Yeah, you don't really notice it getting darker out until it's almost completely covered. I've seen two total solar eclipses (July 1991, Mexico, and February 1998, Aruba) and one annular eclipse (May 1994, Indiana). It's partly because of the very gradual reduction in brightness, but it just doesn't really seem to get darker until the sun is something like 90% obscured.
The total ones are amazing, though. Both the ones I saw were during family trips specifically planned for eclipse watching. Oh, and in both cases, we were in dry countries, and it was cloudy in the hours leading up to the eclipse but cleared up in time to see it. Hell, it was the middle of the dry season on Aruba, a desert island, and it actually RAINED the morning of the eclipse. But it cleared up several hours later and we saw it. It's truly an amazing sight.
Unfortunately, for those in the US, it won't be easy to see any for another 12 years. There simply aren't very many total solar eclipses at all in the next few years, and the ones that will occur will be in very distant parts of the world. There's one in 2008 in the Northwest Territories, and then one that goes through the US in 2017.
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