Words almost fail me as to how to describe the solar eclipse! It was truly spectacular, amazing and incredible, and I am so glad that Mike re-worked the entire road trip to facilitate our being here in Paducah, Kentucky with the DeCillis family to experience first-hand this spectacular event!

Among our fellow eclipsers was Jim Petterman, a highly talented photographer who spent the entire time hidden behind his monstrous camera recording every minute change in the sun as it became hidden by the moon, and every move made by his fellow eclipsers!

Being of a generous disposition, Jim very kindly gave me a copy of all the images he had taken and so, for the next 72 blogs I will be sharing his work! HA!!

Here are just a few of his incredible pictures to capture your imagination.

Today’s eclipse is particularly special because the narrow path of totality spans a diagonal line across America from Oregon to South Carolina where totality describes the brief moment when the moon is completely in front of the sun and only the sun’s corona will shimmer in the darkened sky.

Kentucky experiences the longest eclipse duration and Paducah, where we are staying, is part of a narrow path in which the total solar eclipse will last for two minutes and 21 seconds!  The entire process from when the eclipse begins to when the moon no longer blocks the sun takes around three hours.

During Mike’s career, he had the opportunity to work with the DeCillis brothers – Jim and Tom – who, on retiring, settled in Paducah along with their brother, Mum & Dad, and cousin. It was with the extended DeCillis family that we are able to enjoy a party at Jim’s house which has a roof-top patio and a perfect view of the eclipse.

Jim is a master of detail “extraordinaire” and he set everything up for the party with food (moon pies, Blue Moon beer), eclipse glasses, custom T-shirts and of course, music from Pink Floyd’s album “Dark Side of the Moon” including the track “Eclipse.” We had a blast!

Poppy wearing her eclipse glasses!

Above. before the eclipse, from left: Tom DeCillis, Mike, Jim DeCillis.

Below, after the eclipse!

The Paducah Eclipsers! Back row, from left: Phil Fetterman, Mike, Jim DeCillis, Chris, Doris DeCillis, Pat DeCillis, Daryl Schaefer, Jim Schaefer, Tom DeCillis. Front row, from left: Patrick DeCillis, Me and Miss Poppy!

We head out of Joliet, Illinois and travel some 350 miles to Paducah, Kentucky in preparation for viewing the Great American Eclipse tomorrow!

Illinois is flat. Flat as a pancake for mile, after mile, after mile. Far from being dull and uninteresting, the landscape is beautiful. Fields of corn stand six feet tall, laden with husks ready for harvesting, and like the flatness, they too stretch for miles as far as the eye can see in every direction.

Every so often there is a break in the height of the crops as the farmers alternate with soya beans allowing the soil to regenerate its richness. The earth in Illinois is among the richest in the world as a result of receding glaciers which once covered the state. As they receded, the state was left covered with rich, black earth perfect to producing abundant crops.

Peppered in-between the corn crops is a sight that makes my heart sing, wind turbines, spinning gracefully in the always present breeze and generating a cash crop for the farmers on whose land they sit.

Well-kept farm houses with their corn stores and fir trees to keep the snow away in winter dot the side of the highway, and pretty small towns with white facades pop-up along our journey to Kentucky. It was a beautiful drive!

The Illinois landscape.

There is nothing like a family gathering and today we celebrated time together with the Chicago-based Krywanios aged sixteen months and over!

Here’s the family run down of who’s who:

• Ron Krywanio (Mike’s brother) and his wife Shari
• Eamon, Dawn, Isabella and Eli Albee (Dawn is Ron’s daughter)
• Kevin, Kristy & Kody Richardson (Kristy is Ron’s youngest daughter)
• Bonnie Krywanio (Mother of Dawn and Kristy)
• Marcie (Shari’s daughter)

What a wonderful time we had eating great Chicago pizza, drinking 312 a local brew named after the area telephone code for the city, and eating fantastic desserts prepared by Dawn, who together with her husband Eamon, kindly hosted the family party.

And, most unexpectedly, entertainment too … a magic show and singing and dancing provided by Taylor Swift and Elton John aka Isabella and Eli! Oh my, what a talented duo – two young performers in the making who certainly drew admiration and applause from their audience!

Click on each photo to see the caption!

From left: Chris, Kristy, Mike, Dawn, me.

A Dad and two of his girls! From left: Dawn, Ron & Kristy.

Cutie pants Kody with gorgeous twinkling eyes!

The Birthday Boys: Mike (Friday), Eamon (today).

From left: Shari, Marcie, Kevin & Ron.

Sir Elton & Taylor Swift aka Eli and Isabella.

Bonnie.

For a mid-sized town some 40 miles southwest of Chicago, Joliet certainly has an interesting side to it!

The old Joliet Prison, near the downtown district, was used as the backdrop for the opening scenes of the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers” starring John Belushi as “Joliet” Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues.

Bob Dylan’s “Percy’s Song” tells the story of a fatal car crash and a subsequent manslaughter conviction and 99-year sentence in the Joliet Prison that is handed down to the driver, a friend of the first-person narrator. The narrator goes to ask the sentencing judge to commute his friend’s sentence which he considers too harsh. The sentence stands. The song, an outtake from the sessions that produced Dylan’s album “The Times They Are a-Changin” has been covered several times.

And, the Rialto Square Theatre was a favourite haunt of Al Capone! Oliva Newton John will be performing there next weekend!

The opening scenes of “The Blues Brothers” were filmed at the Joliet Prison in Illinois!

Today we visited Resurrection Mausoleum in Resurrection Cemetery, Justice, Illinois to pay our respects to Mike’s parents – Michael & Catherine Krywanio – who are interred here.

The mausoleum is breathtakingly beautiful. It covers three floors with space for over 5,000 entombments and with a permanent staff on-hand, it is very well maintained. What gives it such a calm and peaceful atmosphere, is that it hosts the world’s largest stained glass window which encloses the mausoleum. The window is floor-to-ceiling on each level around the entire building enabling light to flood in creating a very serene environment inside. There are settees and chairs at appropriate places in each section of the mausoleum where visitors can sit and contemplate the lives of their loved ones.

Resurrection Cemetery is also home to a famous ghost – Resurrection Mary! The story goes that Mary had spent the evening dancing with her boyfriend. At some point, they got into an argument and Mary stormed out. Even though it was a cold winter’s night, she thought she would rather face a cold walk home than spend another minute with her boyfriend.

She left the ballroom and started walking up Archer Avenue. She had not gone very far when she was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver, who fled the scene leaving Mary to die. Her parents found her and were grief-stricken at the sight of her dead body. They buried her in Resurrection Cemetery, wearing a beautiful white dancing dress and shoes.

Since the 1930s, several men driving northeast along Archer Avenue between the Willowbrook Ballroom and Resurrection Cemetery have reported picking up a young female hitchhiker. The young woman is dressed somewhat formally in a white party dress. When the driver nears Resurrection Cemetery, the young woman asks to be let out and promptly disappears into the cemetery!

Resurrection Cemetery which was dedicated in 1956.

One floor of the magnificent stained glass window.

Our 300-mile journey from Wisconsin to Joliet, Illinois (about 40 miles southwest of Chicago) was a tough one through the centre of the city in pouring rain, heavy road construction, horrendous rush-hour traffic, toll roads, two accidents and all against the clock to get to an RV park where the office closed at 7 p.m.

Taking the motor home through toll roads will be, in future, avoided at all costs! Maneuvering a 40-foot beast with a jeep behind, across four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic, squeezing through narrow toll lanes and having to scramble to find the right coinage to pay for the privilege of using the road, was, at times, harrowing. That, and as is always the case, no one wants to let you in and everyone wants to get in front of you! All kudos to Captain Mike for a stellar performance behind the wheel with only a few un-repeatable utterances!

At 6:59 p.m. we could see the RV park where we were scheduled to stay for four nights but it was at this moment that the GPS system decided to have a “senior moment” and take us around in circles! We called the park and the owner informed us that it was now 7 p.m., that the office was closed and we had to go elsewhere whereby he hung up! I guess he’ll have to retake the customer service course one more time! Mike always had a bad feeling about this park as no credit card information was taken, no confirmation number was given, and one reviewer on the website complained about how difficult and uncompromising the owner had been during her stay, how right she was!

Fortunately for us, there is a second RV park in Joliet which could accommodate us and which has a casino, offers a free breakfast in its hotel and has lovely grounds in which to walk Miss Poppy!

Sorry about the poor photograph but I took this skyline picture of Chicago today from the back of the jeep through the grubby car window!

After a week here in Door County, Wisconsin, it’s time to head to the next stop and one day closer to the solar eclipse around which this entire road-trip has been built!

Uncle Mike left us today and headed home to Chicago. He certainly left a big impression on Miss Poppy who was sitting on his lap almost immediately after first introductions (not how she has been raised)! Seriously, it was fun to see the two of them together especially when we were out walking in the forest and Uncle Mike was being pulled along on his first squirrel hunting mission!

We head out on our farewell tour starting with lunch at Wilson’s Sundae parlor in Ephraim which opened in 1906 solely selling ice creams and sundaes. It now offers a lunch menu and is immaculately kept with small booths for four people, art deco styled lights, a working jukebox and, of course, ice creams!

Onwards to Gills Rock where you can catch a ferry to Washington Island located about seven miles northeast of the tip of Door Peninsula. The island’s economy is based on tourism which supports a population of around 700 people.

Mike and I are truly enamored with the beauty of Door County, the relaxed environment and the summer weather – no humidity, few bugs, enjoyable temperatures and individually managed and owned shops and restaurants. We love the Birch trees that populate the forests, and the Black-eyed Susan perennials that adorn most Door County gardens.

Our conversation has veered towards buying a property and we have even taken a sneaky, roadside look at some homes! I think what really gets us is the winter and neither of us understand how you would live in a predominantly summer vacation area during four months of dark snow-bound days!

Black-eyed Susan plants bring a flash of colour to gardens in Door County.

Peninsular State Park covers over 3,500 acres including eight miles of Green Bay shoreline in Fish Creek, Wisconsin where an estimated one million visitors annually enjoy the park’s extensive camp grounds, scenic trails and beautiful views and sunsets.

On the edge of the park is the “Not Yet Licked Frozen Custard” parlor where you can buy a sweet treat and sit by the water and watch ducks do their wonderful and crazy stuff. A note here to my English friends, frozen custard is not want you think! It is not some weird take on Bird’s Eye custard as we know it, but a form of ice cream like Mr. Whippy!

For years and years, I believed that frozen custard was a strange American treat that only being born in the USA you could appreciate, like iced-tea and peanut and jelly sandwiches! How wrong could I be and how many years of ice-cream eating did I miss!

We also bought bags of duck food (which turned out to be popcorn) to get our feathered friends to perform! And boy, did we four grown-ups have fun feeding the ducks!

Such simple pleasures in life – feeding the ducks!

Poppy and I are now dealing with three Mikes in the motor home. Treble the trouble! Boys, beers and setting things on fire, and they are in heaven!

From left: Stepson Chris (he is now known as Mike), Mike Neary (we call him Uncle Mike), Miss Poppy and Mike enjoying the sunshine (and the beer) at the newly opened Door County craft brewery in Bailey’s Harbor, Wisconsin. We met the owner who looks like one of the ZZ top band members and who went to the same university where Chris is at school.

Uncle Mike making some kindling for the fire. The Mikes were at high school together and have been close friends ever since. Uncle Mike is one of our travel companions and has been all over the world with us. He is with us for a couple of days before heading home to Chicago.

Father and son discussing the finer things in life! Here at the RV camp each site has its own picnic table and fire pit. You buy the fire wood from the camp’s store and it is a popular evening event to get a fire going and sit and enjoy it!