Monday, August 21, 2017 a full eclipse will travel the United States from the Northwest to the Southeast. From all the accounts I have read, this experience can be life changing! If you are within driving distance of this 100-mile band of the total eclipse, pack your car, take the kids out of school, bring you solar eye-glasses and head for a location where special memories can be made.
This is not like the kind of memories you create from a vacation, or from reading books to your kids, or going away from the city as a family and looking at the Milky Way. While those are wonderful things to do together, they lack two important factors.
1) You will likely NEVER have an opportunity like this in your lifetime, not even theirs! You can’t plan it. You can’t create it. You can’t explain it, meaning an explanation cannot match the experience.
2) The experience itself is far more significant than almost any other event you will experience as a family, outside of marriage or a birth.
Don’t even think of going to work and letting your kids go to school. To think you will go outside, check it out, then go back to work is belittling the event. This is the power of the universe being exposed to you in a way that you are not accustomed. To allow your kids to have memories of it with classmates instead of with loved ones is really unconscionable to me. What lesson will they learn that will not be better taught through you?
Some things to look for:
If you are already in or very near ‘the path of totality’, don’t tell me your job requires you to be there unless you are with Public Safety or an Obstetrician. If you don’t really care about this event, then I question either your knowledge of it, or wonder about your sense of values or being alive.
In Summary
Chances to see a historic natural occurrence are rare! Opportunities to create unforgettable memories with family, especially children, are precious. Kids will remember how their parents reacted to do whatever it took for them all their children to see something special!
Do it! And protect your eyes and your children’s eyes. See videos below!!
Mike Smith
“Helping Fathers to be Dads”
This is not like the kind of memories you create from a vacation, or from reading books to your kids, or going away from the city as a family and looking at the Milky Way. While those are wonderful things to do together, they lack two important factors.
1) You will likely NEVER have an opportunity like this in your lifetime, not even theirs! You can’t plan it. You can’t create it. You can’t explain it, meaning an explanation cannot match the experience.
2) The experience itself is far more significant than almost any other event you will experience as a family, outside of marriage or a birth.
Don’t even think of going to work and letting your kids go to school. To think you will go outside, check it out, then go back to work is belittling the event. This is the power of the universe being exposed to you in a way that you are not accustomed. To allow your kids to have memories of it with classmates instead of with loved ones is really unconscionable to me. What lesson will they learn that will not be better taught through you?
Some things to look for:
- The shadow of the moon racing in at 1600 mph.
- A 360-degree sunset (as if the sun had set 30 minutes prior) during the full eclipse.
- Just before and just after the full eclipse could be wavy shadows called shadow bands on the ground (use a white sheet to see). Or beads may appear around the edges of the moon caused by the moon’s mountains.
- It will get dark, dark as the night of a full moon, enabling you to see Venus. And cooler, maybe 10 – 15 degrees cooler during the total eclipse.
- Animals may act strangely, thinking night time has come way too fast.
If you are already in or very near ‘the path of totality’, don’t tell me your job requires you to be there unless you are with Public Safety or an Obstetrician. If you don’t really care about this event, then I question either your knowledge of it, or wonder about your sense of values or being alive.
In Summary
Chances to see a historic natural occurrence are rare! Opportunities to create unforgettable memories with family, especially children, are precious. Kids will remember how their parents reacted to do whatever it took for them all their children to see something special!
Do it! And protect your eyes and your children’s eyes. See videos below!!
- How to build a solar eclipse viewer:
- A great video to learn about the eclipse with a great App suggestion
Mike Smith
“Helping Fathers to be Dads”
