We did see the eclipse. We perhaps didn’t prepare our recording equipment for the event. This is taken with a “real camera,” that is, one that you can’t talk to, with eclipse glasses held in front of the lens.
Here’s the total eclipse—again, not a stellar photo, yet still a wonder. Phenom witnessed, photoed, and oohed over…so we hopped back in the car and turned south into what became a series of traffic jams. Remember, we were in southern Illinois, and we had only a few bridges near enough to get across a major river. [We heard that an academic prognosticator in Carbondale estimated at several hundred thousand folks would visit southern Illinois to eclipse-watch.]
En route, we encountered a double rainbow—with both ends on the ground! Sorry, not shown. I saw no leprechauns or pots of gold, although I had a good view of the rainbow-feet. Still, we took it as lucky…
…that we encountered the front that brought this a few miles before the hail, and, as it happened, we only had to drive through hail-on-the-ground, not plummeting hail, whew. We motored along with great care between hail-piles, and within two miles, were out of the ice and headed for our traffic-jam fate. For the record, we reached home safely at 12:45am, at about the end of my energy.
After seeing photos today of Etna’s “smoke rings,” I wonder if there’s another phenomena sighting we should put on our short list?!!—and perhaps arrange tickets???!! 🤣 Kidding.