Total Solar Eclipse, however brief, entertains the masses

For the briefest of moments — eight seconds by one count, 12 by another — the total solar eclipse showed itself to the hundreds of revelers gathered Monday at Boerne’s Dog & Pony Grill ... and to the thousands staked out across the Hill Country.

A menagerie of license plates could be seen on Interstate 10 headed to Comfort, Kerrville and Fredericksburg. They were ever-present up and down the Hill Country Mile, and especially at the Kendall County Fairgrounds, where families staked out what they hoped would be good viewing sites.

Rasmus Birn was with his father, Joachim Birn, a senior research scientist at Los Alamos Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, who was attending a conference in San Antonio.