View to a thrill: Tri-Cities look to the sky for solar eclipse

From Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to the Port of Pasco’s Osprey Pointe, from the top of Badger Mountain to the observatory and planetarium at Columbia Basin College, people across the Tri-Cities staked out spots, sported glasses — store-bought and handmade — and looked to the sky for Monday’s solar eclipse.

For many, eclipse viewing was a family affair.

Bryan and Rhonda Colley, who both work at PNNL in Richland, brought their children, Garret, 11, and Trista, 9, to the lab’s campus for the celestial event.

The kids were excited. Trista, a fourth-grader, bounded back and forth between her family and a lab worker setting up a telescope. Garret, a sixth-grader, did research in advance to make sure he was prepared.

“I can’t wait until it gets dark,” he said.

The Colleys were among the hundreds of PNNL employees and relatives who gathered outside Battelle Auditorium for the eclipse.

Joe Ortega, a lab electrician, arrived early in hopes of snagging one of the 150 pairs of eclipse glasses the lab was handing out.

“I figure this is the one chance I’m going to have in my lifetime to actually view a live solar eclipse like this,” he said.

Linda Carr, a quality engineer in nuclear chemistry at the lab, also arrived early to secure glasses for herself and her mom, Nellie Martenson.

Like Ortega, she said she was seizing the moment — not banking on being able to catch another eclipse in the future.

She came prepared, bringing a homemade pinhole projector fashioned from a cereal box, paper and aluminum foil.

At Osprey Pointe, a playlist including Black Hole Sun, Here Comes the Sun and Sunglasses at Night serenaded the approximately 1,000 people who packed the riverfront.

People started lining up at 6:30 a.m. to get their hands on one of 800 free solar glasses, which were gone before the Total Eclipse of the Port event started at 9 a.m.

However, people made friends with strangers and shared their glasses so everyone could get a glimpse of the rare phenomenon.

Amelia Reams of Kennewick and her daughter, Sierra, were a little nervous when they arrived at 8:15 a.m. and saw a long line.

But the mother and daughter snagged a pair of glasses, which Sierra used as a lens filter so she could zoom in on the eclipse with her Nikon camera.

“We are here to make some memories before my daughter goes to college for her freshman year at Yakima Valley Community College,” said Amelia Reams. “So far (the eclipse) is looking like a fingernail, that’s what we call it. It’s getting there.”

Bob Posey of Kennewick and his 10-year-old son, Blayke, set up their lawn chairs farther down along the river so they could get some shade and avoid the crowds.

Posey said they made a point of coming out because his son “likes science stuff” and might get extra credit for school by reporting on the experience.

“I’ve never seen it before,” said Blayke. “I’m excited to see what it looks like.”

“The final product,” added dad, who said the eclipse looked like Pacman in the early stages.

As a sliver of the sun was all that was visible with near totality, Ellie Ross of Kennewick compared it to the Cheshire Cat’s distinctive grin in Alice in Wonderland.

“This is so darn cool,” said Sue Graves of Kennewick, moments later when a dark shadow was cast over the riverfront at 10:26 a.m.

Peter Swanberg, 10, made three pinhole projectors out of a cereal box, shoe box and a box big enough to go over the head.

The Pasco boy who aspires to be an engineer did it Sunday for his mother, Stephanie Swanberg, and sisters, just in case the port ran out of solar glasses.

“We would still have some safe way to look at the eclipse, although not directly at it,” he said.

Other eclipse-viewers climbed higher toward the sky, with a crowd gathering at the top of Badger Mountain in Richland.

At Columbia Basin College in Pasco, thousands gathered outside the Bechtel National Planetarium and Moore Observatory to watch the eclipse.

Kristy Henscheid, planetarium director, said she was happy to see so many people interested in the event.

The college also had about 800 glasses to hand out, and by 9 a.m. a long line for the special eyeware snaked around a gravel parking lot.

Roy Gephart, a retired scientist, had a sandwich bag with eclipse viewers he bought four or five years ago, and he handed them out to people who didn’t have their own glasses.

The eclipse on Monday was Gephart’s third. His first was the total eclipse that came through the Tri-Cities in 1979. The second was in Hawaii, where it clouded up a few minutes before the sun was covered.

Witnessing the celestial event is a memorable experience, he said.

As the moon moved across the sun on Monday morning, Gephart noted how air became cooler and the light dimmed.

The crowd at CBC quieted, craning their heads toward the sky. Toward something special.

“They witnessed something for those two minutes of their life that they will never forget,” Gephart said.

This story was originally published August 21, 2017 at 5:20 PM with the headline "View to a thrill: Tri-Cities look to the sky for solar eclipse."