Monday, August 21, 2017

Eclipse 2017

Monday, August 21, 2017

For this historic eclipse, we travelled to Kearney, MO, birthplace of Jesse James. Ben and Nick Golec joined us because their parents were working. We took the day off, obviously.  Traffic on the way up was minimal. Traffic on the way back was significant. Lots of pouring rain, thunder and lightning during the drive, and for part of the time outside.

We gathered at the home of Adam (he lives with his parents on a big spread of land), an engineer who works for Ed. There were several engineers from Ed's group there, and we visited quite a bit with Ibrahem and Abeer, plus Erin, Todd, and Maddie. Her whole family was there, including parents from TX.

Someone had a hook-up with something called "TrailerGate." It was a trailer that included attached tents, grills, a bathroom, two tvs, satellite, game systems, and cold beer. It was amazing.

The boys ran around the open space, but were particularly interested in a large pile of gravel; it was truly the main attraction and they got very dirty.

The eclipse: we were in awe. It took about 2 hours in total to lose the sun and regain it. It rained a lot before then was cloudy but cleared up for the 2 minutes of totality. How lucky we felt! As the sun disappeared, it got noticeably cooler and we heard "evening" insects and bird song. And of course, it got a lot darker.


Jonas, Ben, Gill, Nick
Gill, showing off his pecs.
The one time they weren't in motion.

Jonas really enjoyed it. He is on Book 6 of Harry Potter.

Ben with the best expression of awe.

Ed wearing his glow-in-the-dark Star Wars shirt

Gravel pile that cause so much dirty

Right after the downpour, the eclipse started.

Gill and Ben

This is how you hold the eclipse glasses on your face.

Partial eclipse in left lens.