Hundreds gather at The Grace Museum to watch the eclipse

ABILENE, Texas — The moon and the sun lined up perfectly just to our east Monday afternoon, creating a total solar eclipse - a phenomenon the Big Country got to experience.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Grace Museum to watch the solar eclipse.

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"A one out of 10 scale, I think it would be a ten," said Ezekiel Newby.

Newby dreams of being an astronaut and came out to experience the eclipse with his dad, Travis Newby.

"I definitely will not be around for the next one so being able to experience it with him is awesome," said Newby.

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Many people across the country got to experience an eclipse for the first time and were excited for it.

"To see the total darkness. I just can’t get over that," said Leslie Gardner.

Leslie Gardner and Brenda Frazier have been best friends for more than 50 years and watching the eclipse is just one more thing they're able to experience together.

"It means a lot to do things like this with her because we both lived a lot of different places and we’re back at home," said Frazier.

Many people took the day off to experience the eclipse, while others like homeschool teacher Marnie Fangio, brought her job to the museum.

"Science sometimes is really easy and sometimes with something like a solar event or stars it’s really far out there for them," said Fangio. "To have an event like this that we can take them to where it’s directly applicable to what they’re learning in school is really cool for them."

The next solar eclipse in our area is not expected until after the year 3000.

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