Solar Eclipse Follies, volume 4

Ever since my first solar eclipse in 1979, when my buddy John and I drove (and rolled) my old van up to Washington state in the bitter February cold to see it, I've been addicted to them. John and I saw our second in Guadalajara Mexico in 1991, and in 1998 I dragged my wife to see my third in Antigua in the Caribbean.

When news came of another one running across the US from Oregon to Carolina, I knew I had to go again. Wife and friends all wimped out, but I was determined, and started making plans to get under it, solo if need be.

There were two options: up the 5 to Oregon, or out through the desert on the 15 to Idaho. But I've seen how the shadow of the moon itself causes even clear skies to go cloudy from the sudden drop in temperature, so I wasn't going to take the chance in damp Oregon. The plan became: drive out to Vegas; then to Park City (where my sister-in-law Dianne could put me up for free); up into the eclipse path to see it and back to Park City in a day; back to Vegas; and home. Two nights in a hotel in Vegas, two free nights in Park City, gas and food -- I'd get off relatively cheaply, compared to the other three trips. Five days driving for two minutes of totality? Fair trade!

The drive to Vegas was uneventful, if toasty. I stayed at the same Comfort Inn that we'd stayed at on our cross-country trip last year. At first I'd thought that I could find a cheaper alternative, but the online reviews of cheaper places spoke of bed bugs and junkie hookers hanging around out front, so I decided to go with the known quantity...

But the closer to the eclipse, the more dire the predictions of terrible traffic became. 34 million people lived along the same route I was taking, so I decided not to chance it, and I got up and 3am (foregoing the hotel's free breakfast -- even the little fridge was locked: No yogurt for *you*, early riser!), to drive as far north as I could get while still conscious.

But as reward, around 5am, somewhere near the Arizona/Utah border, the sliver of a moon came up ahead of sunrise and perched in the gap between the canyon mountains horizon and the glowering prairie rainclouds, on its way to its appointment with the sun a day and a half later. It was an incredible sight that my cellphone picture does no justice to.

To add to my anxiety that I'd miss the whole thing, as I drove through Utah, even the programmable freeway signs were trying to scare me off, saying "SOLAR ECLIPSE MONDAY, HEAVY PM TRAFFIC", and such. 300 miles south of the path of totality, and they're already panicking about the traffic. Other messages warned that "OVERSIZE LOADS RESTRICTED" in Idaho and Wyoming, and that there was "NO PARKING ON HIGHWAY DURING ECLIPSE".

But all the warnings apparently worked on the non-addicts so no nasty traffic ever materialized, and somehow I never really got sleepy, so I drove straight through to the eclipse path in ten hours, with short stops for breakfast and lunch. Now I was at least assured of seeing the eclipse, but one problem remained: Where to sleep? All the hotels and campgrounds in the path were sold out at outrageous prices, months or years ago. That's why the original plan was to stay with Dianne in Park City.

Fortunately, I had looked into this, just in case. The rumor that you can park an RV in a Walmart parking lot overnight turns out to be true, according to their website, but there were no Walmarts out in rural Idaho where I wanted to be. But there is "Federal Land" that you're allowed to camp anywhere on, if you can find it. I had ended up on a highway that ran up the valley between two fingers of foothills, and the way it works is that all the flat, farmable, land on either side of the highway is Private, and the useless mountainous areas are Federal. But how do you get across one to the other?

I spent the afternoon driving out on a rocky dirt farm road, trying to get to what would be Federal Land, but never found anything to indicate that I'd found it. But back out on the highway I spotted a tiny National-Parks-brown sign that said, "Rothwell Sportsman's Access", pointing to a small dirt road. This was exactly what I was looking for, and even better, the road itself seemed to be open for overnight parking, since there were already three or four trucks and vans parked around the edges, so I didn't have to drive out to the middle of nowhere (well, no more than this part of Idaho was *already* the middle of nowhere) to park. So here it was 6pm, and I was all set with a place that was probably safe, and probably legal, to sleep in my car. Hopefully, I would make it through the night without being arrested or Deliverance'd.

I couldn't risk leaving my spot, in case a mob of other eclipse campers descended on it, so I had a dinner of lunchmeat ham, cheese, and peaches, read my book, and played some on the "camping guitar" I'd built back in the seventies by chopping a cheap pawnshop guitar down to just the working section. Or tried to, but it was hard to hear what I was playing with the *loud* neo-country music coming from the truck down the way...

Finally it got dark enough to try to sleep, and I was certainly ready to, having gotten up at 3am. It was mid 80's in the afternoon, but it was getting cold fast, so I put on the parka I had thrown in the car at the last minute, and settled into the leaned-back passenger's seat. It was tough, but I finally fell asleep despite the thump-thump-thump from next door.

Woke up at 10, and again at 11, with the country music still blaring. And cold. Starting to get a bit *too* reminiscent of the snowy night Johnny and I spent in a rented Ford Fiesta in the parking lot of the Washington State Highway Patrol office, waiting for them to clear Snoqualmie Pass of the avalanche. But that's a different story...

Dianne called me at 6:30am, on her way up from Park City with her son and his girlfriend. Even the morning of the eclipse, the predicted disastrous traffic hadn't appeared, so they drove right up to find me.

One feature of a total eclipse that you don't hear about is the incredible sight of the actual shadow of the moon, rushing toward and engulfing you as the eclipse becomes "total". It's the most mind-blowing aspect of the eclipse for me -- it's when you get a gut-level impression of the solar system as a 3D device. Your whole life, the sky seems to be what the ancients called it, an upside-down bowl with the sun and moon painted on it. But in the moment when the shadow crosses over you, you feel/see and truly *know* that you're standing on a rock in space, with another rock passing in front of the light source. Mind blowing. Life altering.

Johnny and I saw this happen the first time, but not the second, nor did it appear the third time. I had ascribed this to the geography -- you'd need a place where you can see the ground, far out to your west, to watch the shadow scream across at 1900 mph. We'd had that the first time, just by accident, but not the other two.

This time, I was determined to see it again, so I deliberately stayed a little south of the centerline of totality (i.e., maximum duration), in order to avoid my western flank being interrupted by the foothills. Even a mile or three of visible land before the mountains will go by in a blink at 1900 mph. I dragged Dianne and co. out to the middle of the farmland so we had an unobstructed view far out to the west, and we set up on a farm road among the alfalfa.

I had brought my small but powerful telescope, and had practiced setting it up and getting it "aligned" so the motor keeps it centered on the object in question while the earth spins out from under it. I did all that while the eclipse started the boring "partial" part. I'd check it every once in a while, and the tracking was working, but not very accurately.

We waited as it got darker and colder, and at some point it got dark enough that I took my sunglasses off and put them in my pocket. Then it got darker, and darker, and we looked to the west...

And it just got darker, and at some point it was clear that it had gone total, but no rushing shadow! What happened?!?

But no time to worry about that! Look at the eclipse! But it's all blurry! Where are my (not-sun) glasses?!? In the car, in that clever glasses compartment in the ceiling! Run, open, reach, find, grab, put on! Much better! Looks cool, but far away. Where's the telescope?

Look in the telescope, and it's much closer, but not centered 'cuz the tracking isn't working right. Correct that with the four arrows on the remote, and come to realize that the telescope magnifies the sun to just about the full frame of the image, so it's mostly just the big black spot of the moon (with the very cool day-glo pink prominences), but the corona (which is what a total eclipse has that an even 99% partial doesn't) is outside the view. Screw that!

Back to naked eyes, but fortunately Dianne is thinking much better than I am and offers me the binoculars I'd brought. These are the Right Tool For The Job, it turns out. Lower magnification lets you see the whole thing: corona, prominences, and all. Very cool! That's what we came here for!

I'd checked the star charts beforehand, 'cuz in a total eclipse the stars come out. Indeed, one of the cool features is that you get to see Mercury, which is, obviously, close to the sun, and therefore usually obscured in the glare. Through the binoculars, sure enough, there it is, bottom left. And at top right where Mars should be (just a coincidence of lineup): nothing. And to the left should be Regulus, one of the brightest stars in the sky, but: nothing.

Which leads me to believe that the high haze that we started with had condensed to be thicker in the cool moon shadow, obscuring the stars and planets, and blurring the shadow's edge so it wasn't defined enough to really see as an edge coming across the landscape, as Johnny and I had seen in Washington in '79. (My new theory: see an eclipse when it's already cold outside like that, so the moon shadow doesn't make it colder enough to cause any condensation.) Oh well. Best laid plans and all that. But the eclipse itself, naked eye and through the binoculars, was spectacular.

And over. With all my bumbling, the two minutes and eleven seconds were gone in, I don't know, fifteen? Your first instinct is to chase it down. But I'm pretty sure I can't run, or even drive, 1900 miles an hour. It's over, and you get what you get, and it was amazing, but frustratingly short, but still mind boggling, and I wish I'd'a... and when's the next one?

We'd watched the eclipse as it inched towards totality by projecting the sun's image through the telescope, the binoculars, or pinholes made by lacing your fingers. I didn't have any Eclipse Glasses, nor needed any. You just need to keep track so you'll know when to look for the approaching shadow (if any). People across the country were happily watching the partiality as it came and went in their area, but lemme tell ya, once you've seen the totality, there's nothing more boring than the lame ol' crescent sun as it grows back to a circle.

So it's time to tear down the telescope and get back on the road. As I took the telescope off of its tripod, I noticed that I hadn't remembered to set it to the angle corresponding to the latitude of my location, which explained why it hadn't been tracking properly. Stupid, stupid. Next time.

Apocalyptic traffic once again failed to materialize, at least in Idaho. I was afraid that all the people who had come to Idaho at various times up to a week in advance would all leave at once, but it wasn't bad. There was some jamming where the two-lane out to the country merged into the four-lane going south, but it only added a half hour or so to the drive to Park City. (Reports said that the five-hour drive to totality from the Chicago area had turned into a 15-hour drive back, though.) I spent a nice evening with Dianne and her husband and dog, and left about noon to drive to Vegas (watching the amazing desert clouds), stayed the night at the same hotel, and drove home in the morning.

When's the next one, again?