A Two Minute Thrill

 

It seemed to me that everyone I talked with was talking about the eclipse that would happen on August 21, 2017. Some friends were going to Wyoming, others to Oregon, and some to Nebraska. These were places for a full eclipse. I did not get excited until friends told me they were going to go watch the eclipse at Regis University.  I was not sure I wanted to go watch but on the morning of the 21st, as I ate breakfast, I decided to go see the eclipse. After all, I could pick up glasses, park without paying and watch the eclipse on the quad at Regis.

Luckily, when I arrived I found a perfect parking spot and joined about two hundred people in line for eclipse watching glasses. I was told that the glasses would be handed out at ten. I was given a sheet with information pertaining to an eclipse and what to expect. I looked at my watch and realized I would need to wait about forty-five minutes. Everyone in line was friendly and we told stories about our kids when they attended Regis, about different things we had heard about the eclipse, and animal behavior during an eclipse. What I gathered from the conversation was that animals act weird and not at all like they usually act. Someone mentioned that Regis had 1000 glasses to give out!

Once I had my glasses, I got a call letting me know where my friends were sitting. I joined them and had fun taking pictures, catching up on our lives, watching people and eating snacks. One friend made a paper plate and pin hole viewer that she could use, if she did not want to look up at the sun.
Then both friends went to another tent and made bracelets with each bead representing the solar system.

I had read in the information sheet that a partial eclipse funnels through tree leaves to project images of crescents on the ground. I saw the crescents and took a picture and then it was time! Everyone moved out of the shade and into the quad. We had been told how to put on our glasses, so we put them on and looked up. The sun was an orange ball with the moon in front of it making an orange crescent. In Colorado we only got a partial eclipse so the sun was not covered completely. It was neat to see but how long can you look up and see the same orange crescent in the sky above! I never noticed that it got darker or that it got cooler.  On the Internet I saw pictures that a friend had posted from Nebraska where they actually got a full eclipse and it most certainly looked darker, almost like right before it gets dark in the evening. I read where a total eclipse lasts about two minutes and forty seconds.

We folded up our glasses and our chairs and went to have lunch at La Cocinita. Before entering the restaurant we put on our glasses and looked at the sun one more time. We could see more of the orange sun as the moon moved away from it.

I suppose because it is not something we see every day, this was special. Yet, I expected something more. My question was, just like a song by Peggy Lee, Is That All There Is?

"Zeus, the father of Olympic Gods,

turned mid-day into night, hiding

the light of the dazzling sun, and

sore fear came upon men."

Archilochus, Greek Poet

(Today I spoke with a young lady at Costco and she told me she went to the zoo to see how the animals would act during the eclipse. I thought that was a neat idea, especially when she told me that the seals lined up and stood like grey statues. She said they all looked in the same direction and it appeared that they were looking at the eclipse. She said that most of the other animals were pretty normal. What a neat idea to visit the zoo on the day that we had 92% eclipse! We wondered if it had been a total eclipse if the animals would have behaved differently. I guess we will never know!)