We now return you to your regularly scheduled sunshine

Monday, April 8, 2024

Benjamin suggested we join him and Sean in going to Indianapolis to see the eclipse. I wasn’t too interested, but after I thought about it, I remembered when your son says come and do a thing with us, it is a really good idea to go do a thing.

It was such a a good thing to do!

There was a city block of green space kitty corner from our hotel. That seemed the obvious place to go, but I worried maybe the downtown buildings would be in our way. As I watched groups of people starting to spread out on the lawn, I was very excited to get down there. Once I got there, I was just HOT. The sun was very beamy and I was dressed in clothes I packed when snow was in the forecast. (Okay, just a T-shirt and jeans, but most people had on shorts. It was a glorious day.)

There was a party at our hotel and we had no problem hearing their music. Someone had done a good job curating the tunes – Blinded by the Light, The End of the World as We Know it, Walking on Sunshine, Bad Moon Rising, Dancing in the Moonlight – you get the idea. As we sat and watched, wearing our stylish eclipse glasses, the sunlight started to change. It didn’t feel darker at first, but like all the warm colors had been leeched away. Then the temperature started to drop. It got cold! I had to put on my sweatshirt. As we watched the moon move toward completely covering the sun, it got darker and darker. Street lights popped on. At the exact moment of totality, the main title from Star Wars roared through the air. Music makes even awesome things better!

When the moon covered the sun, everything was gone. I only saw black. People were exclaiming with excitement and I said, “What should I see? I see nothing!” Benjamin said, “Take off your glasses.” I whipped them off and BAM! A bright white light gleaming around a black circle. It seemed really bright, because it was night out! We could see stars! Benjamin took the potd, but we didn’t worry about pictures because we had less than four minutes to marvel at the sky.

And marvel we did. It felt like we had really witnessed something special. How silly I was for ever considering not coming. I said we needed a secret handshake, and so we created one. Obviously, I can’t describe it. 🙂

Daniel, Amanda, Erick, and Lindsay came over from the state park where they watched it. We took a long walk around downtown and along the canal. It was very hot. I got to chat with Lindsay and get to know her better, which was wonderful.

We had dinner outside – spring is so much farther along here than at home. I had a po’ boy and TB had hot chicken and Mac n cheese waffles! Everything was delicious.

As we ended our evening, I saw Benjin and Daniel do the secret handshake.

I know I am forgetting to share cool parts of the day, but I am typing on my phone with one finger and I am getting tired.

Keith sent a message a bit ago as he was wrapping up his day. He wrote, “So… finished cutting and installing tile, moved the sink drain, replaced all three water valves, reinstalled electrical plates, emptied and cleaned up the room, removed the old flooring, put down a new floor board, and fought the miserable blue underlayment stuff. Quite a day.”

I wrote back, Were you wanting to get mentioned in the potd, because our sun turned off and we had snacks.”

He said to go with that.