IDAHO FALLS, Idaho — Outside the church, they set up a line of deck chairs and even an overstuffed recliner that someone carted in by tow truck. But when totality approached, no one could sit still.

“I see Venus,” Richard Sieben called, and everyone ran across the parking lot toward him. Then the sky rapidly darkened, and everyone spun around the other way to face the sun. A moment later, totality began — and so did the screams.

“This is so cool,” Evonne Wilson yelled. “You see the stars!” And then: “God is amazing.”

Her husband Rick called back, “It’s weird what God can do!”

Their grandson Raiden Ellis, 5, spun in circles. “Oh, that was so cool!” He said after, as a sliver of the sun returned, “It’s like half a banana and half a happy face.”

Another 5-year-old, Dillon Apodaca, dutifully said when it started getting dusky that he ought to go to sleep. Then totality began, and everyone around him started shrieking, and Dillon freaked out. He asked if the aliens were arriving — and his grandmother had to carry him inside.