NORTH KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Monday morning the doors at Chicken N Pickle opened as the storm clouds rolled out.
Nicole Bailey from Kansas City, Kansas and Rachel Corl from Mission, Kansas were among the 200 people who purchased tickets for the rooftop eclipse watch party.
“I don't remember the last partial one very well so I'm excited to have one that I can hopefully remember, since I'm not kid anymore,” Bailey told 41 Action News.
Much like many eclipse events across the metro, the party attracted visitors from out of town. Phillip Craft from Austin, Texas remembers watching the eclipse of 1979 through a shadowbox.
‘Oh, this was much better where you get glasses and everything—to watch it progress—much better,” Craft said.
The sun broke through the clouds just before the start of the eclipse.
Find our 41 Action News coverage of the 2017 total solar eclipse here.
Our 41 Action News camera outfitted with a special filter captured the moments the moon aligned to overshadow the sun. Everywhere you looked, people craned their necks to witness it themselves.
Then just before totality, clouds once again moved in.
At 1:09 central — darkness fell over north Kansas City.
“I was kind of confused about it because it's one o'clock and it's totally dark,” 14-year-old Ruby Wright said.
During totality, there were a few breaks in the clouds.
“You know it broke just enough where you could see a little bit of it and it also cooled down quite a bit so it was better than nothing. It was good,” Leo and Amanda Hammond, visiting from Dallas, said.
“We had a happy ending to a kind of grim-looking morning,” Millie Stecker, visiting from Austin, said.