I'm back home now.
Left at 5AM and had carefully planned traveling mostly west to intersect eclipse bath instead of heading south. Also was able to get 4:30AM local news with weather update and decided to go to my original destination, Broken Bow NE area. As I traveled west, cloud conditions steadily improved, when I pulled out of the driveway and for the first 50 miles even saw lightning, behind and in front of me.
Travel plan seemed to work well, remarkably little traffic going EW, can't say I ID'd fellow eclipse chasers till I was in Loup City NE. Made a couple stops along the way to stir up the blood clots, and arrived on site 2 hours early.
Enjoyed company of distant relatives and a tour of their farm, and when I confirmed first contact we broke for lunch. I recalled from 1979 the first 60-70% of the eclipse was like watching paint dry, so had a nice luncheon on the picnic table and I managed to only check progression of the eclipse every 5 minutes or so.
Lunch wrapped up around 60% coverage and then we adjourned to the lawn chairs and at around 80% we all agreed it was 'looking funny outdoor'. Contrast of shadows was dropping, feeling of warmth from sunlight on the face disappeared, and the color balance of our surroundings was off.
I was watching intently for Bailey's Beads, but they presented for a very minimal amount of time (few seconds at most) and then diamond ring, and then
zorch !!
Totality.
Saw Venus and a couple others, and then at about 1:45 in, definitely noticed red/orange glow over about 90 degrees of the edge on the trailing side. And color intensified very steadily until ZAP !!, diamond ring again signaled the end of totality.
Yes, we saw farm mercury vapor lights come on, goats in the pen layed down, and barn cats quit playing and all settled down. Didn't notice chickens/roosters making noises, but the backyard ducks made a racket most of the time I was there, eclipsing or not.
Ride home uneventful, minor traffic delay in Columbus, hard to say if it was eclipse chaser traffic, or maybe just some poorly timed left turn arrows.
On way back noted approaching storm clouds too !
Viewing conditions SE of Broken Bow were 'pristine', maybe a few percent of the sky had high thin cirrus, the rest was cloudless.
It was spectacular !!!
Left at 5AM and had carefully planned traveling mostly west to intersect eclipse bath instead of heading south. Also was able to get 4:30AM local news with weather update and decided to go to my original destination, Broken Bow NE area. As I traveled west, cloud conditions steadily improved, when I pulled out of the driveway and for the first 50 miles even saw lightning, behind and in front of me.
Travel plan seemed to work well, remarkably little traffic going EW, can't say I ID'd fellow eclipse chasers till I was in Loup City NE. Made a couple stops along the way to stir up the blood clots, and arrived on site 2 hours early.
Enjoyed company of distant relatives and a tour of their farm, and when I confirmed first contact we broke for lunch. I recalled from 1979 the first 60-70% of the eclipse was like watching paint dry, so had a nice luncheon on the picnic table and I managed to only check progression of the eclipse every 5 minutes or so.
Lunch wrapped up around 60% coverage and then we adjourned to the lawn chairs and at around 80% we all agreed it was 'looking funny outdoor'. Contrast of shadows was dropping, feeling of warmth from sunlight on the face disappeared, and the color balance of our surroundings was off.
I was watching intently for Bailey's Beads, but they presented for a very minimal amount of time (few seconds at most) and then diamond ring, and then
zorch !!
Totality.
Saw Venus and a couple others, and then at about 1:45 in, definitely noticed red/orange glow over about 90 degrees of the edge on the trailing side. And color intensified very steadily until ZAP !!, diamond ring again signaled the end of totality.
Yes, we saw farm mercury vapor lights come on, goats in the pen layed down, and barn cats quit playing and all settled down. Didn't notice chickens/roosters making noises, but the backyard ducks made a racket most of the time I was there, eclipsing or not.
Ride home uneventful, minor traffic delay in Columbus, hard to say if it was eclipse chaser traffic, or maybe just some poorly timed left turn arrows.
On way back noted approaching storm clouds too !
Viewing conditions SE of Broken Bow were 'pristine', maybe a few percent of the sky had high thin cirrus, the rest was cloudless.
It was spectacular !!!
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
