Yesterday a large portion of the United States had the privilege of experiencing a total solar eclipse. An event rarely experienced by so many. I had never been in an area during an eclipse that experienced the “totality” effect. Totality is when the moon completely and perfectly blots out the sun.

Jennifer and I made the trip to Wyoming to experience this effect. We had our speciality solar eclipse glasses that, when on ,you can’t see anything but the sun. We watched as the moon slowly crept in front of the sun. More and more the sun looked like a crescent moon and the surrounding landscape dimmed slowly. The temperature slowly dropped, and the strong wind died down a little as more and more of the sun disappeared behind the silhouette of the moon.

Then seemingly all at once we got the totality and it went dark. The long stretch of highway 270 in Wyoming erupted with cheers in amazement. It was odd. This place, that only had cows as its normal residents, was lined with vehicles pulled off in the grassy shoulders. The darkness of the eclipse came quickly. We were in darkness for the maximum 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but still it seemed extremely brief. The landscape was dark, but the horizon was lit up. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

We traveled nearly 5 hours for a 2 minute 30 second experience and the way home, unbeknownst to us, would take even longer because of accidents and road closers, (even now I am writing this in a truck stop 2 hours from home), but it was worth it. What is life but the experiences we have made better by spending it with the ones we love… in a field full of cows.