Eclipse

And no, I'm not talking about a lame vampire book.  This is about a real, actual, solar eclipse!  I know, I know,  it's not fresh news.

I'm totally behind on blogging, but I've got to sneak a couple of lost posts in.  

Let's see, this was back on May 20th.  I know most people either saw or heard about the eclipse.  We were pretty excited about it at our house since Albuquerque turned out to be exactly in line with the eclipse and we would have the best seat in the world for it.  The kids are also totally into "Avatar: The Last Airbender" and there is an eclipse in the show that they think is pretty cool.  So, they (especially Harriet) couldn't believe we would get to see a real one.  We wish we had planned ahead a bit and just ordered our own eclipse viewing materials, but figured we'd head to a common place and get to see it.  How many nerds can there be in Albuquerque?  We figured it would be a relaxed and easy thing to do.

 

(cool "Earth" hot air balloon)

The Albuquerque Balloon Museum was having a huge event to come and watch it and were handing out free eclipse glasses if you paid to get into the museum.  Doors open at 4pm, eclipse due to happen at 6:30pm.  We got there at 3pm only to find a line of about 3000 people waiting in a line wrapped around the sun-scorched parking lot to get in the doors.  That line did not move.  They were ACTUALLY selling the tickets out of the ticket booth with only 2 people working like it was just a normal lazy day with a few visitors.  CRAZY.  They had no idea there were that many nerds in ABQ either.

(kids trying to stay under the sunshade)

We stood in line in the hot sun for over 2 hours.  David went to his car and got the reflective sunshade out and we took turns holding it over the kids so that they wouldn't burn into little crispy critters.  We started to worry that we wouldn't get glasses or that we wouldn't even get to the front of the line before the eclipse started - it's not like you can see it later or somehow the moon is going to wait for everyone to be ready.  In this world of being able to do everything in an instant or pushing pause and waiting til your convenience, it was kind of awesome to be completely at the mercy of the universe's time clock.  No speed up, no pause, no rewind, no replay, no same thing same time next week.  It will happen once. exactly. when it happens.

Finally, we actually made it to the front of the line.  By some miracle, they still had some glasses left.  We had some time left to make our way through the museum too, and check out the live feeds they had going inside that were streaming from different telescopes aimed at the eclipse.  

But, let's face it, you kind of just want to see it with your own naked eyes.  Well, not too naked, of course.  I may be a little more blind after taking a few too many sideways glances to see what it looked like without the glasses. 

We had planned to possibly get some food at the museum, but they only had one vendor and the line to get the overpriced gourmet pizza that the kids wouldn't eat anyway was as long as the line to get into the museum.  They started melting down and begging for dinner.  I couldn't blame them, I was starving too and the snacks we brought were losing luster fast, but we made them push through and be ok to wait (until 8pm!) for dinner.  We thought we had it made.  

Then... JUST as the moon was moving right into center position, Harriet announced she had to pee and it could not wait (of course, we had 20 minutes previously had the "does anyone need to go to the bathroom?" conversation.)  What incredible timing Harriet.  Wow, the universe aligns and you have to go.  I told her that I would rather have her wet her pants in my lap than miss the eclipse that we had struggled for hours in the heat to get a chance to see and likely won't ever see again.  She couldn't believe I was serious, but I WAS!  She did end up being able to hold it just long enough to see the "ring of fire" as the moon came to the center.  It was just a tad spooky to notice that it got darker and cooler as the moon came across to the center.  We took it all in as much as possible and then we high-tailed it for the bathroom.  P.S.  If you ever want to use a public restroom and have the whole place to yourself despite 1000's of people at the event - go right in the middle of a rare eclipse.  You could hear a pin drop in there.  

Ahh... the celestial events this summer.  Only a few weeks later Venus was set to take a trip in front of the sun before sunset, so we kept those eclipse glasses handy and got to see it take it's path.  That was pretty cool.  I resisted the urge to get play the Police song lyrics "There's a little black spot on the Sun today...."