I've been back from chasing the eclipse for a few days now and after taking a look at the photos I brought back I thought I'd post a few. I'm going to arrange them chronologically, pre to post totality. I've enlarged a couple of photos to show more detail of some interesting finds.
The beginning of the eclipse event was about 12:45 local time in our southern Illinois location. We were about 30-40 miles southeast of Effingham, IL. The exact location was a wayside south of Newton, IL.
This is the "first bite" as the moon began to cross the sun.
A close up of the photo shows 3 small sunspots on the surface of the sun. An active sunspot period can have many more spots.
The above series of shots shows the progression of the moon over the sun. The last photo I turned the camera slightly. The reddish haze is, I believe, caused by some high thin clouds that were passing overhead.