The Big Fizzle...

Monday, August 21st, was a momentous day...or supposed to be. It was for many. Not so much for Claude and me.

Monday morning I hurried in to Georgetown to purchase groceries for Papa and then clean in his apartment. I wanted to be home in time to watch the Solar Eclipse that was to pass over Kentucky. 

I had been telling Papa each day for the past week that it was coming. This was followed by a warning not to go out and look up at the sun when he felt the sky darken during the afternoon and wondered what it is. Since he has the memory of a gnat, I was hoping that a week worth of repetition would help with that. As I left got ready to leave Papa's that day, he said, "You know there is a Solar Eclipse coming, I will just go outside and look at it!!! Oh My Heck!!! I found the two channels that would be best for Papa to watch on his television and made sure he was on one of those with the other on recall on his remote. Then I posted a large yellow sign on his front door and his back door to "NOT LOOK AT THE SUN". Then I left him to meet Claude at our home to experience the Solar Eclipse.

My bad...I did not purchase the glasses. All along I felt I would watch it on television at home. We put a white sheet on the driveway and proceeded to watch television in the living room as the Solar Eclipse went over Oregon and across to some National Park in the west. Then it came closer to Kentucky and the news shifted to Hopkinsville, Kentucky where the eclipse would pass directly overhead and last the longest. It was amazing to watch the sky get dark all around the people. Cameras trained on the sun showed the moon passing in front of the sun and blocking it out and then moving away. They talked about the air getting 10 degrees cooler. The animals thinking it was night and getting quiet. The Lexington news station even had a pen of roosters because the story goes that they will crow when the sun comes back out. I do not think that happened but you have to bless their hearts for giving that extra effort for us viewers in case they did. 

Now it should be coming closer to Sadieville. I would go on the deck and take video of the same stretch of ground in our back yard. Then I would go to the front porch and take video of the same stretch of ground, all this was a hope to watch shadows change and the sky darken. Between I was checking the television to see what they were showing with cameras trained on the sun in Lexington. One time on the front porch Claude said, "Do you hear that?" Nope, don't hear anything. That was what he was trying to tell me. All the birds around us in Sadieville were absolutely silent. That was when the eclipse was right over Sadieville. However, our sky was not darkening at all. I have video to prove it. I have video of what it was doing on the television as the people all over Lexington were watching it with their glasses. But, nothing in Sadieville. It got a lot cooler for a bit, the television was saying it was over us, but no change in the light going to dark, no movement of shadows on the white sheet or the plants in the front and the back as I videoed them. Nothing people, absolutely nothing. 

Lesson learned. Buy the glasses. Geez!! 

This is one of my favorite pictures of the Solar Eclipse taken in Salt Lake City, Utah over the Salt Lake City Temple.

And this is another that I really like. It was taken in Logan, Utah looking over the Logan Temple. This is neat to me because Claude and I were married in this temple 47 years ago. 

So, Claude and I both felt the Solar Eclipse was a big fizzle for us. Other were have epiphanies all over the land. We were not. My suggestion is to buy the silly glasses. I bet it would have been something more had we looked at it directly.

On a side note...Papa fell asleep watching the television and missed the entire thing.