Through My Eyes: 05/20/2012

1. We went to church for the first 2 1/2 hours and then Mosey came and got me from Relief Society and the boys and I got in the car and got on the road!

2. The drive up to Lubbock was non-eventful. I didn't speed, didn't get pulled over, and didn't fall asleep at the wheel. All good things. :-) We listened to Huckleberry Finn and The Scorch Trials (2nd book in the Maze Runner trilogy), the boys ate nearly an entire huge box of goldfish crackers, and I nervously watched the clouds in the sky as we drove.

3. We made it up to Lubbock by 5:30, and found the Lubbock Lake Landmark where the Lubbock Astronomy Society was hosting an eclipse viewing party. The party officially started at 6:30, but I'm glad we got their early because shortly after we arrived, there developed a huge traffic jam of cars making their way up to the parking lot. I kept watching the western sky-- mostly cloudy at that point, getting more and more nervous. I called Ben and had him look at the weather radar for the area which updated every 15 minutes. We decided to buy the eclipse-viewing glasses and then head south to clearer skies. Well, the astronomy society ran out of eclipse glasses in about 3 minutes, and the organizers had to go back to their office and get more (poor planning anyone??), so Brigham waited in line for a LONG time-- at least an hour, but finally got us some glasses. Again, I was very glad we got there early, because the line was unbelievably long by the time they actually got the glasses there.
So, we finally got the glasses, got out of parking lot, stopped for gas, and headed south for Tahoka. The eclipse started as we were driving south, and the boys had a good view out of the side windows of the van. We got out of Lubbock and drove down into farm country, and, thankfully, out of the clouds. We turned off onto a small road heading out into the fields, turned off again onto a dirt road, and stopped to watch the eclipse. We were so glad we waited to get the glasses! There was no way to even begin to be able to see it with the naked eye-- way too bright. Way, way too bright even taking very brief glimpses with my sunglasses on. The eclipse glasses look like aluminum foil, and only let in the very brightest light. I took some pictures by putting the glasses up to my camera lens.
After a while, some wispy clouds moved over the sun, so we drive a few minutes further south on the dirt road until we had a clearer view, and watched the rest of the eclipse.
It was absolutely stunning. The boys were thrilled, and I was thrilled to see how thrilled they were!

4. The next thrilling thing was getting to stay in a hotel. Mosey especially LOVES hotels. I remember being excited about hotels, too (although I don't think my family ever actually stayed in a hotel-- motels were more our style). Ben got us a reservation for Hampton Inn, our favorite. Joseph won the contest over who got to sleep next to mom. :-)

Now for a whole lot of pictures.

Mosey, sporting the super-stylish eclipse glasses.

Brigham and Joseph thought the top of the van was a good viewing spot.

After we drove down the road a bit more, all the boys stood out in the field for the best view.

I started out taking pictures with the glasses over my camera lens. You can see how the glasses blocked out ALL the light except from the sun.

Here's where the clouds started moving over the sun, so we got back in the car and drove a few minutes south down the bumpy dirt roads to a better place.

Then I got the bright idea to cover up only half of my lens to get a perspective of the landscape.

At this point, enough of the sun was covered up that I could take the glasses off my camera lens-- you can see how much of the light had been blocked out by the glasses in the frames before this one. There were still some clouds, but look how dramatic the sun looks from behind them!

The ring of fire!

As the sun got lower and lower, it turned the deepest shade of crimson. My camera could not capture the color, but the boys, especially Brigham, were just captivated.