As one ages it becomes difficult to generate a great deal of enthusiasm for most things, but I had heard about the eclipse for almost a year. I told you a couple weeks ago I had thought about driving 20 or 30 miles from my home base. Leaving just in time to get there. According to maps I saw we are right on the edge of the path.
I was pleasantly surprised when my grandson from Minneapolis, Minnesota, called me and said he and his wife would like to take us to the totality of the eclipse. It had been years since we had seen them. I really didn’t want to put forth the effort but he insisted. I had planned on taking US 30 East to the Lima, Ohio area. It looked like US 30 was perpendicular to the path. He said the least cloud cover would be at Portland, Indiana, south on US 27.
The kicker came when he said we’ll get up at 7:30 a.m. Now I never saw 7:30 a.m. so I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. He was afraid of the traffic, and I couldn’t imagine heavy traffic being on US 27. Each Amish farm did have a wash on the line. We got to Portland at 11:00 a.m. in plenty of time to see the eclipse. We spent some time at a local Walmart, and the best part we found a good restaurant where we could eat outside. This was probably the first nice day we had all year, and it was beautiful. There was not a cloud in the sky.
There weren’t a great deal of people but it seems like everywhere you went there were groups of people just hanging out. Families playing with frisbees, just being together. And it was quite a phenomenon. Where we were the totality was about three and a half minutes, and the total eclipse over a couple of hours, I didn’t keep track. It did seem like dusk perhaps, and the temperature felt like it dropped several degrees. I’ve never heard exactly if the temperature did drop.
All in all was a great experience, and the funny part, coming home the traffic was really heavy. I have never seen stop and go traffic on one of our major highways. Then my grandson’s GPS told him to get off of 27 and go through Decatur. I’m sure we didn’t save any time but we really did have a scenic drive, and Decatur is a beautiful city.
All in all it was a beautiful experience. It’s probably the first and last time I’ll see something like that. And the fellowship with my grandson and his wife was priceless. I was a bit put off, when watching the men’s basketball final game, the announcers were making fun of the eclipse. One said he didn’t even bother going out to look at it.
Actually the eclipse was a much better show than they’re boring ball game. I’ve seen many final games turn out to be a blowout. It was kind of like watching a cat playing with a mouse, you know who’s going to win.
On the other hand seeing God’s handiwork, and the way men have studied for thousands of years, to predict almost the exact second when a phenomenon like this will take place. My grandson is already planning on traveling to the next one. We see flowers and trees bursting forth in every direction. The heavens declare the glory of God.
—James Neuhouser
