Eclipse

Underwhelming.  That is the word I would use to describe our eclipse viewing.  We were at Son#1's home as I mentioned previously.  My Mom was ready to leave about an hour and half after they arrived and it was only 30 minutes until peak eclipse time.  They always leave early at every event. Which always puzzles me since she likes to get out and socialize as much as possible and that doesn't happen all that often for them anymore.  We did convince them to stay through the peak anyway.

My Granddaughter was very excited about the eclipse.  Mom evidently spent a good deal of time teaching them about it and they constructed an eclipse viewer out of a cardboard box and other materials.  I guess you could say her anticipation was palpable.  Was she ever disappointed.  She got this hang dog look after a few minutes and it persisted until we left.  I tried to find out what was bothering her and her words were 'I thought it would be cooler than this.'  Yeah, me too.  We had 61% coverage here and I thought it would be significant enough to see some light change at least.  It didn't turn out that way at all.  I am guessing it would have to be in the 80%+ range to see a significant difference.  I tried to console her about it and she wasn't having it.  We will have a near full eclipse here in 7 years.  That is an eternity to a child.  She told me she would be 16 by that time in that same manner she had on her face.  I still tried to cheer her up and told her she would be a sweet 16 then. 

There was a faint smile that lasted a couple seconds.  Hopefully her disappointment didn't last much longer after we left.

The half moon shapes of the shadows of light filtering through tree leaves also was harder to see.  In fact we couldn't see it at all without a piece of cardboard laid on the ground to help define it.  The shapes were getting lost in the grass.  

Yes, I was a bit disappointed too, but it was great to see how much time the network news spent on the eclipse.  Something other then all the doom and gloom news for a change.  That, at least was refreshing.  

Happy Trails