CARBONDALE — By midmorning, the sun beat down on southern Illinois. Thin, sparse clouds provided little respite from the heat but offered hope for undisturbed viewing for the thousands gathered in southern Illinois to see the total solar eclipse.
Ashley King and William Faulkner, a couple from Atlanta, had been set up on a pair of folding chairs overlooking Crab Orchard Lake since early-morning dew coated the grass.
Ten minutes before totality, the moon created a thin crescent shape on the surface of the sun, like a neon orange fingernail. The sky darkened eerily, devoid of its usual sunset hues. A chill breeze blew by as temperatures dropped in absence of regular daytime sunlight. Conversation among the several dozen viewers at the Crab Orchard refuge lulled to a quiet whisper, punctuated by giddy laughter.
The area is one of seven eclipse viewing locations on the 43,000-acre Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge near Carbondale.
In a global rarity, southern Illinois will be in the path of totality, where the moon completely blocks the sun, for the second time in seven years. The contiguous United States won’t see another total eclipse until 2044.
Chicago, which is not in the path of totality, will see the moon cover 94% of the sun.
Justin Carrino and his 11-year-old daughter drove four hours from Bowmanville to witness the astronomical event inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which falls in the path of totality. They spent Sunday night at a nearby motel.
Tens of thousands of people crowded the racetrack Monday, donning eclipse glasses as they waited for the moon to creep across the sun.
“It takes over an hour for the moon to go across, so I think there’s a lot of ‘Hurry up and wait,’ but we’re both really excited for when it gets a little bit further across,” Carrino, 48, said.
The daylong event kicked off with race cars speeding along the track. Informational NASA and Purdue University tents were stationed across the campus, along with food trucks and other vendors.
With the crowds, the speedway was particularly noisy, Carrino said, but the pair were still thrilled to witness the historic event.
“My daughter learned in school, if you’re able to get some totality, the environment changes, color changes, the way animals behave changes, all that sort of thing,” Carrino said. “Given that it was so close, and that it was fairly easy for us to do, it was worth it.”
In Cleveland, also in the path of totality, the Guardians were hosting the Chicago White Sox. The game was scheduled to begin after the eclipse.
Sox reliever Bryan Shaw, who was with Cleveland in 2017 when there was a partial eclipse, told the Tribune: “It was a few years ago when we had another eclipse, obviously not as good as this one. We were in town for that one. Today is one of the more unique places I’ve had a game at like this.”
Sox manager Pedro Grifol said he wasn’t going to watch the eclipse. “It doesn’t interest me that much. I’ll watch videos of it to see what it looks like.”
Back at Crab Orchard refuge, King’s parents, George and Stephanie King, joined them with a picnic blanket, a pop-up canopy and their tiny 16-year-old dog, Bailey, a Shih Tzu and poodle crossbreed.
Faulkner set up a small telescope with a homemade filter to try to capture some images of the eclipse.
On Sunday night, the young couple had driven to Louisville, Kentucky, where they’d be close enough to the path of totality to check the latest weather forecasts and decide the best viewing location Monday morning.
For the last week, Ashley King had been following cloud cover predictions at different places she had pinned on Google Maps along the path of totality.“I would’ve gone wherever because it’s like, we’re already getting this far,” she said.
In 2017, George and Stephanie King watched the total eclipse on a beach by the Chattooga River between Georgia and South Carolina.
Despite cloudy forecasts, they got lucky when the sky cleared as the moon completely covered the sun and enveloped them in darkness. “We didn’t know, really, what to expect. But we went because it was close to home so it wasn’t that big of a deal to go,” George King said. “And we just thought it was one of the neatest things we’d ever seen.”
George King remembered the fascinating and eerie sight of shadow bands being cast on the sand — thin dark ripples waving over the ground. His wife said insects started chirping as soon as the sky went dark, but they went silent again when the sun peeked out from behind the sun.
Ashley King and Faulkner had gone elsewhere in 2017 and missed totality when a cloud blocked the view at the last minute. So this time, they made a game-time decision to join King’s parents in hopes their luck improves their viewing odds.
“In Dad we trust,” Ashley King laughed. “Because, I gotta say, last time was pretty rough.”
About an hour before totality, as the sun approached its highest point in the sky, the open area at the wildlife refuge got busier. People set up chairs and blankets, cameras and telescopes, and others got on boats to find a spot on the water.
A little boy tentatively dipped his toes in the lake. A group sailed away blasting, “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” by KISS. All signs pointed to a picturesque day by the lake.
Chicago Tribune’s LaMond Pope contributed.