When the moon comes over the mountain.....

August – 21      ECLIPSE DAY!

T-shirt Man was proud of his new one

I managed to get breakfast over and strip the bed and re-make it and get a load of laundry going before heading out to “watch” the eclipse.  The rest of the cleaning waited until after lunch.

Wow!  What an experience!  We sat our chairs up facing the sun around 10:00 and brought out our books, solar glasses, beverages, and the camera with its new solar filter.  Bill wore his new eclipse 2017 t-shirt that we eventually had to cover with jackets.  The temperature dropped about 20 degrees; although it didn’t get dark it was more like twilight.  We periodically came inside to get things or put the clothes in the dryer but basically we sat there for the full eclipse and it was amazing.  Using the solar glasses made the sun look like the moon in a dark sky; so brilliant yellow-orange and sharp edges.  Initially I didn’t manage to photograph the sun very well as after 

reading tons of information on camera settings online and in my camera book, my camera still was ticky on the specific settings so as I continued to adjust and try out things I managed to get what I felt were some pretty good photos.  Of all the times I could have used one of my TWO tripods, this would

have been it.  Shooting at such a distance the camera needs to be REALLY still.  It’s a good thing it wasn’t film, as I shot about 200 photos in 2 hours and deleted most of them.  I kept pushing the button before I was ready.  At one point it looked like the sun had teeth.  Not sure how I did that!  We were at almost 99% totality and that was fine with us.  Neighbors drove south for an hour around 6 this morning and then this afternoon it took over 5 hours to drive back.  All for 1% more, not Kelly and Bill Chambers! 

Our friends called and asked if Bill would walk the dogs and he happily agreed to.  So once it was over he took Bailey, Cinnamon and Pepper out for a walk and then stayed inside with them a while and did a few rounds of petting.  They are all rescue dogs and due to medical issues they would like to find a home Bailey, the Golden Retriever.  The other dogs are small but Bailey is a handful.

Then the rest of the day was pretty much like every week’s first day after work.  With the traffic and crowding unknown, we decided to eat in tonight and out tomorrow so I took an assortment of meats out to thaw for Bill to grill.  He did up all the dishes from breakfast and lunch and vacuumed his part while I finished up my stuff and then I settled in at the computer to review and discard all the photos.  Kam said she would make a slide show of some of my photos to post on the blog so I sent a bunch for her in sequence to work with.  

Dinner was very tasty tonight.  Bill had hot links and I had a pork chop and we each had an ear of corn and cole slaw.  The corn has been so good out here.  I’m not sure how much is grown here but for.33 an ear and sweet, juicy and tender, I buy it every week.  The cantaloupes have also been very sweet without ending up soft.

With clean up over, Bill watched a movie while I typed and he has settled down with his book, so now it’s my turn.