Photos

My once every few years login is about an event I planned from when I was a child during another eclipse, twenty-six years earlier.

In 1991 there was a total eclipse that year that crossed Mexico and was in National Geographic. Also in that article was future eclipses, including one on August 21, 2017, that would pass very close to where I then lived and still live. I decided then I would be at this eclipse.

Starting at the end of 2016 I started planning a trip a short 500 miles to St. Louis for the event. I originally planned to take a day trip to nearby Carbondale, IL, where peak eclipse was going to occur. As the day approached, the weather was looking hazy and even cloudy in Carbondale so I made a last minute decision to go to my secondary location, Columbia.

At first the sky was shrouded by a haze but slowly the haze cleared as the moon covered the sun. It was an eerie experience as the sky darkened and the birds confusedly started flying back to their nests and the cicadas, millions of cicadas, started buzzing.

As I watched the sky I blindly shot photos, hoping the sun wasn't moving out of frame and luckily, I got several photos of darkened sun. At the end of the day it was worth all those years of waiting for it and I'm already planning to be at another eclipse even closer to my home in 2024.