Total Eclipse of the Heartland

I don't follow the news too much, so I didn't really hear a lot about the total eclipse that was supposed to travel through the United States today.  Cameron had told me that all of his classes were cancelled for today.  At first I thought that was a little over the top until I saw the predictions for the amount of people that would be traveling to Bloomington today as the city was in the path of totality.  Brett said that he was told that he could take PTO if he wanted to avoid the traffic today.  Nick even made plans to go to Bloomington last night so that he would be there for the rare event.

I read more about the eclipse this morning and found out that our state would only be able to see a partial eclipse.  Because of that there really wasn't much hype down here about it.  Hearing all about Nick and Cameron's plans to watch the event on campus peaked my interest in the eclipse.  Meg said that she had glasses and would be going outside her apartment to watch it for a little while this afternoon.  Brett said that he would be doing the same.  I called Cal to see what he was thinking about the eclipse.  He was working at Grandma's for a few days while his tire was being repaired and would be able to watch it there.  He didn't have any glasses, so I sent him information on how to make a solar eclipse viewing box.  I had decided to make one this morning and found it kind of fun.  Thankfully, Grandma and Grandpa were back from the doctor to pick up three pairs of solar glasses at the WACF before the eclipse started.

I talked and texted everyone right before, during and after the eclipse.  There were a lot of pictures taken and even a really neat time elapse video captured by Nick.  Everyone but me was able to watch it through their glasses.  They could even take them off during the moment of totality as there was absolutely no sunlight whatsoever.  My solar box worked a lot better than I would have thought, and although it wasn't quite as exciting as the eclipse in the Midwest, I still had fun trying it.  The best part of the eclipse wasn't watching it, however.  It was sharing something together even though we were all miles apart.