Picture Story, an idea inspired by Bobby Hawthorne. Every person has a story. In order to be able to tell other people’s stories, a journalist must be able to tell his own. We asked our new staff take a picture that they hold dear, whether they took it, or someone they knew did and write the story behind the image.

Eclipses aren’t worth the hype. If you think that the sky suddenly becoming dark for a few minutes is the coolest thing to happen in your lifetime, then your life is really boring. Eclipses are pretty neat though, and they’re a really cool visual. This summer a massive solar eclipse happened across the country and we were invited to Lebanon, Tennessee by my great-uncle and great-aunt to view it. We left a day before the eclipse, and I thought: Why are we doing this? It was 5:00 a.m. and probably darker out then it would be with the eclipse, anyway.

    As much as I wanted to sleep, my eyes refused to shut; my attitude toward this trip slowly got worse and worse. Now if I had been in rational, non-tired mode, I would have been excited for the trip. I would have been happy to see my various relatives who were going to view the eclipse. I would have been bursting with happiness since we were going to see the nicest people in the world, my great-uncle Mike, and my great-aunt Noreen. There were so many reasons to be ecstatic about this trip, but I couldn’t think of any of them as my head bounced off the car window.

      After fours hours straight of being stuck in a car, we finally stopped to stretch our legs. I grabbed my wallet and gave up any chances of getting sleep during the car ride. You wouldn’t think that cheap coffee at a smelly gas station would light up your spirits or make you think about the fun times ahead, but for some reason it did. Maybe it was the gorgeous view of The Huggybear Motel across the road, or maybe it was the bright smile of the black-toothed women at the counter, regardless I had a much brighter mood for the rest of the trip.

     While we knew we still had a long trip ahead of us, I started to appreciate the trip more as my family became awake enough to talk, and I was given more time to think about our destination. Some 10 hours, several GPS relocations, and one possibly raw burger from a really shady Wendy’s later we arrived at the party. We all said our necessary greeting to the people crashing there, but we all crashed one by one, within the next 2 hours.

      At 1 p.m. the next day, we put on our safety glasses, and stared at the rapidly disappearing sun. It was really incredible. It was like the day had jumped ahead eight hours. We all were taking pictures, and going “woah.” We stretched our necks to try to get a look. The temperature dropped a few degrees, and the light disappeared. While the eclipse had always been the part of the trip I cared the least about, I think I will always remember it. In the 6 minutes when the light disappeared, everyone who had come to view the eclipse was blown away. It didn’t matter that half this people would get stuck in 20 hour traffic trying to rush back to Michigan. It didn’t matter that we would have hours of Indiana’s horrible highways that whistle when you drive on them ahead of us. It didn’t even matter that we would only get to stay for one more day, because at that moment we were united by a something that looked really cool.