Some people from Iowa were out of state and got to see more of an impact from the solar eclipse than we saw here.
Tim Loecke of Manchester was in Indianapolis Monday to visit a friend and went to a watch party at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “I didn’t expect it to kind of be overwhelmed by it, but really was, the whole totality thing,” he says. This was his third eclipse and it was much different from the first one. “I guess it was 1979, I think I was in fourth grade or something like that,” Loecke says. “And that was kind of a nice experience. That was back in the day, we had like a popsicle stick, and looked down on the paper. For people old enough, I’m 53, you might remember something like that.”
The second eclipse he saw was in 2017 and the sun was 85 to 90 percent covered. He says seeing an eclipse with the full coverage was the best of the three. “No photograph is going to really explain what you see. It’s super cool. It’s unique,” he says. “And even though for me, it wasn’t a primary purpose to come down, I really wanted to hang out with some close friends, it was awesome.”
Loecke says you could feel the excitement of everyone there. “The weather cooled off, you’re starting to notice it’s getting really dark, and then all of a sudden, it’s like it’s there. And we had like four minutes here, which is a long time to have it,” Loecke says. “But just the vision of you can’t really describe it’s one of those things that you’re like holy cow. That’s just absolutely beautiful. And it does make you feel small in a big world.”
Loecke says it’s also amazing that people are so educated about what goes on to be able to predict when the eclipses will happen.
(Mike Grimm of the Minnesota News Network contributed to this story)