Heaven Put on its Miraculous Solar Eclipse Monday
News August 21, 2017TOCCOA, Ga. – At precisely 2:36 p.m. the oohs and aahs started as a brilliantly sunny day turned to night, stars lit the sky, street lights came on and Heaven put on the miraculous, three-minute solar eclipse some people drove more than a thousand miles to witness.
Having heard the horror stories of major traffic jams heading to the north Georgia mountains Monday, we left my home before daylight and made our way to tiny Toccoa Falls College to be in the path of totality and experience the incredible show.
Surprisingly Hwy. 365/441 was virtually deserted. So we arrived long before the big event. When we did arrive the parking lots were empty and for a while we wondered if we were in the wrong place.
We had hoped to drive to the waterfall, but a friendly security guard, Kaylee Andrews informed us the falls would be closed for the day due to safety concerns but we were welcome to use one of several parking lots.
We took a walking tour of the scenic campus and it wasn’t long before people began arriving and license plates from New Jersey, Idaho, Oregon, Florida, North and South Carolina could be seen.
Andrews said reports she had seen indicated as many as 70,000 people were expected in Toccoa. Several thousand, she said, would be on campus. It looked like less than 1,000 arrived on campus, but as we left Toccoa, we began to believe the 70,000 estimate could have been accurate. What had been a 40-minute drive to Toccoa turned into a two-and-a-half hour, bumper-to-bumper journey home.
The eclipse was everything it was built up to be. Our small group included Shawn McGrady, his son Michael and his son’s wife Kristy. We would have had enough eclipse glasses had Shawn not forgotten they were in his pants when he put them through the washing machine the night before. Instead, we took turns viewing the miracle.
And it was a miracle. Everyone was in awe as the moon began to sweep in front of the sun. Eventually the journey was complete and the sun was blocked out and the night fell upon the people gathered there and they began to cheer and applaud.
The couple we found that drove the farthest from their home was Chris Volz and his wife Yvette who traveled all the way from New Jersey, a 12-and-a-half hour drive.
“We really wanted to be in the path of totality,” Bob Volz said. “So we drove to Athens last night, stayed there and drove to Toccoa this morning.”
Of course there were many folks from various towns in Georgia like Denis O’Hare and Jackie McMurry from Brookhaven.
“We drove from Brookhaven last night and stayed at his lake home in Gainesville because we were afraid of the traffic” McMurry said. “I told him I didn’t want to talk about traffic until we got here. Then we got here and I was like wow that didn’t take long.”
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