I expected there to be lots of traffic and lots of people. There were..but not near the amount I thought there would be. Maybe because it was boondocks Nebraska? I don't know. We even saw a school in session on Eclipse Day! Why? Best education ever is to see totality.
Anyway. Eclipse day comes and we start watching the skies. The morning looked good-not too many clouds. So we played some Monopoly and waited for the countdown.
One hour until first contact- the clouds started rolling in. No way were we going to drive 10+ hours to miss this amazing event. So we packed up all our camping stuff rather hurriedly and started chasing blue skies. Thankfully, in Nebraska there are a lot of dirt roads and lots of places to pull over too. So off we went.
We found a patch of blue sky and pulled over just in time to see first contact. I had a cool app on my phone that we could check if we were in the totality range and then it announced when to look for certain events and what was coming next. We set up our chairs and got out our snacks and watched as the moon started coming in front of the sun. Such a weird sight to see the sun start to shrink.
Then the clouds started rolling in again. So we threw everything in the truck and started chasing blue skies again. As my phone announced "15 minutes until totality" we prayed we would find blue skies before totality hit. Up ahead the sky started to clear and we pulled over in the middle of a dirt road surrounded by corn fields and hay bales.
The anticipation for totality was mounting. What were we about to see?
As it started to get darker and noticeably cooler, I could tell something remarkable was about to happen.
Birds suddenly got quiet.
Shadows were extremely short for the middle of the day.
There was a hush that fell over everything.
Then totality.
Glasses came off and my eyes got to see the moon blocking the sun.
How to describe it is very difficult. The only way I can think to describe it is that it felt like we stepped through a mirror into another dimension. Darkness in the middle of the day. Looking at a huge hole in the sky with long streaks of corona shooting outward. Frogs started croaking in the middle of the day. Time seemed to slow down. My mind could scarcely take in what I was experiencing. 2 minutes and 39 seconds. And then it was gone. Everything slowly started returning to normal.
What a remarkable thing to experience! It was surreal.
It was spiritual. Will this be even a glimpse of what it will be like to enter Heaven? Will the Lord in all His Majesty and Beauty have to be eclipsed so that I can look upon Him?
It was unlike anything I've ever seen before and I can not wait to see another one.
