It's crazy how dark it became so quickly. Cold too. Even before the moon fully passed in front of the sun, the crickets started chirping. I guess they thought it was night, and I don't blame them.
At totality, we were able to take our eclipse glasses off for about thirty seconds and look up with bare eyes. Mom screamed and babbled about how cool it was. In pictures you see of solar eclipses in textbooks or news articles or whatever, it always looks like there's a black circle with a yellow ring around it. But when I saw the eclipse at totality, the ring was bright white. I wonder if all eclipses are like that and the yellow ring is a trick of the cameras that take pictures, or if the pictures I've seen have all been artists' interpretations.
We left when the eclipse was over. This was why we had brought the motorhome- so we could brave the crazy traffic in comfort on our way home. It's normally a five minute drive from the cabin to the grocery store, but today it took more like fifty. That was fine. I got a lot of writing done. About 9,500 words today, working on a scene I set aside a long time ago. Nice way to spend the day- family, a cool eclipse experience, and lots of enjoyable writing.
