Day Four: Eclipse Day!

So the weatherman said, the night before, that the clouds would roll in over night with deep fog, but that the clouds would roll out by sunrise, the fog would burn off, and we'd have partly cloudy skies for the eclipse. So when we woke up early and the sun was out, I was stoked.

We left a little later than I'd like, but it turns out that traffic was way lighter than I was expecting. We figured the traffice would take the freeways, we took Bandera Road towards out property, and with just one major slowdown in Pipe Creek, we made better time than we expected.

We'd planned a side trip to the Polly's Church/Polly's School communiity to try and get out of the expected traffic. And even though traffic was super light, we took the side trip anyways just for fun and visited Polly's Church, a rural church deep in the scrub.

We headed to the old property and pulled in. At this point the clouds that were supposed to roll in overnight finally decided to roll in. As the eclipse started, the cloud cover got worse and worse. But we DID get to see the eclipse start through the clouds. At first with our glasses, and eventually without as the clouds becme so thick we could look at it through them. We caught the last glimpses of the sun just before totality began, but never saw it again as the clouds eclipsed the eclipse. Honestly, we wouldn't see the sun again till that evening. I sawsome pics from specators in Kerrville who were able to see totality through the clouds, but just ten miles away, we got nothing.

But it was still magical. We watched as suddenly everything dmmed, and super quickly and remained dark for about five minutes. Everything got quiet, it got a good deal colder. I dunno if it was the totality or not, but even the wind picked up, died down, then picked up again as eveyrthing lightnened up.

And then we rtied to leave, except the car wouldn't start. While we waited to get a jump, we noticed a flock(?) of Mexican Freetail Bats flying out of the south from one of the many Hill Country caves. I'm guessing they thought Totality was time to go out and forage forfood. They came back a few minutes later, flying in circles a bit, probably trying to figure out who turned the light back up so quick.

We got our jump and decided since we were already deep in the Hill Country to take a nice roadtrip. We headed out to Camp Verde, as my parents wanted to see the old Camp Verde site (home of the Texas Wild Camels of the late 1800s...no joke!), and then to finish up the Gillespie Country Schools tour we started in October (Friends of Gillespie County Country Schools, Inc.). After that I decided to show my parents a little community I'd "discovered" a few years back, Hilda.

Hilda (https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/hilda-tx) is just a large mansion, a cemetery and a luteran church on the side of the road. But they're all very nice and very well kept up. We found a local and a photographer there who had caught some wonderful pics of the eclipse, and was staying to take some dark-night photos out there. He showed us what he'd done, and they're beautiful. True to form, nothing out there was locked, so I got a few pictures of the church. I may tresspass a bit, but never with ill intent. :)

After that, we headed home, through Fredericksburg. I miss Fredericksburg. One of my favorite towns, on a very big day. Lots going on there...can't stop for any of it because of Texas enabling a lot of trans-harassment. Same goes with San Antonio. Fiesta Week is next week, and while I'd love to be there, there's no point. Again, the trans-harassment stuff would make it a pain to enjoy, and if someone got a bug up their ass that I was a drag queen (I'm not) displayed in front of their kids, I'm a danger (I'm not) and could be arrested.

And before you say "they won't do that" that's not the point. They CAN.