2017 Eclipse

So my friend Lindsay and I had been talking about taking our kids to see the eclipse...and then I talked her out of it...and then Sunday 5 PM talked her back into it...so off we drove 5 AM Monday to Wyoming, her 2- and 3-year-olds and the baby girl in her belly and Luke and Zo and she and I...and what a fun time we had! Four-and-a-half hours later we pulled over on a Riverton-area side road, cracked and weathered asphalt, smell of sagebrush and desert hills all around and had the full time to watch as the moon overtook the sun, glancing up with our glasses every few minutes and Lindsay had a paper plate setup where we could see the shadows too. We had a picnic with salami and cherries and cheese and pretzels and almonds and played with race cars and stuffed pigs, watched ants and put on pink fairy wings and got more and more excited as the totality neared...there were half a dozen groups we could see and 10 other cars drove past us...from Tennessee and Idaho and New Jersey and California...Elias sat solid in my lap and then the sun covered the moon and you could hear everyone gasp and then cheer...it had been getting darker and cooler and the crickets had started chirping and when the sun was covered there were these beautiful wispy feathers of light all around it, like nothing I've ever seen and a coyote howling and it was just magical...I wish I'd taken some pictures but I just wanted to experience it and there were deep oranges and purples and pinks around the ring of the horizon everywhere you looked and the kids were in awe and we were in awe and then after, Luke stood on the minivan's running board and high-fived the drivers of the out-of-state cars as they went back to their normal lives and I'm sooooo glad we went and I want to do it again...do we really have to wait 7 years? I'm already starting to plan...

XOXO