We had a great time watching the eclipse of the sun in Atchison, KS

By SJ Otto

As with the rest of the country, I went to watch the eclipse. We chose Atchison, KS as the best place for us to watch the total eclipse of the Sun. My wife, Cam Gentry, her brother Fred Gentry and I went to Atchison, which was in the totality area strip of the country where it actually got dark when the moon completely blocked out the sun light. It has been almost 500 years since this area last saw a total eclipse of the sun. It will be almost another 500 years before such an eclipse comes back. So I needed everything to go right so I could see this once-in-a-life-time event.
First there was the traffic. Our travel slowed down as we made it to the town. There were lots of other people coming from all over Kansas and other states to see the same thing we wanted to look at. The highway was jammed. There were cars everywhere. Then we had to find the least invasive place to catch this event. We chose a park along the Missouri River.
Almost everything was going fine when suddenly it started to cloud up. Then it started raining. We got to Atchison about 10:30. By 11:30, right before it started, there were still clouds in the sky. Off and on the sun peaked out and we could use those special glasses to see the eclipsed son. But the only way we could really be sure we were watching the sun get blocked was the approximate 2 minutes of darkness that fell about 1pm. It looked like night-time.
Look at the bridge below as it looked in the sun:

 

Here is that same bridge in the short dark period during the total eclipse:

 

And another picture of the dark in the park:

 

And here is a picture my brother John Otto took of the light from under trees affected by the eclipse:

 

And with contrast: