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Total Solar Eclipse Travels From Oregon To South Carolina

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And now another moment from today's total eclipse of the sun. Here are Carlyn (ph), Steven (ph) and 3-year-old Grace Meyer (ph) in Russellville, Ky.

CARLYN MEYER: For our 3-year-old we made a helmet. This helmet is an old Halloween mask that we put some solar filter paper in so she can just put on this helmet and look like a video game character who is protected from the sun.

GRACE: I am a video game. I'm a video game.

C. MEYER: Oh, it's like the sun is setting in every direction. This is so weird. I see - oh my, God (laughter). Grace, look. What does - what does that look like? What do you see?

GRACE: I see a cookie.

C. MEYER: It looks like a cookie (laughter)?

STEVEN MEYER: There was, like, a deep, instinctual fear for, like, that very first instant.

C. MEYER: Yeah.

S. MEYER: Like, something's wrong.

C. MEYER: Right.

GRACE: I wish I could, like, walk on the moon.

C. MEYER: Yeah. It's so tempting to keep looking right at it, but I know we can't do that.

S. MEYER: It's one of these things that people have experienced for millennia. And for most of that time, we didn't understand what it was. So it's, like, really exciting to experience this as just a novelty and not like a terrifying omen.

C. MEYER: Now that we're coming out of it, it's just like I'm looking at the people around us, and it's just like it's a new day and we've all experienced something really amazing together. And I just, like, can't stop staring at people instead of the sky. This is really amazing. All right, any final thoughts?

GRACE: I feel like I want to be a solar eclipse. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.