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- Effie and I drove to De Soto, MO to watch the eclipse. We made it as far as Springfield by 9pm Sunday night and ran into heavy thunderstorms. So we pulled over and put u,p for teh night in a Hampton Inn. The reason we chose De Soto was because one of the internet eclipse maps showed the center line of the umbra going right though the middle of town.
Prior to retiring Sunday night, I checked weather forecasts which projected complete cloud cover for De Soto. I thought it would be a washout for viewing the eclipse. Turns out, however, there were only a few high thin clouds. It was perfect and we were able to see and experience almost the complete event.
I have one personal observation which surprised me. I didn't have a camera suitable for photographing the eclipse itself, so I decided to capture the effects of the diminishing daylight on objects on the ground. The darkness of an approaching total eclipse is a different sort of darkness. The shadows of objects on the ground are totally different than those of a sunset. Also in the last stages of diminishing light, I could clearly clouds and view things all the way to the horizon on all sides. The lights in the Walgreen parking light came on about 5 minutes before total eclipse. As the last vestiges of light from the sun were disappearing, I could still see to the clouds in the distance and all the way to the horizons. Then just at the moment the moon completely covered the sun, I was suddenly surrounded by night like darkness. In a period of about 10 seconds, virtually the whole world around me was dark. I saw stars in the sky. I saw no clouds. I could not see to horizons. It was one of the weirdest feelings I had ever experienced.
I didn't personally time the length of the eclipse, but did look straight at the sun for more than a minute during the time the eclipse was total. I wanted to savor as much of the experience as I could. I have seen, and even photographed, total eclipses of the moon. This was nothing like anything I've ever experienced before. This was truly once in a lifetime experience.