The Great American Eclipse

The Great American Eclipse has come and gone, but the residual traffic in many parts of Idaho is still hot and heavy.

 

We have all worked a lot of hours and there are still more hours to be working the remainder of this week.  Thankfully, we are all mostly in good spirits although feeling exhausted.  The actual eclipse happened during my sleep time but since Kenyon was awake (he is rotating back to day shift a few weeks early) he woke me up in time to see the big show.  My neighbor was having a small get together with breakfast and eclipse viewing so we popped outside to say hello and watch the final moments of the 99%-something total eclipse we were able to see from Boise.  We were lucky in that we had beautiful weather and clear skies.

I didn’t know what to expect from the total eclipse other than “don’t burn your eyes off” and “it will be dark”.  I was surprised to learn that it got very cold and somewhat quite/calm.  Also, very weird looking shadows.

 

After we came back inside, we watched some of the footage on TV.  It would be really cool to live hear that city in IL that is not only on the path of the total eclipse for 2017 but will also be on the path for the next one in April of 2024.  It was overcast there but they were able to get a slight clearing just in time.  I heard some people paid thousands for a seat in the stadium.  Wow.  I was impressed by how much darker it was for those in the “path of totality” and although I wouldn’t have wanted to mess with the traffic issues, it would have been neat to see.  Maybe Kenyon and I will road trip to IL in 2024, if I’m not required to be at work!

Other than that, I might have slightly burned off my left retina.  It is still yet to be determined.  I only looked at it for a second after I woke up so I could see where it was before putting my very dark eclipse glasses on.  No joke, my eye hurts.  Either I made an unsafe move or I’m just a big hypochondriac.