Scenes From An Eclipse, Rachel

Theo had the right idea by wanting to run to WY to catch the total eclipse - it lives up to the hype. I wasn't that set on going until I figured out that I could finagle my schedule to get Monday off, and then I figured I had no excuse. But I wasn't sure what to expect - all the news reports were about how many people were going to be swarming to these little Idaho towns, how terrible the traffic was going to be, how we should pack extra food and water and gas, etc. Also, the weather report said “partly cloudy,” which made me afraid that we wouldn’t even be able to see it. But the drive up there had zero traffic, the day dawned with not a cloud in the sky, Rigby was small enough that we had no trouble getting around, and the lake we found was perfect and had just the right amount of people. We got my camera set up just in time, though that was a little stressful - the tripod I brought is not the best, it was hard to find the sun and focus it on full zoom, and we had to jerry-rig a solar filter for my lens by dismantling a pair of solar glasses*...it was just a little embarrassing to be next to all these pros with their high-tech equipment. But hey, we did it! 

The total eclipse itself was SUPER cool. I had seen a partial eclipse before, but I was surprised by how different it was between even 95% eclipsed and the totality. It got suddenly drastically darker, the temperature dropped 15 degrees, and the fish freaked out right beforehand (who knew?). It was otherworldly to look at the sun completely covered - the colors were all off, the corona was mesmerizing, and it felt awe-inspiring to stare wide-eyed at the sun with the naked eye. The 360 degree “sunset” was incredible and eerie, and even though it lasted 2 minutes 17 seconds it felt like it was over in 30 seconds. It was so overwhelming I forgot to even look for the stars, but people around me said you could see a few of them.

Everyone cheered and whooped and hollered, and it felt like a bonding experience - afterward, everyone started chatting excitedly with each other, looking at each other’s photos, trying to describe the experience and how they felt about it. Our neighbors consisted of a family from CA, a father-son duo from AZ, a couple from the Netherlands, a man from Germany, and a couple from the UK. So crazy that people from all over the world all converged on the same small town in Idaho for this unifying event. As a result, the traffic back was admittedly crazy, but was still better than I was afraid of. All in all, it was totally worth it!

*Thanks Krissie!