Eclipse

It. Was. Amazing. 

I completely get why people travel hundreds, or thousands, of miles to be in the direct path. 

I'd venture to say most of us has seen a partial eclipse - be it Lunar Or Solar.  And while I was wow'd by the approach and watching diligently from 14:00 on, nothing prepared me for the awesomeness of Totality. 

Had I done enough (read: any) research on how to take pics with my iPhone my images would have been better. They seemed good at the moment until I saw other folk's pics. 

The one above is from a psychologist friend of mine with his real camera. He captured the early moment of one of the flares. We saw no Bailey Beads, nor the comet that might have been visible. We did see Venus. 

We started off the day with grey and rain. It was 100% clear by 10:00.  But clouds started to creep in about the same time as the start of the moon appearing. 

The approach was nice. The darkness was much darker than I expected, save for the 360 degree sunset - which was a little disorienting. The lights came on, the birds stopped singing, the temperature dropped and maybe I'm assuming things, but Shep was very clingy and going back and forth between 710 and myself. 

And the title image is nice, but doesn't do the eclipse justice. No picture I've seen was as good as the naked eye. Yes, for the 3.5 minutes of Totality, one could take off their glasses. 

Below is downtown Cleveland during Totality. 

One of the more amazing things is how quickly it got light afterwards. Honestly, like seconds, whereas it took minutes to get dark. 

It is doubtful I will see such a thing again, but given the chance, I'd do it - travel to it - in a heartbeat. 

On another eclipse-related note: 

the day before, I ran a Total Solar Eclipse 5K.  It felt tough to me - lots of elevation. LOTS of it. But my app was on and I knew a mile in - while I thought I was slow - and I was anything but, running under a nine minute mile.  I'm very proud to say I came in first in my age group - and yes, there were other in my age group. 

I said a few weeks ago that I'd never place in a race in an age group. I was wrong. It was a lot of work, but it's because I'm not sure I've run faster......and that's on a bad knee. 

Song by: Pink Floyd