What an Awesome Eclipse and journey intercepting the shadow this go round...
My daughter and I decided on Benton IL 394 miles dew south of my place in WI and calculated a 5.5
We made super time and about half the way down amber alert signs were reading out warnings for backups and delays due to todays solar eclipse and such, even stating pulling over on IL state highways was not allowed during the eclipse...
At this point were surrounded by Not a Thing and Nothing But hardly a car on the road even and we are at this point chuckling when she then says "Dad I think the eclipse is starting", all our lacadazical father daughter stopping for breakfast too long just had me realizing we are running Late !!!!
So what else to do right there and then but get out those eclipse glasses open the sun roof and recline the seat, so cool an experience this was at 75mph we took turns one another and split the hurried excellerations and solar observations between us till we jammed our breaks and pulled into our crowded total solar eclipsers observational side of the road designated rest stop eclipse hub and with 1/4 of partial remaining when we were called out too straight away inviting us further into the crowd to more open areas with clearer views and conversing with us as if we all knew each other very well previous,
Folks from Illinois are Awesome...
So in just enough time too to share our little scope with a 71 year birthday girl and her husband as just then the skies began to darken and the wind picked up some debres and dust along the highway blew about and I quick took a snap and slipped the camera back into my pocket just Totally enjoying the moments all 4 of them forgive the pun.
While comments continued swirling in the crowd about the awesome corona and with little upper level cloud to hamper the view details were super sharp,
Then the diamond ring and every one cheering and my daughter asking if I had seen the little prom bumping out of the ring, so cool that observation we were so lucky to have it together indeed rite there and then.
I was also able to document a 9 degree change in temps from boots on the ground to totality and because of being in the wide open spaces of southern IL we were all able to actually watch the shadow arrive and leave getting smaller in the distance as it traveled northeastward with the brightening overhead so cool to witness.
We then hung out long enough to watch the reversal complete and then decided to picnic at Ramsey state park with a pair of binos from the glovebox and a hobble about, turns out there is a nice elevated senic overlook wich for my limited mobility gives an advantage of sorts to take some photos, but first to get there we had to drive back through the Restricted Area of the Vandalia Corrections Center and the traffic backups we had joked of earlier had us stuck in traffic with state police around the prison parked along the roads and ussuring traffic with seriousness...
The park was a welcome sight after all that and even after spending an hour and a half there we still experienced backups at the two interchanges that divert traffic to Chicago while making our way back to Wisconsin.
It was a blast, the best one ever...
The images are of the total eclipse though I did not get the exposure right but the lens flare indeed shows the ring of fire, the others are from the senic overlook at Ramsey Lake and those good folks way down there fishing are indeed real people dressed in clothing from another time.
