Eclipse Monday

The eclipse was amazing.  Here we go...

We were going to try to leave at 8:30am because it was a half hour drive and the farm opened at 9am.  Packing up the car was a bit of a pain.  Joshua decided that he didn't need to help and by telling him where is sweatshirt was that was basically giving him permission to play outside.  So we were both a bit grumpy, but to his credit he did come back inside and pack up his stuff.

We left very close to 8:30am.  There were all sorts of news articles and signs saying, "leave early to get to your viewing location" so I thought we should get there at opening.  I needn't have worried.  We got to the farm at 9am and seemed to be the second group there.  The roads were not busy.  When 10am rolled around the farm was still not busy.  11am - well, there were a few more people.  It really didn't get busy until about noon.  Thank goodness we got there early.  (At the same time though, we had run of the farm for the first two hours and didn't need to wait in lines or anything like that.)  

Ok, we got there and the first thing the kids wanted to do was the zip lines.  We got distracted by the bell and getting a photo first though.

The kids finally got to the zip line and it was amazing.  There were four lines of all different speeds and heights.  I went on all of them throughout the day: one was too short and I touched the ground in the middle.  One was too fast and I didn't appreciate going parrallel to the ground and crashing back onto the seat. (This is the one most of the kids loved.)  One was a little too fast.  One was just right.  All the adults went on them at the same time.

After several runs, they moved over to the, um, running pipes.  Isaac almost pushed his off the track while getting it reset the first time.  This activity was good and they returned to it a few times, but was not as fun as the ziplines.  Ben fell out the one time he did it with Joshua.  I have a nice series of photos showing them slowly getting out of control, but I'm not going to post all of them.

Then on to the pedal carts.  This was ok for a lap or two and then everyone was done.  They weren't super easy to pedal, like most pedal cars, but it was a fun thing to do once.

Then the kids went to the jumping pillows.  They stayed on them for quite a while and thoroughly enjoyed them, but both got a little hurt after a while and were done.  They had no interest in going back later in the day.  While they were doing that, I got myself a donut.  I had missed the ones in the morning because I was loading up the car and just wanted one.  

Then we went back to the car for a break.  From there on, people would come and go.  Joshua was the mostly likely to go back in to the activities.  Ben, Nathan, and Isaac all stayed pretty close to the car; they all had good books and it showed.

Everyone was ready for lunch by the time it rolled around.  I had happened to throw in a container of Oreos that I picked up at the store a while ago.  They were Cosmic themed, which matched well with our activity of the day.  However, not everyone enjoyed the pop rocks in them.

We still had a bit of time before the eclipse started, so the kids all tried their strength.  They needed three people to lift the bag.  (I was able to do it all by myself though!)

Finally, the eclipse started.  I had an app on my phone to help us with the exact timing along with cues at other things to look at.  However, the second it started (C1) was really not all that eventful.  We all watched it, thought we maybe saw something, and then continued life.  For many people that meant reading their book and for some people it meant playing a game or hanging out.  

Periodically we'd put our glasses on, look through the pinhole box, or use a colander.  

The colander didn't work well until Ben realized we needed to hold it further away from the ground; then it was really cool.

We also looked for the parallel fuzzy/not-fuzzy lines.  We saw them, but they weren't as pronounced as I was expecting.

As the total eclipse neared, you could tell that everything was getting darker, like evening time.  There weren't many animals or animal sounds around.  Only a horse.  At one point we said, "Oh!  The horse went in the barn because it thinks it's almost night time!"  But then 5 minutes later the horse was back out so it obviously wasn't a good indicator.  There were also a few wispy clouds that came in during the eclipse.  You could see through them and they did disappear during the eclipse itself (as predicted).  A planet (or bright star) was also visible, but I'm not sure what it was.

We also looked for shadow snakes (both before and after the eclipse) and we couldn't see them.  I had a white sheet, but it wasn't pure white and it was a bit wrinkly.  I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it or not.  The temperature was cooling off.

Finally, it was total eclipse time.  IT WAS AMAZING!!  How do you know it's safe to take off your glasses?  You suddenly can't see anything through them (and the app told us).  The difference between 99% and 100% really was unreal.  Things were so much darker.  You could actually look at the sun.  Even at 99% there was a bright part that made you realize looking at it was not a good idea.  Because the moon was in front, you could see the atmosphere of the sun and so it looked a ton bigger.  Everyone's energy was sky high.  We looked at all the reds and greens around us and they didn't really look odd.  Maybe they just looked as expected in the twilight, but nothing amazing there.  Someone said it looked a bit like a black hole.  The horizon looked like a sunset, but without the sun.

How did you know it was time to put your glasses back on?  (The app told you) and there was a really bright spot peaking back out.  The temperature and lightness returned back to normal within about fifteen minutes.  People started packing up right away, but the kids wanted to go back to the ziplines.

We did stay around for the rest of the eclipse, hitting C4, but got in the car right after that.  So Ben and I estimated that travel back added about 45 minutes.  There were a few detours.  There was some construction + crash just north of Fort Wayne that added the most time.  It was definitely busy...I69 was much busier and I131 was busier than normal.  We stopped at a Culvers for dinner and I'm pretty sure that every eatery was slammed.  Once we got on M6 we thought that traffic might be back to normal, although it wasn't light either.  

All in all, an amazing time.