Almost Total 2024

Last week Margaret (Peggy or Peg too) of Straight Up - No Chaser wrote about how she was not going to be participating in today's eclipse viewing. I commented, saying:

I saw the one that passed just over our area in 2017. We volunteered for a viewing event at a local retreat center, which was a lot of fun, but one totality was enough for me.

The eclipse totality was just a couple of hours south of us. In St. Louis it was 99 percent. For the past week every media outlet has had stories about the event. Over the weekend it seemed like every other post on my Buy Nothing group was a request for eclipse glasses. I ignored the stories and scrolled by the requests.

This morning Hubby Tony said he was going to buy a pair of eclipse glasses and asked if I wanted some. I work on Monday, but decided to have him get me a pair. They were only a dollar, and that way if everyone else in the parish office was going outside to see the eclipse I could be sociable and join them.

In anticipation of my Monday night meal I spent some time thinking about how I could come up with a themed dinner. I even went to the grocery store to see if I could find a good inspiration ingredient but came away empty handed. 

That turned out to be a good thing, because mid-morning I got a text from the pastor. He had decided to drive down to the totality zone and would not be there for dinner. The associate priest said he would fend for himself. Just like that I had a free day.

Tony and I talked about what that meant. The McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park (a 20-minute drive east of the house) was offering activities, so we decided to head there after our class at the gym. However, just before it was time to leave for the gym I ended up smacking my toe into the bed frame. I quickly determined it wasn't broken, but it was painful to walk.

On the drive to and from the gym and again on the way to the park we heard stories on the radio of gridlocked highways and roads on the way south to totality. One man said a normal half hour drive had taken him three hours, and we were thankful we weren't in the mess. We stopped at Comet Coffee for a cup (an appropriate store name for spending time looking at the sky, don't you think?), then drove to the park and followed the signs to the Planetarium.

There were quite a few cars already parked along the street, and I didn't want to walk far, so we modified our plans and found a spot on the grass to spread our towel. The eclipse was in its initial stage. I ate the apple I had brought (a Cosmic Crisp), then placed the eclipse glasses over my regular glasses and laid on the ground to watch the moon cover more and more of the sun. It was very peaceful. By the time the skies darkened and we saw 99 percent totality there were quite a few groups doing the same thing as us.

After the moon started to move away from the sun Tony and I decided to leave. It turned out to be not too far to the Planetarium so I limped there to use the bathroom. They were live streaming totality from different places. We watched the event from Cleveland and Niagara Falls before heading home.