The total solar eclipse that swept across North America in 2017 was a spectacle rarely witnessed in the U.S., and millions of Americans crammed themselves into the narrow band of totality where the silhouette of the moon perfectly blocks the sun's disk in the sky.
I was not among them. While I'm tempted to blame my mother, who didn't want to make the trip from Wilmington, North Carolina, down to Charleston, South Carolina, to be in the path of totality, I only have myself to blame. I didn't appreciate the difference that just a few miles can make when it comes to a solar eclipse.
