COLUMBUS – In Cleveland, baseball fans watched the skies before the Guardians’ first home game. In Tiffin, hundreds of people gathered to say their wedding vows as the sun went behind the moon. And, in Indian Lake, people gathered within sight of buildings demolished by last month’s tornado to watch a more benign natural event.
More than 3.5 million people were expected to travel to the path of Monday’s total solar eclipse, joining the 31 million people already living along the stretch in Ohio and elsewhere.
It was predicted that those eclipse watchers would spend about $1.6 billion on housing, food, and gas, according to one economic consultancy company.
It was North America’s biggest eclipse crowd ever, thanks to the densely populated path. Cloud cover threatened to spoil the view in some places, especially in parts of Texas, but the skies cleared with minutes to spare. One place that got stuck with clouds: Niagara Falls, New York.
During a total solar eclipse, the moon passes in front of the sun and blocks the sunlight for a few minutes.
There won’t be another coast-to-coast spectacle on the continent until 2045.
Nearly 150 couples from eight states traveled to Tiffin, in northwest Ohio, to get married during the Elope at the Eclipse event presided over by a Seneca County Common Pleas Court judge.
Eclipse upstages first pitch at Guardians home opener.
What to do with those glasses
Hundreds of thousands of special glasses were handed out in the weeks leading up to the eclipse, but they cannot be left in curbside recycling bins in Columbus.
They can be dropped off at any Columbus Metropolitan Library location until April 18 and until April 30 at the SWACO Recycling Convenience Center, 2566 Jackson Pike, and the City of Columbus Waste and Reuse Convenience Center, 2100 Alum Creek Drive, which is open 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Eclipse glasses can also be dropped off at participating Columbus and Franklin County Metro Park Nature Centers:
- Battelle Darby Creek, 1775 Darby Creek Dr., Galloway
- Blacklick Woods, 6975 E. Livingston Ave., Reynoldsburg
- Blendon Woods, 4265 E. Dublin Granville Rd., Columbus
- Highbanks, 9466 Columbus Pike, Lewis Center
Or…keep them for next time…
Full solar eclipses happen about every year or two or three, due to a precise alignment of the sun, moon and Earth.
The next total solar eclipse will be in 2026 and will pass over the northern fringes of Greenland, Iceland and Spain.
An eclipse on the scale of Monday’s event won’t happen again until 2045, in Northern California, slicing through Utah, Colorado and Mississippi on its way to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
In 2033, an eclipse brushes Alaska and Russia. And in 2044, one will touch North Dakota and Montana.