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08.22.2017 • $1.50

CHRIS LEE • clee@post-dispatch.com

The moon passes in front of the sun Monday near Perryville, Mo. This image was made with a combination of five separate photographs to increase the dynamic range of the picture.

OUR MOMENT IN THE SUN

BY VALERIE SCHREMP HAHN • St. Louis Post-Dispatch

D

ay turned into night and night turned into Monday again for the people of middle America, and millions who basked in totality underneath the moon and under the sun.

Anti-climactic? Hardly. Over too soon? Probably, for the people who had planned for this day for mere hours, or weeks or — in many cases — years.

Millions of total solar eclipse-watchers donned special glasses, used pinhole viewers or turned to other science tricks to watch the 70-mile-wide lunar parade route.

ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Clouds break Monday just long enough for a brief view of the total eclipse inside Saluki Stadium on the campus of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Predictions of clouds in a few local spots sparked an uneasy morning in places, and crowds jeered, then cheered as clouds blocked, then passed over the sun. On the western side of the state, viewing was a bust for some. In and around St. Joseph, Mo., storms and clouds blocked the view for most.

See ECLIPSE • Page A8

STLTODAY.COM/ECLIPSE • Images: From a packed stadium in Carbondale to a nudist resort in Franklin County • Enter our contest • FULL COVERAGE A5-A9

Trump revamps plan for Afghanistan

BY DAVID NAKAMURA AND ABBY PHILLIP Washington Post

President Donald Trump outlined on Monday a revised vision for the U.S. war in Afghanistan, pledging to end a strategy of “nation-building” and instead institute a policy aimed more squarely at addressing the terrorist threat that emanates from the region.

“I share the American people’s frus-

tration,” he said. “I also share their frustration over a foreign policy that has spent too much time, energy, money — and most importantly, lives — trying to rebuild countries in our own image instead of pursuing our security interests above all other considerations.”

But Trump provided few specifics about his new policy and how much the See TRUMP • Page A4

Lawyers: DNA evidence may clear death row inmate PAGE A3

TODAY

83°/63° CHANCE OF STORMS

Made in the shade

TOMORROW

80°/61° SUNNY

WEATHER A21 POST-DISPATCH WEATHERBIRD ®

Suspect in Barcelona attack killed

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Cards attempt to shore up rotation

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TOTAL ECLIPSE 2017

A6 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • M 1 • Tuesday • 08.22.2017

M 1 • Tuesday • 08.22.2017 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A7

ACROSS THE REGION, EVERYONE’S OVER THE MOON

CHRIS LEE • clee@post-dispatch.com

A composite image of eight pictures shows the phases of the total eclipse as the moon passes from right to left in front of the sun Monday near Perryville, Mo. Shot with an equivalent of an 800mm lens, the partial phases are single exposures. The center image of the total eclipse is made from multiple exposures that help show more detail of the sun’s corona around the moon.

JEFFERSON CITY • Joining NASA for the live broadcast in Missouri’s capital was Janet Kavandi, director of the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. The Springfield, Mo., native was selected as an astronaut in 1994 and logged more than 33 days in space, traveling more than 13.1 million miles in 535 Earth orbits.

Kavandi said there was no significant reason NASA picked Jefferson City, other than it was in the path of totality for the event.

“And it’s a really cool place,” she said.

For Kavandi, despite spending the equivalent of a month in space, the eclipse was a special occasion.

“I’ve seen a partial eclipse, but never a total solar eclipse,” Kavandi said. “It’s an unusual event.”

Many downtown streets were closed to accommodate visitors, and the city turned off street lights to enhance the viewing experience.

After a few remarks to attendees spread across the Capitol grounds, Gov. Eric Greitens attended a private viewing event at the governor’s mansion, situated on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River.

Most state workers in the capital city were given the day off to reduce congestion in the downtown business district. (Kurt Erickson)

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FESTUS • Eric Gustafson whooped, hollered and made a split-second decision when totality hit in Festus: Rather than mess with his cameras and telescopes, he stood and enjoyed it.

“During totality, cameras are great, but the human eye sees everything,” said Gustafson, a senior educator at St. Louis Science Center’s Planetarium. He had been talking about this eclipse in star shows for the last 16 years.

“For two minutes and 40 seconds of our lives,” he said afterward. “Totally worth it.”

(Valerie Schremp Hahn)

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ASHLAND, Mo. • At a tiny roadside park off U.S. 63, Vincent Mariano of Santa Fe, N.M., was doing a crossword puzzle in a chair next to his two cameras.

Mariano, 65, heard about the eclipse about a month ago as he was planning a trip to New Hampshire. He spent Sunday night at Lake of the Ozarks.

“I knew Ashland was dead center,” he said, “so I was actually going to look for a county road, but then I saw this park and stumbled on it.”

Picking one place to bet on a good shot of the eclipse can be a tough decision. But Mariano said he wasn’t anxious about his choice: “I’ve been doing photography all my life and I’ve learned that you either catch it or you don’t.” (Jack Suntrup)

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WELDON SPRING • The moment the diamond ring disappeared, Kathryn Colestock, 61, took off her glasses to view the total eclipse and fell to her knees.

“Oh, oh, oh, look at it!”

Colestock, a park ranger in Canyonlands National Park in Utah, drove seven hours from her home in Austin, Minn., to view totality.

She had been waiting for this day for a year.

“Otherworldly,” she said afterward, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Really, all adjectives fail to describe it.”

She joined about 200 others who chose to view the eclipse from atop a giant rockcovered cell created to entomb nuclear waste materials in St. Charles County.

Most folks don’t even think of the cell, known as the Weldon Spring Site, that way anymore. For many, it’s a challenging run, a scenic outlook, a curiosity. But on Monday, it was a perfect place to catch a total solar eclipse.

At 75 feet tall, the cell is the highest public spot in St. Charles County, perfect, many hoped, for viewing the horizon with its 360-degree sunset (the effect of the partial eclipse miles away).

The site got about a minute and a half of total coverage between 1:16 and 1:18 p.m.

(Amy Bertrand)

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CHESTERFIELD • “Awesome” became the day’s mantra, followed by a litany of superlatives.

John Malcolm of Findlay, Ohio, leaving the Chesterfield Amphitheater afterward, spoke for hundreds of people: All the hoopla, planning and anticipation was worth it.

“It was pretty awesome,” he said.

A hobbyist astrophysicist, he used the 90-second totality to survey the sky.

“That was the marvel,” he said. “You could see other planets. You could see Venus.” Yep. Just after 1:15 in the afternoon.

A couple of astrophysics graduate students and their groupies from Iowa State University sat beneath an expert’s tent and answered questions from anyone who cared to ask.

“The most common question?” Travis Yaeger, of Wausau, Wis., said. “It’s, ‘What is an eclipse?’ Yeah, amazing. ‘What’s an eclipse.’ ” (Harry Jackson)

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Carbondale Makanda

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STLTODAY.COM/ECLIPSE IMAGES FROM THE ECLIPSE

From a packed stadium in Carbondale to a nudist resort in Franklin County ENTER OUR CONTEST

Share your photos or videos

MORGAN TIMMS • mtimms@post-dispatch.com

JEFF ROBERSON • Associated Press

COLUMBIA, Mo. • As totality neared, one angler got a bite to remember.

“Right around totality was when the fish really started getting hungry,” said Tim Reinbott, who was monitoring his network of anglers who were spread out across area lakes. “They’re night-feeders. They felt it getting cooler, they felt the light going down, so they got active.”

One minute before totality, an angler hooked what was probably a large bass, Reinbott said.

“He was fightin’ this fish — fightin’ it and fightin’ it — and then it broke his line.”

Reinbott, assistant director of Mizzou’s agricultural research centers, helped lead eclipse-related studies from the South Farm Research Center. Researchers were also looking at chickens, horses, crops and other plants to see how they reacted.

Bethany Stone, professor of biological sciences, also coordinated some of the eclipse-related experiments. In one experiment, she studied how chloroplast in the cells of geraniums reacted to the change in lighting.

Stone said Monday’s experiments did not have a large enough sample size to draw any concrete conclusions. But further studies could help scientists understand how plants process light. (Jack Suntrup)

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LAURIE SKRIVAN • lskrivan@post-dispatch.com

Crescent shadows appear around the eclipse’s centerline Monday in Makanda, Ill.

In this multiple exposure photograph, the phases of a partial solar eclipse are seen Monday over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. The Arch was just a few miles outside of the path of totality.

BLOOMSDALE, Mo. • More than 250 people boarded four chartered buses at Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St. Louis at 7 a.m. Monday to travel 55 miles south to watch the eclipse in Bloomsdale, Mo., along with staff from St. Louis’ largest craft brewer.

Forecasts of possible cloudy skies didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of beer bus passengers, who paid $45 for transportation, a steady supply of beer, a BBQ lunch in Bloomsdale and eclipse glasses.

“We can’t control the weather, but we can control the beer,” Schlafly CEO James Pendegraft said.

Schlafly’s beer bus tour included travelers from across the country. Retired nurses Chris and Cindy Hall, both 66 and from San Diego, had planned a trip to Missouri to visit family when they found out it would coincide with the eclipse.

Chris Hall said he left his camera at home so he could fully experience the changing light and temperature. “We want to enjoy it and not miss it,” he said.

When the sky darkened just after 1:15 p.m., a hush fell over the crowd at the Dew Drop Inn at Bloomsdale. Some applauded.

“That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Cody Dirks, 27, who traveled to the St. Louis area from Chicago to watch the eclipse with high school friends. (Lisa Brown)

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Ray Behymer points out Venus to his wife, Dottie, during the solar eclipse Monday, from their front yard along the 1300 block of Riverview in Festus. Festus was in the path of totality for approximately 2 minutes and 36 seconds.

DAVID CARSON • dcarson@post-dispatch.com

Nancy Kolaz of Chesterfield looks up as the moon begins to blot out the sun at an eclipse viewing party at Chesterfield Amphitheater. More than 3,000 people showed up to watch the approximate 1 minute, 20 seconds of totality there.

HILLARY LEVIN • hlevin@post-dispatch.com

Caitlin Nahorski (left) of Glendale and her mother, Mary Mindel of Webster Groves, enjoy the start to the eclipse at the pool at the Webster Groves Recreation Center. The pool opened for special hours Monday for eclipse-watchers.

A8 • ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

TOTAL ECLIPSE 2017

M 1 • Tuesday • 08.22.2017

MIDWEST MARVEL ECLIPSE • FROM A1

The buildup surpassed massive, en route to monumental. The continental United States hadn’t seen a total solar eclipse since 1979, in the northwest; the last one in St. Louis was in 1442.

So people were ready. Oh-so-ready to celebrate.

“My mouth dropped. … My reaction was — it was incredible,” said David Fialkoff, 76, of Miami. He flew in to view the eclipse in Festus with his daughter and grandson, who are from Chicago.

He enjoyed swapping stories with strangers in the friendly crowd.

“I think the whole country is coming together for this event,” he said. “Maybe this is what we need.”

Nationally, the event was underway before noon as Americans gazed in wonder through telescopes, cameras and protective glasses as the moon began blotting out the midday sun. Totality reached cities in the St. Louis area by about 1:15 p.m.

Some cities prepared for months, putting emergency crews on deck and ensuring food, drink and portable restrooms for a crowd. They reported no major issues except for pockets of heavy traffic, mostly after the spectacle ended.

‘A WONDER OF NATURE’ In Carbondale, Ill., — eclipse central on Monday — the 15,000-seat football stadium at Southern Illinois University sold out. People spent from $25 a seat to, gulp, $10,000 for a 20-person suite to get an optimal view. Just outside the stadium, NASA hosted a four-hour live “Eclipse Megacast” that NASA TV, local stations and national networks aired.

Vehicles with license plates from states as far afield as Texas and Delaware parked in Jefferson City, one of seven communities chosen by NASA to broadcast the eclipse.

One of the Jefferson City spectators was Jennifer Pope, who drove the 10 hours from Minneapolis with her children for the eclipse. “It’s just a great opportunity to see a wonder of nature,” she said.

Gary Kasten was hoping to see it, too, through his $325 telescope he bought to pursue his lifelong love of star-gazing.

“I just hope I can figure out how to use it before the eclipse begins,” he said.

J.B. FORBES • jforbes@post-dispatch.com

Jim Caddell (left), 63, of Dallas watches the eclipse as it nears totality Monday at the Forty Acre Club, a nudist organization near Lonedell. More than 350 sun-worshippers, including visitors from France and London, arrived for weekend eclipse activities. Caddell said that Forty Acre was the only nudist club within the area of totality that he knew of.

He and his wife are on their way to the annual Burning Man festival in Nevada.

There was also a 52-foot rolling trailer museum to give visitors a chance to experience hands-on activities and educational displays including a moon rock artifact returned to Earth by the crew of the Apollo 17 lunar landing mission.

In Festus, Mayor Mike Cage stood in the park signing autographs for festival-goers.

He signed eclipse glasses for people from near and far. Very far.

“I was expecting Arkansas, Illinois, maybe Kansas. Not Chile, Taiwan and Poland,” Cage said.

Cage said about 3,000 people turned out at the park. “I left my house at 8 this morning, and I was in a traffic jam,” he said.

A Canadian couple’s trip to Festus was seven years in the making. Mark Humphrey and Hazel Brewer of Guelph, Ontario, drove into St. Louis on Sunday.

They booked their holiday as soon as they could, said Humphrey, 45.

Not because of some abiding interest in astronomy — just because they knew they couldn’t miss the event.

Though total solar eclipses hit any one

spot on earth once every 375 or so years, they happen somewhere on earth once every 18 months.

“It’s just fantastic,” Humphrey said, projecting an image of the partial eclipse from a pair of binoculars onto a piece of white card stock.

On the drive home, they plan to tour the states some more. “We’ll have to get a drink first,” he said, marveling at the midday, Midwestern heat.

‘JUST BOOM!’ Tim Reinbott was amazed by how quickly it happened. He is coordinating research for Mizzou on how the eclipse affects crops and livestock.

“It just happened just — boom! — like that,” he said. “You didn’t want to take your eyes off it.”

People who waited too long got shut out of one crucial component of an eclipse celebration — MoonPies.

Despite what other treat-makers may claim, people know the role of a MoonPie during a solar eclipse. In fact, this may be the MoonPie year: They’re celebrating

their 100th anniversary.

Angela Mitchell-Phillips waited too long to order from Amazon, which sold out of the solar treats. So she settled for cupcakes with sparkly navy blue frosting from McArthur’s Bakery for her eclipseviewing party in Wildwood.

If you attended a planned public event in the St. Louis area, it’s likely that the St. Louis Eclipse Task Force and its head, Don Ficken, planted the idea. They first started meeting in 2014 to educate the community about the eclipse. Where did Ficken watch Monday?

Well, he had planned on watching from his hometown of Festus. The chance for clouds in the forecast led him to change his plans. He and a friend drove all night to a Walmart parking lot in Springfield, Tenn.

So Ficken, three other men from the St. Louis Astronomical Society and 75 or so others watched it unfold. At totality, he lay back on a blanket with a pair of strong binoculars and enjoyed it.

He got 2 minutes, 35 seconds of totality in Tennessee. In Festus, he would have gotten one second more.

“We did the right thing, based on the info we had,” he said.

Soon enough, he might call a meeting of the task force to share stories and debrief.

But he’s excited about the future for another reason. The next total solar eclipse is on April 8, 2024. It won’t hit St. Louis, but it will cross southeastern Missouri and Southern Illinois.

Monday was just the beginning, Ficken said.

“Somewhere out of this, there will be a few kids who go into science because they loved what was going on today.”

At Edgar Road Elementary School in Webster Groves, children, teachers and parents watched the show from the soccer field. After it was all over, they broke into applause.

And, from the back of the crowd, a child yelled: “Thank you!”

Lisa Brown, Ashley Jost, Kristen Taketa, Jack Suntrup, Colleen Schrappen, Celeste Bott, Doug Moore, Amy Bertrand, Harry Jackson, Kurt Erickson, Amanda St. Amand, Robert Patrick and Aisha Sultan of the PostDispatch contributed to this report.

Valerie Schremp Hahn • 314-340-8246 @valeriehahn on Twitter vhahn@post-dispatch.com

Phenomenon makes science an easy sell for pupils ‌

BY KRISTEN TAKETA St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WILDWOOD • Fairway Elementary students lay out on the grass with beach towels. Several parents came to watch the eclipse with their children, and to make sure they kept their glasses on.

In the seconds before and during the total solar eclipse, hundreds of children started shouting, clapping, jumping up and down, running and pointing at the sun’s corona peeking out from behind the moon. If the locusts were chirping, as they were expected to, they couldn’t be heard under the excited screams of children.

“I was going to explode,” said Abbie LeClere, a Fairway fourth-grader, who said she was screaming during the entire total eclipse.

At least for one day, the event helped spur and strengthen a love for science, several students said after the eclipse.

“I do science, so I can see cool stuff” like the eclipse, said Sam Jerauld, a fifthgrader at Fairway. He and his friends were running around on the field and practicing “jumping into another dimension” during and after the eclipse.

The excitement overtook the school in the Rockwood district hours before totality.

PHOTO BY SID HASTINGS

Second-graders (from left) Anna Subasic, Riley Deerickson and Nelson Quintanilla watch the eclipse Monday outside Oakville Elementary in south St. Louis County. The school held a day of activities related to the eclipse, including studying phases of the moon.

Faculty at Fairway began rolling out the school’s eclipse plans in the morning.

Teacher Anna Marie White spent time

instructing this year’s fresh crop of kindergarten pupils on how to properly wear eclipse glasses, kneeling on the classroom

floor as they huddled in a circle around her.

In a field behind the school, a chorus of “whoa” and “ah” broke out when a group of second-graders looked at the sun through their eclipse glasses for the first time.

It was a mid-morning practice to get the children ready for Monday afternoon’s big show — a brief but potent lesson on the solar system.

Fairway, like many schools in the region, had spent hours of preparation seeking to ensure that students experience the total solar eclipse in an orderly and safe manner. Others schools opted to call off school entirely, with some citing the liability concerns of retina damage should children not follow instructions on safe viewing.

Many schools that chose to hold classes on Monday offered opt-out forms or permission slips for parents who would rather have their children stay indoors during the eclipse. Out of Fairway’s 445 students, 16 did not see the eclipse outside because their parents opted them out of the viewing. They were offered a livestream instead. ​Kristen Taketa @Kristen_Taketa on Twitter ktaketa@post-dispatch.com

Narration, imagination paint eclipse for those without sight‌

BY DOUG MOORE St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • An hour before totality,

Naomi Soule arrived at the eclipse party Monday with the help of her dog, Farbee.

“Who’s at this table?” she said, working the community room of the Missouri Council of the Blind in south St. Louis.

Soule, 61, was ready to experience the eclipse, although she would not be able to see it. Instead, she would join about 25 other visually impaired and blind people for a “watch and listen” party.

The majority of those attending wore headsets as Bill Wilcox, a volunteer with MindsEye, shared trivia about the eclipse, then did a play-by-play of the action in the sky.

“The moon is continuing to slide across the sun,” Wilcox said, standing on the council’s small asphalt parking lot, his voice streaming through MindsEye’s website and live on Facebook. “It’s now a fairly small crescent. Still kind of an orange and peachy color, which is kind of cool.”

Soule grew up with some sight in her right eye. But in college, the retina detached, leaving her completely blind. So she planned to use recollections, imagination and the descriptions by Wilcox to experience the eclipse.

“I have good visual memory,” she said.

About half of those who attended opted to stay inside, where they could listen to Wilcox and enjoy the air conditioning.

Chuck Smith, 53, has limited vision, good enough to see the eclipse through

RENE DELGADILLO • rdelgadillo@post-dispatch.com

Leonard Gross listens to an audio description of the total solar eclipse Monday outside the Missouri Council of the Blind in St. Louis. Bill Wilcox, a trained audio describer and volunteer with MindsEye, gave visually impaired people a play-by-play of the event.

STLTODAY.COM/PODCASTS Listen to an audio description of the eclipse the special glasses passed out to safeguard eyes but not well enough to make out details of a face.

“My brother called to tell me about this event and asked if I wanted to come. I told him: ‘I’m not going to go and look directly at the sun or I’ll go blind.’ I was being a smart ass,” said Smith, of Crestwood. He came to the party with his partner, Janet

Shobe, 58, who opted to stay inside during the eclipse. Diabetes took her sight about nine years ago. Still, she said it was worth attending.

“The description was perfect,” Shobe said, as she and others ate Ted Drewes custard as an after-eclipse dessert.

“It was amazing,” Smith said. “I thought it would be darker. It was more like twi-

light, which I thought was neat.”

Jack Meier, 67, came to St. Louis from Fresno, Calif., to experience the eclipse with his longtime friend, Nancy Lynn, 64.

“It was really something,” he said.

Meier, who has about 10 percent of his vision, took photos with a small orange camera while wearing a Cardinals cap.

As the moon covered the sun, the street lights came on. Wilcox had to take a few short breaks in his sports announcer cadence to let an ambulance pass on Chippewa Street and a trash truck rumble by in the alley. His audience in the parking lot didn’t seem to mind.

As totality neared, Soule said she could feel the change in the air.

“I could tell the temperature dropped a little bit, the heat of the sun disappeared and I could hear the cicadas getting louder and louder,” Soule said. She said she would have liked more descriptions of the colors in the sky. Before she lost her sight, she was an artist. Hues and contrasts are important details, she said.

Soule’s husband, Terry Moses, who is sighted, joined her for the event, which included a fried chicken lunch. But he did not look skyward. Although the glasses given out were certified as safe, Moses said he was too scared to partake, worried that even a glance or two at the sun could damage his vision. But he wanted to be by his wife as she experienced the eclipse.

“I’m glad I did it for her.”

Doug Moore • 314-340-8125 @dougwmoore on Twitter dmoore@post-dispatch.com

08.22.2017 • Tuesday • M 1

TOTAL ECLIPSE 2017

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH • A9

CLOUDY CROSSROADS

PHOTOS BY ROBERT COHEN • rcohen@post-dispatch.com

Saluki cheerleaders try out eclipse glasses Monday that they were giving out to visitors to Saluki Stadium on the campus of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Carbondale crowd delights in sky despite some billows

BY ASHLEY JOST St. Louis Post-Dispatch

C ARBONDALE , ILL .

• Last-minute clouds

couldn’t dampen the eclipse excitement of the tens of thousands of people gathered inside and around Saluki Stadium in Carbondale on Monday.

This Southern Illinois town had among the longest durations of totality in the country at 2 minutes and 38 seconds and expected some 50,000 spectators.

Saluki Stadium — the 15,000-seat football field at Southern Illinois University Carbondale — sold out tickets for its eclipse event. Tickets ranged from $25 to $10,000 for a 20-person suite.

Minutes from totality, the mostly covered sun peeked through an opening in the dark clouds over the crowd. It was clear skies 20 minutes before, and shortly again thereafter.

Still, the packed stadium got to experience the darkness — and the temperature — fall.

“Oh, I loved it,” Los Angeles resident Malika Pizzo said, beaming while she continued to look up at the sun through her eclipse glasses a few minutes after totality.

Pizzo and her friends flew last-minute from Los Angeles to Chicago, and drove down to Carbondale during the middle of the night.

“The change of light was beautiful,” said Pizzo’s traveling companion, Evelyne Joan, in a thick French accent.

Despite the exhaustion of overnight travel,

The eclipse approaches totality Monday above the campus of SIUC. People from across the country flocked to the university’s stadium, which sold tickets from $25 to $10,000 for a 20-person suite.

they all agreed they were revived by the excitement of the eclipse.

A tempered version of the excitement continued on in the stadium after totality, though most people packed up to leave.

SIU System President Randy Dunn watched from the roof of the press box, as did Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Dunn joked about the cloud coverage creating some frustration from the get-go, but like everyone else, he was grateful for some clearance at the last second.

“The level of exposure and visibility this has given our campus, I promise we couldn’t have purchased with $50 million,” he said.

T h e re we re S I Uthemed eclipse glasses, fans and T-shirts all across the crowds of people.

Just steps from the stadium, NASA broadcast a live four-hour “Eclipse Megacast” for NASA TV, local stations and national networks.

Cheryl Hidalgo got her two grandchildren and husband up at 4 a.m.

Monday to leave St. Louis and drive to the stadium.

The family drove in from Williamston, Mich., and stayed in St. Louis for two nights, sightseeing during the day. The hotel room rates were doubled, but it was worth it, she said.

“Anything is always better if you can bring the grandkids,” she said.

Ashley Jost • 314-340-8169 @ajost on Twitter ajost@post-dispatch.com

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner implores the clouds to part as they block views of the eclipse on the SIUC campus. The 15,000-seat Saluki Stadium sold out for the viewing event Monday.

ABOVE • Rick Crosslin (left), scientist-in-residence for the Wayne Township Metropolitan School District in Indianapolis, has Quincy Schultz, 9, hold a model of the moon as Crosslin teaches Quincy and Jaycee Abner, 10, at Saluki Stadium about the moon’s rotation around the Earth before the eclipse begins.

UPPER RIGHT • Ginny Bader (left) of Mesa, Ariz., and Grace Garcia of San Antonio apply sunscreen from gallon jugs Monday at the stadium in Carbondale, Ill. “We don’t even have buckets of sunscreen in San Antonio, and it was 102 degrees when we left,” Garcia said.

LOWER RIGHT • An unidentified woman takes a nap as people line up to enter Saluki Stadium for eclipse festivities at SIUC. Carbondale, in Southern Illinois, had among the longest durations of totality in the country at 2 minutes and 38 seconds. NASA broadcast a live “Eclipse Megacast” just outside the stadium.