It's dark! And it's the middle of the day!

Jacobs School students, faculty and staff members were among the hundreds of thousands of Americans who traveled to be in the path of totality (when the moon completely covers the sun) for the first total solar eclipse to cross the continental United States in 40 years. And they shared their pictures and videos with us.
Antonella Wilby, a Ph.D. student in computer science and robotics, left from Rosenburg, Oregon, at 3 a.m. to drive to the Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge, south of Salem, to see the eclipse.
She wrote:

This was my first time experiencing a total eclipse, and it really is true that a photo or a description does not do the experience justice. I'd read about the darkness, a sunset on every horizon, a sudden drop in temperature, but it is something that must be seen firsthand to truly be understood. While I had read that animals and birds would often go silent at the moment of totality, as the moon slipped into place in front of the sun the onlookers dotting the hills of the refuge erupted into cheers and applause, jumping up and down and turning in circles to fully experience the 2 minutes and 20 seconds of midday twilight that nature had gifted us. How incredible to be a part of this collective celebration of the beauty of nature.

She made this time lapse image of the total eclipse:

 Computer science professor Bill Griswold saw the eclipse in Victor, Idaho, just east of the Grand Teton National Park. He gave us permission to share these pictures from the event:

Staff member Ioana Patringenaru was vacationing with her family in Portland, Oregon. They left at 5 a.m. to drive to the small town of Stayton, just east of Salem. They arrived around 7:30 a.m. to find a small number of people from all around the nation camped out on folding chairs an blankets on a field in front of Regis High School, a private, Catholic campus. The field was conveniently located near a couple of grocery stores with public restrooms and coffee shops.
Cars with license plates from California and Oregon, as well as Nevada and even New Jersey, were parked curbside by the field. Some people had eclipse glasses. Others had fashioned pinhole viewers. A few people had professional-grade equipment. There was even one drone.
As totality approached, the air got colder and windy. Many went to fetch jackets from their car. Patringenaru only had her smart phone with her, so her still photographs couldn't quite capture the beauty of the event. But she caught on video the excitement of her youngest daughter, age 7.

"It's really happening! It's so dark. And it's the middle of the day!" she says.