Risa and I made the drive out to Presqu’ile Provincial Park to catch the eclipse on the shore of Lake Ontario today. The show was mostly out of view, with clouds fully obscuring the sky from a couple of hours before the moon took its first bite of the sun until after totality was over. We did get the experience of transitioning to twilight during totality, which brought an unexpected surprise: looking south over the lake, virtually the entire horizon looked like it was on fire compared to the dark clouds and water.
As soon as the light started returning after our 2-plus minutes of totality, most of the people who’d spent hours waiting and watching by the shore with us started packing up and leaving, like jaded Blue Jays fans trying to beat the traffic home after the 7th inning. And sure enough, they missed the late-game rally: the sun finally peeked out from behind the clouds several times during the back half of the eclipse.
It wasn’t the show we’d been hoping for but was still an enjoyable afternoon in the park with some unexpected surprises.