Russellville, KY: August 21, 2017 - Totality

This was by far the coolest thing I have ever seen.

So I took a trip to see the eclipse back on August 21st because I had heard that seeing totality was an all-or-nothing kind of thing, and the 97% of Louisvlle just wouldn't cut it.  So I set off that morning for Russellville, a smallish town about halfway between Bowling Green and Hopkinsville (which was supposedly dead center for the path of totality).  My original plan was to go to Bowling Green, but it was just on the edge of the path, and I didn't want to chance it.  Also, Russellville was small and unknown enough that I figured the crowd would be more manageable.

Took a friend, James, with me - Cullyn was gonna join us too but he had claaa-aassssss

Headed out about 10:00 AM anticipating traffic but made it there right around noon, with totality scheduled to happen at I believe 1:26.  With plenty of time to kill, we found a pizza place just off the main square to grab lunch.

Got our food and finished assembling the cereal box viewer, as neither of us had managed to acquire eclipse glasses in the several weeks prior.  We ran outside a couple times to test it out and saw that even with an hour and a half to go, the sun was already in a pronounced crescent shape.

A couple near us in the restaurant overheard us and asked if we needed a pair of glasses.  We said yes, and they handed us their extra pair!  "It came in a pack of five," they explained, "and we only needed four."  What serendipity!

With lunch done, there wasn't much else to do than join the townsfolk at the square about a block away.

It was a neat little town square, too, in and of itself; it could be a place I'd have traveled to anyway on one of my mini-excursions.

As the time grew closer, we had great fun experimenting with the partial-light conditions:

Then James and I staked out a spot on a street corner, just across the street from the crowd and the trees:

Some people had a slightly better spot:

And I even spotted a drone takin it all in:

Soon, the sky began to dim like evening, and we could hear crickets.  The streetlamps even came on!

And we got that 360° sunset that all the meteorologists talk about.

And then, at last, the main event:

The cheers and applause were sort of spontaneous, I don't think anyone really knew how they would react when it hit.  But it was insane.  If you weren't in totality but watched the news coverage, you probably saw and heard reactions from people all across the US; it stuns you, it takes your breath away, even if you're jaded and think you've seen it all, you ain't seen anything this cool.

I was actually trembling as we made our way back to my car once the moon had passed by, I was that taken aback by it.  And I know it's cliche to say it, but something like this really brings people together, in a way that nothing else could.  All of our problems, all of our squabbles, all of our middling day-to-day concerns - they all drop away when something happens on the planetary scale.  Something so indelibly bigger than us.  Kind of puts you in your place, in a positive way.

Fought the ungodly traffic on the way back, but it was worth it to witness this quite literally unearthly event.