noon. We weren't the only ones. 11 hours later we pulled into our garage at home.
It was like post football game traffic. But for 256 miles. For 11 hours. On a freeway.
Despite the traffic, we would all do it again in a heartbeat! We can't wait until 2024!!
