There Was an Eclipse Over My Backyard

Seven years ago this August, I wrote the following in my blog post about driving to Carbondale, Illinois, with my family to watch the 2017 eclipse:

I don't know what mood I'd be in if I didn't know that there's another total solar eclipse coming in seven years, but there is one coming, and I am buoyant. Better yet, Friends, my town is in the path of totality. 

Lemme just repeat that: MY TOWN IS IN THE PATH OF TOTALITY. MY HOUSE WILL SEE AN ECLIPSE!!!

You can come stay in a tent in my backyard, and I'll haul out the lounge chairs. The little kid, who will be graduating from high school the next month, will decorate us eclipse-themed doughnuts. The big kid, home from college for the weekend, will read and ignore us. And we'll have another powerful encounter that's beyond belief, in just seven years.

The little kid, one month from graduating high school, scored her homemade sourdough loaves with sun shapes for us. The big kid, home from college for the weekend, worked on her Environmental Science essay instead of a novel. All the out-of-town guests stayed in hotels instead of tents, but we did have the lounge chairs, sidewalk chalk, basketball and cornhole, and jump ropes out.

And my house, and all who stood on the driveway outside it, did see a total eclipse!

I played around with both my camera's phone and my Canon DSLR with this sun filter that I impulse-bought a couple of weeks prior. They both worked pretty well, but I was so worried about spending all my time fooling with photos instead of being in the moment that I didn't really use either to their full potential, and somehow, even with a sun filter and the sky going dark, I managed to over-expose every single photo.

Ah, well. The eclipse is happening somewhere in the middle of that white light and lens flare!

Here's the altar to Zeus we'd been working on all the previous week. Everyone in the family contributed nice things from their personal collections, and we lit the candle and incense daily while telling each other how much we appreciate the wonders of the universe and wouldn't it be nice to see the majesty of Zeus in an eclipse.

Trusting in the power of Zeus hadn't been enough to quell my fervent and rabid anxiety about the weather, however, and my regular eclipse anxiety dreams ratcheted up to a fever pitch during the full week of regular downpours we got prior to the eclipse. I dreamed the weather was overcast, I dreamed I got the day wrong, I dreamed it was raining and I couldn't go somewhere else because the car didn't work. One night I even dreamed that I saw the eclipse and then forgot what I'd seen the second it was over--I mean, what on earth?!?

One last downpour the night before the eclipse might have finished me off if I hadn't been distracted by the Trashion/Refashion Show, but thankfully, the day of the eclipse couldn't have been a more perfect day. Praise be to Zeus! 

I did miss, a little bit, the 2017 camaraderie of hanging out together in a parking lot, but spending a beautiful eclipse day in and out of our own house was objectively a lot more convenient. We had everything from Sun Chips and Cosmic Brownies to Oberon Eclipse beer on offer, and the yard toys got more love than they'd seen in the past five years or more. I even found the Spotify playlist I'd made for the 2017 eclipse and yep. It still rocks!

How magical to have one more beautiful day to play with yard toys and draw with chalk pastels with my daughters!

And imperceptibly, the sky darkened:

Did I get a sunburn right smack full on my face on this day?

Why, yes. Yes, I did.

My camera looks like it's set up to do a way better job than it did. Oh, well...

Proper exposure is for calmer people than I!

Just like seven years ago, our shadows became delightfully sharp as the light source grew smaller. You can't tell from the photo (SIGH!!!), but you can see every strand of the kid's hair in that shadow, and when she turned her eclipse glasses sideways, you could see the paper-thin shadow, deep black, of the cardboard frames.

At one point my college kid was reading the inside of the eclipse glasses and said to me, "You're looking away every three minutes, right?"

ME: "Um... Wut."

Because here is literally me for four entire hours:

Notice the cones at the bottom of my driveway to keep random people from pulling in and running us all over. Traffic wasn't crazy busy, but it was busy enough!

My kid literally had to Google it right then and be all, "Okay, our glasses are certified so you don't *really* have to look away every three minutes, but I think you should anyway." It's been a week, though, and I don't seem to have a blind spot in the center of my vision (...yet), so I think I'm good!

Look at the light around 3:00!

Check out the lens flare at 4:00 to see what the eclipse ACTUALLY looked like, grr. Even upside-down, the lens flare did a better job of photographing my eclipse than I did!

Here's the light at 3:04, including the neighbor's automatic outdoor lights. Check out that horizon!

And here's what we're all looking at!

It wasn't quite the same experience as in 2017. In 2017, when the Moon eclipsed the Sun, I was SHOCKED. I don't think anything can prepare you for that visceral feeling the first time you see a total eclipse. This time wasn't *as* shocking--although I think it always will be somewhat shocking, because the human mind, at least MY human mind, can barely comprehend it--but it was still beyond anything I've ever seen, wondrous and awe-inspiring, and beholding it remains, again, one of the best moments of my life. 

And again, just like in 2017 although it was nearly twice as long, it was over far too soon:

The waning of the eclipse was a great time to fool around with various pinhole projectors and lenses and my colander:

I was a little disappointed that the chickens hadn't seemed to react at all--they always put themselves into their coop at night, and I'd been looking forward to seeing them march themselves inside when the light reached some threshold known only to them--but I think the whole thing just happened too fast. 

The shadows were still predictably delightful, however:

Luna didn't do anything weird, either, but she also hadn't during the 2017 eclipse. She just hung out with us and wore her eclipse glasses like a good citizen scientist:

I watched through my own glasses (still not taking a break every three minutes, oops) until the Moon had completely finished its transit and every speck of the Sun was back in place, and then I made myself an enormous sandwich, tossed it, the rest of a bag of Sun Chips, a Cosmic Brownie, and an Oberon Eclipse beer into a bag, grabbed the rolly suitcase that I hadn't unpacked yet, hollered for the college kid, and by 5:00 we were in bumper-to-bumper--smooth but bumper-to-bumper!--traffic back to her college, where she had a science lab the next day that mustn't be missed. 

Squeezing in four more hours of kid-time, listening to Gastropod episodes and debating the deliciousness of every fruit we've ever tried, was the BEST way to continue this perfect day, and the ending was also the best possible ending: me in my jammies in a hotel room, face massively sunburned, noshing a giant sandwich (on homemade sourdough bread, no less), chips, brownie, and beer, casually starting the first chapter of a fantasy novel I'd been eager to try, and you'll never guess what I found on the hotel TV:

And just like that we circle back around to my Titanic Special Interest right in time for its 112th anniversary!

And don't worry, because now that the eclipse is over, my anxiety dreams have made a smooth transition to the next big thing on my list. Last night, I dreamed that I was traveling with my kid and lost her and couldn't find her and she was in danger. Sending her off to college is going to be SO FUN FOR ME!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Before the Greatest Moment of My Life, I Spent 24 Hours in Columbus, Ohio

You know, as you do!

My kid goes to college in Ohio, not in the path of totality, but I figured that if I picked her up from college on the Friday before the eclipse, and hustled her back home as soon as the Moon had finished its transit of the Sun, she'd only have to miss one day of classes AND she could experience the greatest moment of my life with me.

And as a bonus, she could watch her sister walk the runway in our town's Trashion/Refashion Show, which was ALSO that weekend!

And as another bonus, she and I could go to the live show of our favorite podcast, Welcome to Night Vale, which was performing in Columbus also ALSO that weekend!

So that's what I did!

Around here, people are already joking about how overblown our city's crowd predictions for the eclipse were, as if the city council was just being dramatic because we didn't end up quintupling our population that day, after all. But let me tell you that I drove from here to Columbus, Ohio, and back TWICE that long weekend, and traffic was no fun. There were speed traps every few miles for the entire trip, and although the traffic was moving pretty well, the highways were soooo crowded and it was exhausting to have to constantly be on high alert. Like, just let me put my cruise control on for a few minutes, ugh!

I was SO happy to grab the kid, check into our hotel, and veg out for a couple of hours... while watching the eclipse countdown on cable news, of course!

And then off to our favorite show!

Afterwards, it had been my ultimate dream to go to the Sonic two minutes from our hotel and buy their super weird and disgusting-sounding eclipse slushie float, but Sonic saved me from myself by having a drive-through employee who was all, "Welcome to Sonic. Hold a minute, please," and then... just never came back to take my order? The kid and I waited a couple of minutes, then I thought I'd maybe swing around and take another run at it, and I pulled back up to the drive-through line just as another car was entering and I could hear the employee say over the speaker, "Welcome to Sonic. Hold a minute, please." And then... he never came back. 

We waited another couple of minutes before the kid could convince me to bail and drive over to a different fast food place, also a couple of minutes from our hotel. I hotly protested because I've never been to a Raising Cane's before and therefore have not pored over the menu to decide what I want and practice my order, but fortunately the kid's reassurances that the menu is so easy even I could figure it out while in the drive-through line held true. Now that I am old, I REALLY love a simple drive-through menu!

I also REALLY love a hot hotel breakfast! This one had mini omelets and sausage patties, which are all excellent with toast for making your own breakfast sandwich. One of my favorite things in life is a breakfast that's already included so you don't have to think about it.

In related news, I swear that I find the best things on TikTok. A couple of days before this trip, I'd seen a TikTok about things to do in Columbus that weekend, and in it was news about this fairly new Titanic artifacts exhibit at the COSI.

I mean, we're already going to be there, and it *is* one of my Special Interests, and it *is* almost the anniversary of its sinking...

Here we go!

Is this the most expensive LEGO set? It is $680!!! It would have been cool to be the curator responsible for assembling it for display, though...

When you enter the exhibit, you're given a boarding pass for a real passenger on the Titanic. The kid got to be someone fancy!

I, however, don't like my own particular odds nearly as much...

The exhibit is produced in part by RMS Titanic, Inc., the only company that's allowed to retrieve artifacts from the Titanic site. Recovering the artifacts allows them to be preserved, and the company also works with other organizations to do scientific and historical research at the site. They also produce several exhibits of Titanic artifacts around the country.

Crow's Nest bell

The best part was when they'd put an artifact next to a photo of it before it was recovered:

They recovered so many of these that I think there's a set in every one of their simultaneous artifact exhibitions:

I would be very interested in putting together THIS as a LEGO model--it's the Titanic as it was discovered on the ocean floor:

This is a porthole with a solid bronze frame. Imagine the pressure it would take to warp it like this!

Okay, this is the coolest part: it's a hands-on exhibit where you can touch a real piece from the Titanic!

In related news, thank goodness for this one shot of me, because all the other dozen the kid took of me TOUCHING THE TITANIC are... unflattering, ahem. I have a bad habit of wearing an exceptionally gormless, open-mouthed expression when I am beside myself with delight, and am, for that reason, considering making a sticker for my phone that contains one of two phrases: either "Close Your Mouth" or "Fix Your Face." You can see how either of these phrases would be endlessly useful in a wide variety of circumstances!

Mouth closed, face more or less fixed, and TOUCHING THE TITANIC!

Please also note that in the photo above I am representing in my Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Titanic merch.

I found where I live!

The exhibit actually had a LOT of paper artifacts--these luggage tags, several currencies of paper money, playing cards, etc.--and I never did learn how they hadn't dissolved in the water:

The occasional recreation was peppered among the artifacts, and I was SO INTO IT:

Found the doorknob to my cabin door!

Okay, y'all: I am so in love with the third-class dishes! I found out that the Titanic Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, actually sells recreations, so that's now on my holiday wish list...

More paper artifacts--how did these survive?!?

Here's a glimpse of the kid's fancy first-class cabin:

I'm also a really big fan of my third-class floor tile. We DO have a couple more rooms in the house that need new flooring...

Here's MY room! I also want that blanket...

Okay, this is horrifying: did you know that something like 1/5 of Titanic's boiler room crew were CHILDREN?!? Look at those little faces!

Lol that they had an iceberg--with some kind of condenser involved because that is real ice!--that you could take your photo with:

Mouth not closed. Face not fixed. Oh, well!

This is one of the lifeboat hoists:

And this is also really cool: they projected the footprint of the lifeboat onto the floor so you could see how you fit into it:

Closest my third-class self will ever get to a lifeboat!

Of course this kid is examining the lifeboat like they're old friends. Lucky first-classer!

They had some portraits of people they KNEW we'd know from the Titanic movie, of course:

ANOTHER PAPER ARTIFACT!!!

Okay, moment of truth! Do I live or do I die?

Poor Johannes...

Now it's the kid's turn:

I love that she devoted the rest of her life to charity. What a beautiful response to tragedy.

I was also surprised to see clothing on exhibit. How did THIS also survive?!?

Look at that beautiful visible mending. I didn't even realize you could hand-sew that stitch!

Afterwards in the gift shop, my mean kid would not let me buy a tiny Titanic and iceberg in a floaty thing OR a Titanic and iceberg ice cube tray. To be fair, they both *are* on Amazon at nearly half the price, so it was a good save on her part, but still. I have longed for that floaty Titanic thing every day since.

Since we were already at COSI and who knew if we'd ever come again, we decided to quickly swing through a couple more exhibits before we hit the road. This Oceans exhibit was actually an amusing interactive water play area that we enjoyed just as much as the toddlers we were playing alongside:

And this Dinosaurs gallery features artifacts from the American Museum of Natural History!

Here are a couple of Apatosaurus vertebrae:

These are Ornithopod tracks on sandstone:

You had to check out the labels very closely to see what was a cast and what was real. I feel like I'm the only person annoyed by that! I strongly believe that casts should be a non-realistic color:

I love a good Dinosaur As Bird model!

I also don't usually see amber on display, so I was VERY stoked about this:

And then just when we thought we were about to leave... we found an augmented reality sandbox. We must now sculpt all of the landforms!

I am still distraught that I didn't come home with this Layers of the Earth candle--every layer is a different color and scent!--but the kid managed to wrestle it out of my hands, and good thing, too, because it was FIFTY DOLLARS. For something I WILL LITERALLY BURN AWAY.

Also this Sun stuffie at FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS JUST NO:

Sigh...

After a lovely morning spent at the museum, the kid and I were hoofing it back to the car when suddenly she announced, "I am STARVING!" I said, "OMG me, TOO! Let's grab lunch before we head home." I pulled out my phone to see what Dr. Google Maps recommended for lunch nearby, but then when I looked at it I was all, "Oh, NO!!!" We had accidentally spent five hours at a children's hands-on science museum! I'd thought it had been maybe... half that? Maaaaybe three hours, tops? I think we must have been in some kind of fugue state to not notice all that time passing! 

So that was ixnay on a sit-down lunch, and full steam ahead on a gas station lunch so we could get back into the stream of traffic headed towards the path of totality. It was an absolute slog of a drive, but the kid was back in time to surprise Luna before dinner!!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!