Scott Linden Outdoors

Learning the Ronnie & Rick Smith way … on the chain.

Was it the dusk-like calm of 99.5% totality? Sheer exhaustion from yapping so much when we went to the back yard to watch? Or is timing really everything?

Whatever it was, we enjoyed the entire eclipse in calm, silent wonder. Flick simmered down just as the moon crossed in front of the sun. As it got darker, he snoozed. We gazed, speculated, contemplated … thankful it was nap time for the little guy.

The hordes are streaming home now, and we were smart enough not to join them for a half-percent more darkness. We’ll miss the thousands of eclipse glasses – now obsolete – that are probably littering the ground in town and on forest land. No tie-dyed flower children getting in our way, no more eclipse sale advertising on TV, no sitting in traffic for hours to crawl a couple miles. Ah.

As the moon’s last vestiges left the sun’s edge the pup woke up and announced that it was time to play. In no uncertain terms.

Okay then.