Nice captures, @starkat!

It's really great reading about your eclipse experiences. I am very happy for your family that you made it, fantasia! What a family memory to put in the books.

Our little village was 'only' 99.81% in totality, but five minutes south on the country road, we were in the path, albeit on the edge, so totality for us was just over one minute. I wanted this spectacular sight to go on and on!

We were on a little gravel siding with a few other people (one carload had driven a few hours, determined to be in the path. Having purchased a pack of ISO-certified eclipse glasses, I was able to pass some out to those who were without. The sky was completely clear until near totality, when high cirrus clouds invaded. Still, these hardly diminished that celestial wonder, and Venus was very clear throughout, even a fair bit following totality. I could not spot Jupiter, and presume it was hiding in the wispy clouds.

As totality began, we noticed the local farm roosters began quite a chorus of crowing; the moos of the herd of cows grazing nearby increased. Also, the temperature dropped. I loved watching the strange wonderful lighting fall on the area, just as much as seeing totality. It felt surreal, utterly beautiful, and very mysterious.

At one point, after totality, we we were packing up, a pick-up truck drove on to the gravel lane and I heard him say to the occupants of the first car, "What's going on? I live in that house on the corner and I come home to find strangers parked here staring at the sky". He was serious; he had no idea what it was all about. Then, when the other gentleman mentioned the reason to him, he commented that oh yes, he'd heard about that somewhere. After which he drove home, without a look upwards at all. Ah well, each to his own!

Posted by: @stargazer

After totality everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to me, which was quite touching.

How special and fun that must have been!

I'm glad none of you had major traffic issues, as far as I am aware. We didn't, either, but then, we are rather remote compared to more urban areas. Qwertykate's dad drove to Maine to view the eclipse, and upon leaving the small town, he encountered 53 miles of 2-lane car-to-car traffic on the highway out of Jackman!

Posted by: @stargazer

So…2044 and 2045. I’ll be truly ancient by then…

Uh, yeah, ditto that here! You'll just be a spring chick in comparison, @fantasia.  

I had the traffic I expected. It was raining in Houston and moving north. I hit a stretch with some mild rain and lightning, but thankfully everyone was driving responsibly and calmly. It stretched my drive from a total of about 5.5 to 8 hours. The route from Dallas to Houston clogs every weekend about the same spot in the same way from people coming back after going north for the weekend. I'm just thankful it wasn't insane. 

As for the actual experience... I chose to sit in a friend's driveway. She was in the path of totality and we had about 4 minutes. She had to work and came out for totality. I had a new camping chair, so I set up and tried to get my camera set up with a tripod, but I never could master the actual process of aiming. I did it without the tripod in the end obviously. It was like the whole world held it's breath. My thought process when the sun started to reemerge was that it was like Jesus emerging from the tomb and bringing back hope to the world on the third day. A breath of hope and a fresh wind. 

I stopped off in Ennis on my way to the main freeway home at a park and there were still some photographers there as well as a source of Bluebonnets. The photographer I talked to (was from south of me by an hour) had rented a lens and took over 200 photos. I just took a mere 37. I found it interesting, but I also wouldn't trade the small amount I took and the ability to actually see the eclipse with my own eyes for getting a large amount of photos.