A total eclipse of the sun is pretty incredible. It's no wonder that our town, roads, and highways were inundated with folks from out of town. If you haven't seen one and ever get the chance, go.
Cole, Emily, and the girls drove up from Tennessee to see it, while Frank and Eva flew in from North Carolina. Schools closed as towns across Indiana prepared to witness the event.
Only one thing could be a problem - any possible cloud cover. Early Monday morning I checked the weather and, to my dismay, saw this:
Carmel, the place we planned to watch it, was expecting a 71% chance of clouds during the eclipse! This prompted a flurry of texts and calls among our family, culminating in a plan to head further south to Nashville, Indiana where the weather was forecast to be sunny.
That upended our plans. Nashville, Indiana is much, much farther away and well south of Indianapolis. We had six dogs among us to consider.
Curt already had plans to leave Gus with friends for the day and Henry was going along with his family as they were heading home to Tennessee after the eclipse.
As for the other four dogs, Lisa has a doggy door to her yard so her dogs would be fine while she was gone and Pepper uses the doggy door without hesitation. But Tammo? He is absolutely terrified of it and refuses to go through.
Someone would have to stay home, and since Craig and I had both seen total eclipses before, we volunteered.
I checked our weather and we had a better forecast than Carmel which was good, but it was the percentage of coverage of the sun that caught my eye and surprised me. 99.2% coverage? You can't get much closer than that to a total eclipse! So Craig and I crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.
The texts poured in all morning as the rest of our family traveled south, ending up in Brown County State Park. And soon the pictures did, too.
They may not be sisters by blood, but Emily, Lisa, and Vanessa are sisters of the heart.
Frank brought some experiments for the kids to do.
Here he has laid out white posterboard and the kids, using their bodies to make shadows, are seeing how an eclipse can change the shadow and allow you to see the eclipse without looking at it! Can you see the little crescent sun in the middle of the center hand?
The eclipse took well over an hour from start to finish, and so everyone kept their eclipse glasses close, popping them on and off to view the progress of the moon as it crossed the sun's path.
Slowly, the moon covered more and more of the sun and the light began to dim.
Lisa brought light up necklaces for the kids to wear so they'd have a little light when it got dark, but Lukie was still a little scared of the impending darkness and wanted to be close as it got darker and darker. (I don't blame him; I'm an adult and it was unsettling for me, too!)
And finally, the moment arrived - totality!
Filming stopped before totality, but it went pitch black where they were. Those necklaces were a good idea; Lukie's is especially bright!
A total eclipse of the sun, Nashville, Indiana, April 8, 2024.
Ten mph in heavy traffic on I-65 but almost home at last!
It took quite a while for everyone to get home due to that heavy traffic, but not one person saw that as a negative.
What an experience! Certainly a highlight of the year for us and something those kids will remember all their lives.
Tomorrow I will share what happened for those of us who stayed home as well as some pictures from family members watching elsewhere.
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