'Amazing, awesome' eclipse ... and a cheer when the sun came back
The streetlights came on. Cicadas swelled in a mighty chorus, and anxious birds flew from tree to tree, looking for answers on the next branch. Someone shot off a few fireworks and in the distance, young men could be heard howling at the moon.
The Great American Eclipse lived up to its hype in most parts of southern Illinois, although in Carbondale a big black cloud obscured most of totality. A crowd of thousands inside Saluki Stadium waved homemade fans, hoping the collective motion would shoo the cloud away.
At Rent One Park in Marion, 3,000 people gasped as one at totality. There, as at the Cohen Complex in Chester, they involuntarily cheered when the sun reappeared.
Despite the early warning alarms of crushing crowds all weekend, many visitors drove down or over, only for the day.
Maria and Mario Del Real drove seven hours from Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Rent One Park in Marion, where they had the option of a live view of the eclipse or the Jumbotron version.
"This is a great location," Maria said. "Here at the ballpark there is plenty of shade, food, drinks, activities for the kids and bathrooms."
Mario searched the internet for cities near to Carbondale, and found Marion. "This is perfect," he said. "Plenty of parking and easy access."
Ken and Marilyn Fried of Dyer, Indiana started south on Sunday and stayed the night in Olney before finishing the trip early Monday morning.
"We didn't want to get into the crowds at Carbondale and found the ballpark (Rent One Park) here in Marion," Ken said. "It was only $8 to get in. You can't beat it. Everything has been great. We didn't want to miss this."
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At Walker's Bluff in Carterville, excitement was mounting for the final day of the four-day eclipse concert spectacular. A fenced-off narrow strip for media and security access divided the two audience areas in front of the stage. Some fans became irritated they had to go around the production booth instead of hopping the fence.
"What do you mean we have to go around?" one complained to the security staff.
"They don't know they're dealing with millionaires, here," another said.
But when the security staff opened up the main concert-viewing area, gripes turned to screams of joy. Fans rushed forward, filling the area in a matter of moments.
Cellphones popped out as fans snapped pics while the sky grew darker. With just a sliver of sun visible through eclipse glasses, scattered shouts and screams became one as Ozzy Osbourne took the stage.
He kicked off, as promised, with "Bark at the Moon." The audience was ready - and as the air cooled in the darkness of the eclipse, they yelled, jumped, threw their hands in the air and snapped thousands of pictures. At least one giant inflatable beach ball bounced across the sea of humanity, and the distinctive smell of marijuana was occasionally noticeable.
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What eclipse seekers in Carbondale missed in totality Monday, they made up with good spirits and enthusiasm. An ill-timed cloud blocked the view from Saluki Stadium, regardless of how much the more than 14,000 people tried to will it past.
The crowd, in the darkness at 1:22 p.m., chanted "no more clouds," and waved thousands of homemade "Saluki Dawg" fans at the clouds. Maybe it paid off: The clouds passed when there was about two seconds of totality left. And then, it was gone, leaving viewers with the diamond-like shape, and the sky began to light up again.
"We hoped when we decided to make the trip down to Carbondale we would see the whole thing," Diana Campbell of Waukegan said after the eclipse ended Monday. "However, we still had fun and had a great time here."
Campbell and her husband, Bill, decided in February they would come south for the eclipse with their children, Ben, 9 and Susanna, 4. They booked a Carbondale house on Airbnb and got into town on Friday.
Helen and Charles Marks, from Springfield, dropped their daughter, McKenzie, off at SIU and then camped out at Giant City Park. They came to Saluki Stadium on Monday and looked in alarm at the approaching clouds.
"Since we didn't know what else to do, we just started waving our fans with everybody else," Helen Marks said. "We felt like we needed to do something."
During the build up to totality, the crowds were clapping and stomping their feet with excitement just as if there was a Saluki football game happening, and when they got those couple of seconds of hope, thousands of "oh's" and "ah's" floated through the stadium.
Did the influx of eclipse visitors to southern Illinois approach the anticipated 200,000 to 250,000? It's too soon to know, but if you were on the roads Monday afternoon you would swear there were ... and that they all were leaving at the same time.<object id="Extra Pictures" type="x-im/image" uuid="D5948CA2-19E9-412E-823A-17380178D597"><links><link rel="self" type="x-im/image" uri="im://image/D5948CA2-19E9-412E-823A-17380178D597.jpg" uuid="D5948CA2-19E9-412E-823A-17380178D597"><data><title><![CDATA[