Eclipse 2017

Wow is all I can say, this is my first time seeing a total Eclipse and I will have to say it was quite an amazing experience.  I heard talk that before hand that it can be quite emotional and I didn't quite understand what they meant by that, but after seeing it, I understand.  It is an experience like no other. Yes I will admit tears did come to my eyes, God is just Awesome in all his creation!!

Since we didn't have any filters for our camera's to catch the whole eclipse the only pictures I could take was while we were in Total Eclipse, so I will also share the day :)

By the time we got there, which was really surprising to use it only took about 15 minutes longer than it should, we both had to use the Toilet, so off we went searching, now can I just say that it was HOT!!! 80's when we got there but the humidity was so thick that it was like soup out there. It reached into the 90's. We were drenched by the time we found them.  We headed back to our car to get our chairs, camera, cooler to have lunch before the eclipse. We headed for any tree that had shade, well everyone had already taken all the mowed areas so we were in the almost knee high grass, but I didn't care as long as we were in shade.

Look what I saw fluttering around.

Here he opened his wings wide for me

We were very nervous because there were some clouds that started rolling in after the eclipse had started, I took this picture as you could see the rays peeking out from around the clouds going over head.

The biggest group of people were to our left, were the pavilions are and the outhouses.

To our right

In front of us

Now for the total eclipse, of course my camera just can't do it justice but this is what I got, do you see that bright spot to the left of the sun, that is Regulus I believe they said, my camera didn't capture any of the stars.

I won't bore you with anymore shots but this one was my last shot, my hubby yelled at me to quit taking pictures after this one since the sun was starting to peek out again and I could ruin my camera, but it is cool seeing the sun come out again. We were in totality 2 minutes and 37 seconds but the time just went by so quickly to see everything and capture it all.

We were glad we went to Fort De Chartres to view the eclipse, there were people all around and I didn't take their picture but we had an older couple that shared the shade of the tree with us that were from Wisconsin, so we shared the experience with everyone, so neat to hear the oohhhs and awwws of everyone around and all the excitement leading up to it, but it wasn't so over crowded as other spots were.  This was our first time there but we will be going back on a cooler day to view the whole Fort area.

Because of the clouds all around us there was a lovely sunset going on also but I didn't get my settings correct to get a good picture because I had my camera set to take a picture of the eclipse.  The evening songs of the birds came out just before the total eclipse and the bugs became a bit louder.  We also saw waves of light on our chairs, as my husband describes it looked like light glistening on water. Just amazing.  We are already looking forward to our next eclipse in 2024 we will once again be very close to total eclipse so we will be doing that again. It's in April, looking forward to it be a little cooler than yesterday was :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie