On Monday April 8th, 2024 we experienced a once in a lifetime solar eclipse! We decided to drive from our home in Brighton, MI to Greenville Ohio for full 100% totality. Why Greenville, Ohio? Greenville was one of the closest places with decent cloud coverage during the eclipse. We used Windy App to track the clouds and it looked like their was going to be a decent opening during that time, luckily our research paid off!
The next deciding factor was location, at first, I was researching State Parks but since they were having watch parties I knew that crowding was definitely a real possibility, many of these areas were SOLD OUT by 9am!!! These places were expecting THOUSANDS.... when I think about thousands of people, I immediately start getting anxious!! The initial place we were headed sold out, so then I decided to start looking at local parks and I'm so glad I did I found Treaty of Greenville Park behind Kroger that had a nice walking trail, public restrooms, a playground, and a nice covered Pavilion. When we arrived the parking lot still had ample parking, the place was never fully packed!!!! We drove Ellie (our Sprinter) down because we weren't sure where we would end up and if their would have been public bathrooms. With a 4 and 1 year old, you just never know when you may need a bathroom!
We arrived around 12:00pm, as the boys were starting to get HANGRY! We packed stuff for sandwiches and chips and had our lunch inside the van. Then the boys were ready to burn off some energy so we walked over to the playground. At 1st glance, it looked nice until I noticed the parks rigged repair jobs on the playground that were failing! Eek!
As DC was running around, he made friends with another little boy who happened to also live in Michigan. It was nice to meet the boys mom Vicky and dad John!! We played together for a bit, then hung out with them! The little boys dad John, just so happens to be an engineer just like my husband David, its pretty cool to find other Engineer Wives! John was definitely far more prepared for this, as he was able to experience the total solar eclipse a few years back in Nashville in 2017. He was so kind and gave our family some awesome ISO approved shades that were far more comfortable than our cheap paper ones! After a little playground time, and hanging out, Daniel was starting to get really tired and he was in a lot of pain from teething and an ear infection so we ended up going back over by David to see if Daniel wanted to take a nap in his bed and so we could experience the full totality together as a family, as it was getting close to the start! Fortunately we all got to experience it together and capture some lasting memories!
Fun Facts!
This photo was taken during full totality at 3:10pm, YES in the middle of the "day", when it got dark enough you could see the stars outside!
We were in Darke County Ohio!!
Annie Oakley was born in Darke County, OH and died in Greenville Ohio! We saw signage for her grave site.
We had 3 min 55.9s of full totality!!!
The next time Greenville, Ohio will have another solar eclipse is September of 2099.
We agree that Darke County was Totality- AWESOME in that it offered the top 15 longest totality sites in Ohio! :)
In this photo you can see Solar Prominences.
This was definitely an awesome experience, and we are so glad we were able to experience this so close to home! :) Also Ellie hit 353,333 miles on this trip while David was in 3rd gear, that's a lot of 3's!
DC was maybe a little confused as to what was happening, he said now it's night night time. 3 minutes later, he said now it's good morning time. Through the eyes of a 4 year old, he thought it was a cool experience. Hopefully this will be a memory that sticks with him! :)
Until next time, thanks for stopping by our blog! Where should we go next?! Any suggestions are always welcome!!
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