During the 2017 eclipse, there were news articles about the next eclipse in 2024 with the path of totality through much of Texas. I photographed the 2017 eclipse from our back porch (partial eclipse for us - not very exciting) and shared a few images. That post started a conversation with our best friends Al and Michelle. As we looked at the 2024 path, we saw that the center of the path would be through Marble Falls where Al's brother, Kevin, lives. We called Kevin and Susan and asked to make reservations to stay at their house in 7 years. They thought we were crazy, laughed, and said sure - their house is always open to family and Donnice and I have been blessed to be honorary Judices for 30+ years. Over the next 7 years, we have been to Judice family functions and the 6 of us would laugh and look forward to that 2024 date. As time does, the months and years passed. For the past 6 months, articles about the eclipse promoted the eclipse and the public became a bit crazy making travel plans to be in the path of totality. We had to check to see that Kevin and Susan had not sold our 7 year old reservations to a higher bidder. They assured us we were still good but they started to understand the hype with all of the activity in their quiet little town.
Despite a horrible weather forecast, Al and Michelle loaded up a few toys, drove to our house to pick us up, and we headed to Marble Falls Saturday morning for the Monday eclipse. What a great trip. It had been much too long since we had this much time with them. The visit at Kevin and Susan's was over the top as we met more of their family and friends. The weekend turned into an great party with entirely too much food! Everybody brought food for an army and we had a lot of people but it was not army-size!
As the weather people forecasted, Monday morning was patchy cloudy. As the morning progressed closer to the eclipse time, the clouds got worse. The patches of clear sky were fewer and fewer. At that point, we hardly cared. We had a fantastic weekend visit and we would roll with whatever happened weather-wise. As the eclipse time started, I took photos (hand-held) each time a hole in the clouds exposed the sun. The sky limited the number of photos - probably a good thing in hindsight since I didn't have to pick through tons of photos. I had just enough holes in the clouds to capture decent pictures from the start of the eclipse through totality. After totality, the holes in the clouds became even fewer and I put down my camera and enjoyed the company.
The photos shared today are during the time leading to totality. The photos were taken with a special solar filter that blocked out virtually all light except for the sun's intense rays. The first photo is before the moon moved across the sun. You see several sunspots (massive solar storms) on the surface that help provide visual reference.
The next photo is the very start of the eclipse. We didn't have a clear hole in the clouds (wispy - not too heavy) but you can still see the edge of the shadow if you look at about the 4:00 position.
The moon was about to cover the largest solar storm in this photo.
The smaller sunspot is about to be covered in this photo (again, wispy clouds).
Instead of a crescent moon, we have a crescent sun. The sky is definitely getting dark at this point with an eerie feel setting in.
This is my last shot before totality. Again, we were pretty fortunate to have a clear hole to get this photo as any cloud cover would have hidden this sliver. The surrounding light was more like twilight after the sun has gone down rather than total darkness. The cloud cover diffused the light into a gentle glow around us. However, it got dark enough that the birds stopped chirping and some of the bats flew from their houses in their yard. What a great thing to experience.
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