Night At Mid-afternoon

I am sure everyone was treated to enormous amounts of the Solar eclipse news and pictures that all have come to the point of “one more picture and I will scream!”

I promise I won’t post any pictures of the eclipse.
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As the D-day drew nearer we were glued to the weather channel like our life depended on it.

Well, in a way it did, our life savings! Having booked the hotels way back in March we did not want rain to ruin everything. The weather forecast were 'cloudy skies' .

Deciding to take a risk, we drove to Columbia, capital of S. Carolina, and in the total eclipse’s path, reaching there around 6 pm, Sunday Aug, 20th.

They had predicted enormous traffic backups, cell phones jamming, and gasoline shortage, We encountered none. In fact the drive was smooth with almost empty roads.

We also got a fleeting lesson on cause and effect. Here it is



Once at the hotel we switched on the TV to listen to the local weather update.

They mentioned that Monday looked great and quickly moved on to show the hurricanes developing in the Atlantic.

We immediately felt something was not right. Why did they not show the radar where we could see the clouds? Also if the weather was really great they would be talking non-stop about it, raving about everything.

We checked some websites and one website clearly showed the cloud cover. Columbia would experience 56% cloud cover, whereas Greenville, S.C., which was west of Columbia had only 38% cloud cover. We immediately decided to get up early in the morning and drive as far west as the roads would let us. Wherever traffic was too heavy we would just get off the highway and stay put there.

August 21. Monday, 5 am – we drove west towards Greenville. I had taken with me some bread, butter, jam, and fruits. We drove for about an hour and a half and about 30 miles to Greenville, stopped at a rest area and had our bread and jam.

There, we checked out Greenville’s local TV and the radar showed much clearer skies especially over a small town much closer to the rest area.

So we dropped our plans of driving to Greenville; instead went to the town’s library and parked our car. It was 7:30 am.

The town was a picturesque quaint little town with beautiful homes – it was like stepping into a story book.

This was the best decision we made. The library staff were extremely friendly and invited us all to come inside to get away from hot sun. The temperature climbed steadily and it was hot, hot, and hot, reaching about 91F.

Slowly folks began arriving; from everwhere along the East Coast - Florida, N. Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine.

By about noon we had our lunch.
The library had also arranged water, snacks, and free glasses.
We read some books in the library, walked around, read books again.

My husband was also interviewed by a high-school student for her high-school project. He had his 15 minutes of fame!

1:10 pm ET- the first teensy weensy shadow of the moon was visible against a very orange ball. There was not much change till the sun was almost half blocked.

Half- blocked sun – the temperature cooled to 88 F

2:15 –ET - we definitely felt comfortable and the day turned like it was cloudy but without the clouds.

There was one thing I noticed at this time – The shadows were extremely sharp. Not the regular slightly hazy outline, but really sharp, like a drawing in India ink.

2:30 pm – It turned even darker and there was this strange hue. It began to feel surreal. The darkness was not the yellow tinted dawn or the red tinted twilight.

There was a blue tinge everywhere and all the folks began to look like aliens and our earth did not look familiar. It was like we were transported to some other world.

2:39 pm – the moon finally slid in place completely blocking the sun from us.

It went dark though we could still see each other. We removed the solar glasses. The crickets began chirping. I noticed no birds flying anywhere though.

Folks went quiet. Everyone was just drinking in the spectacle that had unfolded before our eyes.

While I could explain everything before, from this point I am just not able to capture those moments in words. Stupendous, phenomenal, beautiful, fantastic, breathtaking, dumbfounding… NO. None of the words can even come close to doing justice to that experience!
There is no way to explain!

The corona was so majestic and pearly white! I was thinking - this corona is hotter than the sun itself.

I looked for other planets, but could only detect an extremely bright Venus. But it was quick darting of the eyes. I was not ready to take my eyes away from the Sun. My eyes were glued to this wondrous spectacle. I greedily drank and stored the memory of every nano-second in my mind.

After 2 minutes and 30 seconds there came this brilliant of all the brilliant lights I have ever seen in my life. The diamond ring effect!!! So brilliant! I think even if we heap all the diamonds in world in one place, it will not even come close to this brilliance. Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic!

None of the pictures did justice to this, because all the cameras had filters.

And then it was all over. The moon slowly moved on its way and it was back to partial eclipse. Immediately we felt the heat rising and within seconds it was hot again. This time there was no twilight, or dawn effect.

Originally we had planned to stay till the entire eclipse ended. But after seeing the totality, partial eclipse failed to retain our interest.

The whole thing was so perfect, so exquisite, and so so beautiful, I had a lump in my throat. I felt small, insignificant. There was the sun and the moon telling, “See what we can do?” and smiling down at us.

It was a very emotional experience as well.

On our way home, I was just looking at the green trees, the blue sky and the fluffy white clouds passing by. But something was amiss. I thought it was just anticlimax.

My younger son also glanced outside and said, “Mom...after the total solar eclipse, nothing looks beautiful any more!”
His words captured it best.

 

Thank you for your first response @jskls .
You said it right. Beauty that fills the soul! I just remembered, you are a poet. Thats why you captured it immediately.

Again, moon stealing Suns rays and engaged by the diamond ring... how sweet. I never thought in that angle.

I did not take any pictures of the eclipse ma. The only pictures are those of my family, which I cannot post here.

 

Thank you @PavithraS
I am happy that you like my posts. You made my day.
Writing this post was the toughest for me.
Hope all can watch a total eclipse at least once.