1) The hotel just east of Clemson, about one mile from the center-line of totality.
2) Clemson University was putting on an event "Eclipse over Clemson" with different speakers through the day.
3)"The dike" which is basically a massive earthen hill just west of campus on Lake Hartwell.

The dike was a fantastic view. But, the kids were burning up after just a few minutes. So, we went back to the hotel. The back of the hotel was an empty parking lot. There was some construction on a new pool. Unfortunately, the pool was not ready, we could have used it today!

The hotel parking lot had a wide open view to the sun. So, this location really was pretty good.

I set up my observation position around noon. First contact is set for 1:08 p.m. Fortunately, there was a nice, little shaded tree that we hung out under while waiting for the eclipse.

Temperatures are quickly climbing. My thick Pennsylvania blood is slow to thin. It was very uncomfortable. But, I was enjoying every second of it, knowing that relief from the moon's shadow was less than two hours away. Finally, we made it to first contact at 1:08 p.m. The temperature was a steamy 94 degrees as the partial eclipse began.

I recorded the temperature in the shade throughout the eclipse. Here was the reading at 1:08pm, first contact.

Temperatures actually rose for the first 25 minutes of the eclipse.

We had a lot of fun making shadows on the white poster board we brought. The pinhole viewer worked. But, the bottom of our Keurig worked even better!

Soon, crescents were showing up everywhere. Nearly every shadow had neat crescents. The blanket we had under the tree was full of crescents during the few minutes leading up to totality. Speaking of totality.....

Totality was very sudden. I was doing Facebook live as totality approached. Honestly, it kind of caught me by surprise. It was slowly getting dark. Then, BOOM! It was dark (literally boom, as folks down the street were shooting off fireworks, or possibly something else).

I looked up and there it was! The much acclaimed corona. It was not what I expected. I thought it would be uniform around the sun. But, it was mostly only the sides of the sun and not really the top or bottom. It was WEIRD! And of course, you could see the moon smack dab where the sun was supposed to be. Venus showed up a minute or so before totality. I had trouble spotting any other planets. I think Jupiter was behind the trees from my perspective. Mars and Mercury must have been too dim to be seen.

The night before, I remarked how loud the bugs were outside. Sure enough, they struck up a chorus before totality began. Then, they were buzzing as loud as ever through totality. Turn the volume up for the video below to hear the insects and other things going on. There was a roar from a distant crowd as totality began.

Here is my play by play through totality.

It was as truly wonderful experience. I was so fortunate to share it with my family. My kids are young, so I hope they remember the event. If not, we will be heading to the next solar eclipse in 2024!

Thanks for reading. Just look up, you never know what you will see!

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