Total Eclipse!

We packed up camp Monday morning in record speed!   Everyone was so excited that the moment we'd been waiting for was finally here.  Opa's hard work and planning really paid off; we had a perfect location to view the eclipse.  It was as crowded as we were anticipating, but fortunately we didn't experience a shortage of gasoline or extreme traffic like folks who ventured North of Denver to Wyoming.  We were surrounded by lots of other people from all parts of the country and world.  And as the minutes got closer our anticipation grew.  And grew.  And grew!  Until the adults were so giddy and excited that the kids were giddy and excited.  I was not prepared to experience the deep emotions that followed.  It really was a moving experience.  I'm not sure I can adequately describe what we felt, but seconds after the peak of the eclipse, Kim and I turned to each other and said "I was not expecting to get so choked up over that!". 
We had a lot of fun posing for pictures in the free eclipse glasses Opa has been collecting for months.  Once we reached Totality, we had about 90 seconds to remove the glasses and stare directly at the eclipse.  Daytime felt like dusk, everything was so quiet it was erie, we all just stood there dumb founded, some crying and all hugging each other.  And then we saw this beautiful diamond ring image in the sky and it was over, just like that.  We scrambled to put our glasses back on, and watched as people immediately fired up their car and camper engines and drove off.  For a few brief minutes, the small town of Arthur, Nebraska had grown to hold a crowd of thousands.  And in a flash, we all scattered like bugs.  Back to our lives, back to reality.