A total eclipse of a post
Aug. 28th, 2017 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grammarwomanAugust is doing that weirdly elastic time thing again; I was looking through coupons last night and was about to toss one for being expired when I realized that August 31 is at the end of this week, not in the past. It does not help that the kid started school halfway through the month. My brain will forever associate beginning school = end of summer = September, and no amount of logic can overcome that well-worn path, it seems.
So, a week late, have a few words on last Monday.
The eclipse was magnificent and fun. We’d had vague plans with friends for months, and the planning emails started flying fast and furious a couple of weeks ago. Alas that I did not get the note that one of the group had bought a bunch of eclipse glasses, as I paid an embarrassing sum for not having planned ahead and got some last-minute stock sent to me.
It turned out as a valid decision anyway, since the husband decided that he didn’t want to go along, even after I told him his nerd card would be revoked, so I set an alarm for ridonkulous o’clock Monday morning, left a pair of glasses for him, and actually got out of the house with the kid and supplies by 6:30 AM. Our destination was some 200 miles southwest and an estimated 3.5 hours away, and with all the buzz about the eclipse, the group had decided that leaving early and in individual carloads was preferable to trying to wrangle everyone into a caravan and thus not making it in time inside the zone of totality.
We ran into some construction traffic first off, which I hoped didn’t bode ill for the rest of the way, but once we got out of that, it was pretty smooth sailing. The first rest area we stopped at was packed! I have never seen so many cars swarming around a rest stop, having to park several vehicles deep in the truck lanes and slowly maneuvering around all the incomings and outgoings. The line in the building itself wasn’t too bad, but of course the kid was in and out before I had even reached the door of the ladies’ room. Everyone was abuzz with eclipse talk, and the crowd was a lovely, smiling mix of ages/outfits/ethnicities. We stopped again for gas and bathroom once we got off the interstate and hit the county roads. That one was less fun, as the gas station only had one restroom per gender. I remarked to another woman in line that it was good for the guys to have to wait in line for that, like women have to do too often.
The goal was a teeny-tiny town and the home of an aunt of one of the group of friends, almost dead center in the line of totality, with an estimated two and a half minutes of full eclipse. There wound up being at least 15 people or so converging on her house; the aunt put on a lovely church lady spread of deli meat, cheese, bread, condiments, and TWO kinds of delicious desserts. We scarfed down lunch with profuse and guilty thanks, since most of us had brought coolers full of food and drinks. We then decamped to a park a few blocks away just in time to see a wide-open sky and the first encroaching of the moon on the sun’s face. Science is so cool!
My son was a little bit restless, as the only other kids there were much, much younger than him, but he slouched around with some good grace and talked to the adults. Not that he would say it, but I think he appreciated being in the company of people who also grew up weird and gifted and awkward, and could converse on almost any subject he initiated.
We had some shade trees, so we could wander in and out of the direct sun; I definitely appreciated it as I had worn jeans to prevent being eaten alive by the bugs. Between the heat and humidity, I was glistening. The run-up was eerie and exciting; it gradually got darker and cooler, to the point that it felt like twilight even though the sun was still blazing away. We munched and drank and marveled at how awesome it was that we could all be there to experience it together. The sky and ambient light had a washed-out, cool tone to it like what you’d see through polarized glasses. Every few minutes we donned our special cardboard eclipse frames to ooh and aah at the inexorable creep of the moon into the sun’s circle. I took pictures of the crescent shadows of the leaves, looking much like [this]. One of the group had downloaded an app that counted down the time, so we had ample warning to the imminence of totality.
Then the time arrived, and it was amazing. Everyone should get to experience a total eclipse at some point in their lives, especially amidst a group of friends who are just as awed and excited to be a part of the overlap of science and math and space and earth. Standing there, barefaced and looking at the sun full-on, with nature hushed and the wind having stilled, I could understand why previous civilizations without the warning of an eclipse’s approach or the certainty that it would pass might lose their shit, because WOW. I had a twinge of sadness that my husband didn’t want to come, but I made sure to hug my son extra tight that I got to share it with him.
We hung around a bit afterwards to appreciate the return of normalcy, for the world to unpause and grind back into regular gear, then packed up all our stuff and headed for home again. Our timing was just about perfect, as we only hit a couple of pockets of traffic that had me grumbling. We got home in about 4 or 5 hours, while I heard stories that it took other people on the same roads 8 or more. I felt especially lucky that the weather had been perfect for us; a work friend who had been planning the trip literally for years had gone to the largest town in the region less than 30 miles from where we were, and had cloud cover for the crucial minutes before, during, and after totality. I would have been crushed had I missed it.
I’m hoping that it made a big impression on my son, as he grudgingly said it was OK; I am glad that he had his phone to distract him on the long car ride there and back, because I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself if he was huffy and vocal about being bored out of his skull. I certainly thought it was worth the trip.
I feel especially lucky that the next eclipse, 7 years from now, is swinging by even closer to where I live. The group has a lot of time to plan between now and then. My kid will be college-aged then! Hopefully he will still be nerdy enough to want to see it.
So, a week late, have a few words on last Monday.
The eclipse was magnificent and fun. We’d had vague plans with friends for months, and the planning emails started flying fast and furious a couple of weeks ago. Alas that I did not get the note that one of the group had bought a bunch of eclipse glasses, as I paid an embarrassing sum for not having planned ahead and got some last-minute stock sent to me.
It turned out as a valid decision anyway, since the husband decided that he didn’t want to go along, even after I told him his nerd card would be revoked, so I set an alarm for ridonkulous o’clock Monday morning, left a pair of glasses for him, and actually got out of the house with the kid and supplies by 6:30 AM. Our destination was some 200 miles southwest and an estimated 3.5 hours away, and with all the buzz about the eclipse, the group had decided that leaving early and in individual carloads was preferable to trying to wrangle everyone into a caravan and thus not making it in time inside the zone of totality.
We ran into some construction traffic first off, which I hoped didn’t bode ill for the rest of the way, but once we got out of that, it was pretty smooth sailing. The first rest area we stopped at was packed! I have never seen so many cars swarming around a rest stop, having to park several vehicles deep in the truck lanes and slowly maneuvering around all the incomings and outgoings. The line in the building itself wasn’t too bad, but of course the kid was in and out before I had even reached the door of the ladies’ room. Everyone was abuzz with eclipse talk, and the crowd was a lovely, smiling mix of ages/outfits/ethnicities. We stopped again for gas and bathroom once we got off the interstate and hit the county roads. That one was less fun, as the gas station only had one restroom per gender. I remarked to another woman in line that it was good for the guys to have to wait in line for that, like women have to do too often.
The goal was a teeny-tiny town and the home of an aunt of one of the group of friends, almost dead center in the line of totality, with an estimated two and a half minutes of full eclipse. There wound up being at least 15 people or so converging on her house; the aunt put on a lovely church lady spread of deli meat, cheese, bread, condiments, and TWO kinds of delicious desserts. We scarfed down lunch with profuse and guilty thanks, since most of us had brought coolers full of food and drinks. We then decamped to a park a few blocks away just in time to see a wide-open sky and the first encroaching of the moon on the sun’s face. Science is so cool!
My son was a little bit restless, as the only other kids there were much, much younger than him, but he slouched around with some good grace and talked to the adults. Not that he would say it, but I think he appreciated being in the company of people who also grew up weird and gifted and awkward, and could converse on almost any subject he initiated.
We had some shade trees, so we could wander in and out of the direct sun; I definitely appreciated it as I had worn jeans to prevent being eaten alive by the bugs. Between the heat and humidity, I was glistening. The run-up was eerie and exciting; it gradually got darker and cooler, to the point that it felt like twilight even though the sun was still blazing away. We munched and drank and marveled at how awesome it was that we could all be there to experience it together. The sky and ambient light had a washed-out, cool tone to it like what you’d see through polarized glasses. Every few minutes we donned our special cardboard eclipse frames to ooh and aah at the inexorable creep of the moon into the sun’s circle. I took pictures of the crescent shadows of the leaves, looking much like [this]. One of the group had downloaded an app that counted down the time, so we had ample warning to the imminence of totality.
Then the time arrived, and it was amazing. Everyone should get to experience a total eclipse at some point in their lives, especially amidst a group of friends who are just as awed and excited to be a part of the overlap of science and math and space and earth. Standing there, barefaced and looking at the sun full-on, with nature hushed and the wind having stilled, I could understand why previous civilizations without the warning of an eclipse’s approach or the certainty that it would pass might lose their shit, because WOW. I had a twinge of sadness that my husband didn’t want to come, but I made sure to hug my son extra tight that I got to share it with him.
We hung around a bit afterwards to appreciate the return of normalcy, for the world to unpause and grind back into regular gear, then packed up all our stuff and headed for home again. Our timing was just about perfect, as we only hit a couple of pockets of traffic that had me grumbling. We got home in about 4 or 5 hours, while I heard stories that it took other people on the same roads 8 or more. I felt especially lucky that the weather had been perfect for us; a work friend who had been planning the trip literally for years had gone to the largest town in the region less than 30 miles from where we were, and had cloud cover for the crucial minutes before, during, and after totality. I would have been crushed had I missed it.
I’m hoping that it made a big impression on my son, as he grudgingly said it was OK; I am glad that he had his phone to distract him on the long car ride there and back, because I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself if he was huffy and vocal about being bored out of his skull. I certainly thought it was worth the trip.
I feel especially lucky that the next eclipse, 7 years from now, is swinging by even closer to where I live. The group has a lot of time to plan between now and then. My kid will be college-aged then! Hopefully he will still be nerdy enough to want to see it.
![[this]](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7633/16831042551_152a35aba2_o.jpg){kind=link}
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-28 10:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-29 12:30 am (UTC)It was absolutely glorious!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-28 10:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-08-29 12:32 am (UTC)