MIDLAND, Texas — If you drove by Centennial Park in Midland Monday afternoon, you might’ve seen a huge crowd on the green lawn.
That’s because the park hosted a watch party for the solar eclipse.
"Today is an amazing day and the grass is green," 10-year-old Sawyer Zindel said. "The sun's warm, and it's just amazing."
And let’s just say Midland showed up and showed out.
"It’s good stuff," eclipse watcher Crystal Hammons said. "Midland turns out."
Because who knows the next time you’ll see something like this?
"It was really amazing," said Jadyn Walker, public relations specialist for Centennial Park. "It's always fun when you get to see a rare celestial event that doesn't happen, but every so many years, I think the next eclipse is supposed to be in 2044, which is quite a long ways away."
Visit Midland also donated tons of safety glasses so that everyone can enjoy the eclipse.
"It's really great to walk around and kind of get to see people face to face and offer them the glasses and just enjoy," Walker said.
And when you’re a kid like 10-year-old Sawyer, you got to witness something that won’t be seen for a very long time.
"I'm really into science," Sawyer said. "I'm actually doing a science project at my spot right now."
And science expert Sawyer knows his stuff.
"It [the eclipse] happens sometimes," Sawyer said. "If you're lucky, you can see it at perfect range. Today, it's going to be at perfect range at 1:30 p.m. And if you want to see it, you might want to see it today because you won't be able to see it for another 20 years."
And even younger kids like Noah Mendoza, who told me he does "a lot of running", can take a break from running in the field and admit:
"It's kind of cool looking," Noah said.
Even for people who aren’t kids, it’s an out of this world experience.
"It's pretty cool, you know, as we get older we missed the opportunity to see things like this," Hammons said. "And so the next time we'll get to see it will be in our late 60s, early 70s, so might as well go out and live life and have a great time."
And seeing the immense crowd that showed up to Centennial Park, it really shows how much this park has meant to this community in its short time being in Downtown Midland.
"I liked that they added the green here," eclipse watcher David Lapira said. "Because everyone just comes out for, you know, every festival, holidays, everything is kind of nice. Started off hot, really hot. And then as the sun came, it got cooled off and see more people came out playing, throwing the football and stuff around. It's kind of nice."
And the workers at Centennial Park would have it no other way.
"We love when the community can come and use the park for free and that's what we are here for," Walker said.
And here’s to hoping this green will be even greener in almost two decades for the next eclipse.