SCOTTSVILLE, Ky. — They came rolling in from Denver, Ohio and Texas, even from Toronto. Roughly 3,000 people gathered in a tiny Kentucky town Monday to experience a 100 percent solar eclipse.

Many initially set out for Hopkinsville, Kentucky, the epicenter of the eclipse, a town of 39,000 which was bracing for crowds of perhaps 200,000, but decided Scottsville — population of around 4,200 according to the 2010 Census — offered a more convenient venue with just as good a view.

“We thought about going to Hopkinsville,” said Douglas Williams, 17, of Louisville, Kentucky. “But we decided to come here because Hopkinsville was going to be jam-packed.”

“It’s still got a perfect view but with nowhere like the crowd,” said Jackson Pass, also 17 from Louisville.

They and several friends from the Louisville Christian Academy took off from school, broiled burgers and listened to mixed tapes of music — much of it from their parents’ or grandparents’ era in the sixties — and waited for the cosmos to align.

While all of the country could see some part of the moon block out the sun, the path of totality — where perfect alignment would allow the moon to completely cover the sun — was jam-packed with sky-gazers from Oregon to South Carolina.

Williams had been waiting for this since his sixth-grade teacher first told his class it was on the horizon.

“Every time he talked about it, I said, ‘I’m going, I’m going to be there,’” he said.

David Hannum, 71, and his wife, Sue Clark, 71, from Bowling Green, Ohio, didn’t settle on Scottsville as their eclipse destination until Monday morning.

They spent the night in Bowling Green, Kentucky, planning to go on to Hopkinsville on Monday. But when they saw news reports of heavy traffic and large crowds there, they decided Scottsville was closer and easier.

“This has been on my radar for five years, and I wasn’t going to miss it,” Hannum said. 

So suddenly it seemed to startle some, the Earth went dark — a kind of dark no one had seen before. There was a sudden silence, too, as everyone seemed to turn thoughts inward and at the same time outward, toward the far reaches of the universe.

“There’s a star,” shouted Ben Chandler, one time U.S. Congressman who now heads the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

“Star bright, star light, first star I see . . . is at 1:27 p.m.,” said Williams while others laughed at his quick wit.

Almost as quickly — actually after about a minute and 42 seconds — it was over. It was brief, but it was as big as the universe itself, too, and no one seemed let down.

One of Williams’ classmates cued up the George Harrison classic, “Here Comes The Sun,” and someone who heard it, shouted: “Perfect!”

As everyone headed for their cars, a man who said he was from Danville called out to the Louisville high schoolers: “See you in 2024!” That’s the date of the next total eclipse in the continental United States.

Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnhifrankfort.