Back Home Again

I have just returned from a very quick and eventful trip home to see my parents in Indiana.  And the timing was ideal.  Eclipses can be predicted many years in the future, and so I planned my trip to coincide with the total solar eclipse which encompassed much of the state on Monday.  Appearances of basketball teams in the national championship game can only be predicted about a week in advance, so I got lucky on that one.  (Purdue played UConn in the national championship game on Monday night.  The game was in Phoenix, but being in Indiana surrounded by Purdue fans to watch it was the next best thing.) 

I packed a lot into a very short time, and it was a wonderful visit.  My sister Shannon and nephew Jack landed at O'Hare about the same time as I did, and we took an Uber to our aunt's house.  There we watched the semi-final game between Purdue and NC State and stayed the night afterwards.  The four of us drove to my parents farm the next morning and met my other sister Katie and brother Matt there for a little family reunion.  We prepared for the eclipse by printing t-shirts (as one does) and getting all of our viewing and photography gear together.  We also (inadvertently) prepared by eating mostly round foods:  pizza, chocolate chip cookies, donuts, cheeseburgers.  (I wonder how much of my typical diet consists of round foods....)

The eclipse itself was eerie and beautiful and so very worth it.  I have never seen anything like it, really.  We set up seating outdoors on the farm, complete with eclipse glasses, filters for our cell phones, cameras, and binoculars, and snacks.  The weather was spectacular--75 degrees and bright sun, with a few wispy clouds.  We were able to get very good views of the sun as the eclipse began, using the glasses and filtered binoculars.  At totality, we took off the glasses and looked up at a dark disk in the sky encircled with bright flares in different colors.  The temperature dropped, crickets and birds started up, and a we were engulfed in an eerie twilight-like ambiance.  Despite our preparations, our photos of the sun, both partially and totally eclipsed, were not particularly good.  But, of course, I need to include one, in addition to some other images from the weekend.  Below you will see a photo of the farm with a strange quality of light during the total eclipse, the crescent-shaped projections from a colander with round holes during the partial phase, Katie's chocolate chip cookies, goodies we received upon checking into our nearby hotel (in Boone County), and one of the t-shirts we printed on Mom's press from a linoblock designed and carved by Shannon.  

Alas, Purdue lost the national championship game to UConn.  A Purdue win would have been the icing on the cake (another round food), but it was still a memorable weekend.  And, despite the fact that we did not drive back up to O'Hare until the next day, we still were able to live one of the other iconic experiences from the Great American Eclipse of 2024--very heavy traffic.