Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Total Eclipse of the Sun

My girlfriend & I met up with my best friend (& his fam) at Deer Run campground in Golconda, Illinois before trekking our way down to Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky on Saturday. We watched an exhilarating laser-light show at Golden Pond Planetarium - listening to and watching a rendition of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon".  Afterwards, we attended the Western Kentucky Amateur Astronomers' star party at the Observatory where dozens of enthusiasts brought their high-powered telescopes and pointed them at the night sky; we were able to see the moons and rings of Saturn! With our naked eye we could see Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and thousands of stars - and the Milky Way 'cloud' lit up like a dream.

On Sunday, we attended the "Little Green Men" festival in Kelly near Hopkinsville, KY. The town celebrates an event from 1955 in which it's reported that aliens visited a local farm. There were hayrides, carnival rides and booths - but I didn't get to buy a t-shirt commemorating the event, because they were sold out! However, I did cop a tee highlighting The Main Event...


On Monday (August 21st 2017) we went to Lake Glendale in Shawnee National Forest near our campsite. After some hiking, swimming, and relaxing in a hammock, we put our shades on and craned our necks for a couple hours to witness a once-in-a-lifetime event: a total solar eclipse. We were directly under the path of 100% totality, which meant in addition to the moon's shadow falling over us, the temperature dropped, the sky got dark, the crickets started chirping. At 1:23pm local time, we witnessed history:



Top 12 Comedy Podcasts

I'm not calling this a list of my favorites, because I know this to be fact, not opinion: Kill Tony T.Y.S.O. Bad Friends Are You Garbage...