The Eclipse

Not satisfied with 98%,
I drove with a friend
to Beatrice, Nebraska,
about 100 miles southwest
of Omaha to find the totality.
We checked weather reports,
and radar maps, and had
several possible destinations:
Grand Island, or Beatrice,
or Falls City, or St. Joseph,
Missouri, or hundreds of
towns between, and settled on
Beatrice as the most promising.
As though a Cornhusker
football game was on the
schedule that day,
traffic was heavy on the
drive to Lincoln.
We noted the water level
of the Platte River,
the two wind towers
north of Lincoln -only one
was working in the morning.
Both were working on the
return trip. We saw the
capitol building, and the
license plates from many states.
The corn was withering a bit
here and there,
but the soy beans looked good.
Through Cortland, I noted the
gas prices were bit higher than
in Papillion. The Walmart
bathroom in Beatrice was a
welcome first stop. From
there we headed to Homestead
National Monument to check
that out and look for parking.
None there, but try the Fairgrounds
one fellow said. We wandered
a few country roads and found a few
entrepreneurial camp sites with
observing parties in full swing.
The Big Blue River was full
of the last night's thunderstorms.
Eventually, we found our way
to the fairgrounds, found parking
in a large open field and set up
our chairs and my telescope with
its solar filter. Dan had a couple of
astronomy magazines with eclipse
articles and those glasses everyone
was wearing. The clouds broke
just enough and often enough
so we got to see almost all of it,
including the totality.
Through my telescope,
the image was forty times larger
than through the naked eye, and with
an orange tint, due to the filter.
I watched the moon encroach
the sun's disk, covering,
one by one, several sun spots.
Clouds came and went
obscuring and then revealing
the event sequence,
and the clouds parted like the Red Sea
just before the
totality occurred and it was a
spectacular sight, that bright ring
around that black void
where the sun used to be.
For a bit longer than two minutes,
darkness gently collapsed around us
with a subtle sunrise/sunset all around.
People cheered, and a few firecrackers
went off. I looked for stars, but
the clouds may have obscured them.
Venus, or it might have been Mercury,
was clearly visible though.
I'm told animals
get confused, and behave as though
night has fallen, but the few dogs I
saw seemed oblivious to it all.
Then the sun gradually
emerged from the other side
of the moon,
daylight filtered back down,
more clouds moved in
obscuring much of the moon's
exit. It was interesting to me
that we could see the
moon only as it blocked the sun.
I don't know if that was true
in other parts of the country
where skies were clear.