Bikeclipse

Yesterday, biking took a back seat to mother nature. It was a monumental occurrence for many people across the US, where a partial solar eclipse occurred over the vast majority of the lower 48 states, and the first of any solar eclipse I've witnessed in more than 20 years.

Even before the event occurred between 1:20 and 4:00 PM yesterday, I could feel the intensity in the air. Something about the sun and moon aligning changes the energy about everything. Unfortunately I spent most of the day in the office, but that might have been for the better due to the aforementioned intensity. I still took part, creating a pinhole projector like I did when I was a kid:

I also remember my teachers telling us not to look at the sun. Of course we did anyway. It's generally not a good idea at any time, but especially during an eclipse. It was kind of neat to know that there were so many people doing the same thing at the same time all across the country, including my girlfriend, who was on her way back to Ohio with her daughter. They made a few extra pit stops for viewing pleasantries.

It was tough trying to get a good picture with my phone camera. That said, as some clouds began to obscure the view about a quarter of the way through the event here in Philly, it provided a rare opportunity to do so:

I had borrowed a friend's goggles in attempting to take the previous photo. They do look pretty snazzy:

I tried to get a pic with the glasses in front of the phone camera, but it didn't really turn out. It was also a lot of fun trying to take the picture I did capture without being able to see the screen. Those glasses are near blackout dark. Similarly, I couldn't get my phone camera to focus on the pinhole projection, which also worked quite nicely.

Before and after all was said and done, I did ride, just as the sun rises in the east and falls in the west on any other day:

And today we go back to normal. Or something. Yesterday was but a blip on the timeline of this year and my life, but one I'm glad I witnessed, and one I won't soon forget. See ya in 2023 (there's an annular eclipse in 2023 before the total eclipse in 2024).