The Amazing Eclipse Photo

Photo credit: AP

SALEM — With its radiant corona, shadows that appeared to shimmer across the ground and 360 degrees of twilight, Monday’s total solar eclipse awed millions of onlookers across the northwestern United States.

Some called it a mystical experience while others praised the power of science. Either way, the spectacle seemed to leave most pretty impressed.

“I was looking for the diamond ring and when that diamond ring came, I had tears in my eyes. I’ve read about it, but it was . indescribable,” said Julie Vigeland, a 73-year-old Portland, Oregon resident who watched from the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem. “It was a very primal experience, it really was. I’ve seen other really magnificent things but there is nothing, nothing like this.”

John Hays drove up from Bishop, California for the total eclipse in Salem and said the experience will stay with him forever. He watched from a deck overlooking the Willamette Valley and the foothills of the Coastal Range.