Watching People Watch The Eclipse Was Part Of The Fun.

People watch Monday's solar eclipse at Burlington,
Vermont's waterfront park. 

Up here in Vermont, we didn't get a total eclipse of the sun yesterday. Just a partial one.

It was still neat, but of course not as wild as being in a total eclipse.

The most fun up here was watching people watch the eclipse.

I went down to Waterfront Park in Burlington to find a festive atmosphere as the eclipse got under way.

It was a hazy day, with smoke from Canadian forest fires giving a brassy hue to the light. As the eclipse progressed, obscuring up to 60 percent of the sun, the hazy blue sky took on a grayish tint.

A woman looks through a hastily made contraption to
view the solar eclipse Monday in Burlington, Vermont.

The brassy light became kind of a sickly yellow tan.

Sounds awful, but it was fun, as people in the park peered through eclipse glasses or watched the spectacle through home-made cardboard contraptions.

I didn't have either of those things, so I was content to duck under some trees, and watch the dappled sunlight that passed through the leaves of the trees form crescent shapes as the eclipse developed.

There was some of the inevitable price gouging. Somebody was selling eclipse glasses for $20 a pair at Waterfront Park.

As you can see from this post, people had a lot of fun. It was an excuse for an impromptu party.

An entrepreneur sells eclipse glasses
for $20 a pop in Burlington Monday

Scroll down for a couple more photos.  

A man enjoys the view of the solar eclipse,
safetly behind special glasses, at Waterfront
Park in Burlington, Vermont Monday