Total Solar Eclipse 2024

Labeling this puppy with a “2024” in the title, because I fully plan to be around and chasing down the next one in 2044 as well 🙂

If you remember, there was a solar eclipse in 2017. We were outside of the path totality in Madison, probably a good 6-8 hours from it; honestly, I hadn’t even bothered to map it. I remember that summer was quite busy – the eclipse was sandwiched in-between family visits and traveling for weddings and our family vacation that year in Michigan. I was not about to add a roadtrip to the eclipse on top of everything, it’s hard enough juggling two kids and a demanding job and a home to keep up amongst the summer chaos, ya know?

But then the day came, and my office bought us all eclipse glasses (because Madison was still going to get a good 85-90% eclipse), and when the time came I got so excited (SO EXCITED!!) that I sprinted outside, tossed my eclipse glasses in the car, and rushed home so I could share the moment with Scott and Pete, who were both chilling at home. We stood in the driveway and marveled at the vaguely weird colors and odd shadows and took turns looking at that little sliver of sun in the special glasses. And I was so mad at myself. I have always been an astronomy nerd, not sure why I didn’t take it more seriously and plan a trip to see totality. I immediately looked up the next total solar eclipse in the US, and added a reminder in the Google Calendar 12 months ahead of the date so that I could start planning.

And then it was finally time. I started planning, as noted on the calendar, a year out. I checked the map and noted the cities closest to us in the path. I then logged onto airbnb, kicked out all the options that were already insanely priced for the event, and narrowed it down to three solid options for us. I secured my first-choice booking. I then started excitedly looking for fun things to do in that city.

I then had my reservation cancelled by that host. And the next host. And the third one, too. I want to note that these folks clearly dropped me like a hot potato because they forgot to increase their prices to account for the eclipse. Every single one lied and said they were selling the property, and they all still own these properties to this day.

SO. After three failed attempts to book a space, and refusing to accept that I’d be stuck paying ~$1,000/night for something in a city on the path – I pulled up the totality map and the airbnb map, and I started searching in random rural areas riiiiiight on the line of the path. I figured, we can drive ~10 miles into the path as needed. By chance, I found (what appeared to be, from the pictures) a questionably liveable, little old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Right on the Indiana/Illinois border. I booked, and the host immediately messaged to ask if I put in the wrong year? I answered with a simple “nope!” and they honored it. These people are my true heroes.

Once a place was secured, the next worry was the weather. This was only going to work with a clear sky. And the weather this time of year is notoriously all over the place. Up in Madison, we were getting some final spurts of snow before spring actually sticks (not uncommon for there).

Down in the area we booked, right on the Indiana/Illinois border, it could be literally anything. Snow, ice, rain, thunderstorms, tornados, or it could be high humidity and sun. Or hey, even if it’s sunny: all it takes is one cute fluffy cloud that hangs out in the wrong spot in the sky for a few minutes to completely block the entire thing for us.

To say I was obsessively checking cloud cover forecasts for the days beforehand would almost be an understatement. I warned Scott that while we’re driving 6 hours to this place, we very likely could also spend the majority of the eclipse day driving to chase it as well.

And then the week finally arrived. Guess what, friends: rain for days leading up, with a forecast of “partly cloudy” the day of the event.

Yay. But we continued with our plans instead of panic-booking a different area of the path, because frankly the forecasts were hit-or-miss all over the place. And as an additional piece of good fortune: a few months before the event, astronomists slightly tweaked the path based on new data, putting our rental (which was juuuuust outside the path) squarely into the path of totality. So once we arrived, if the weather behaved, we wouldn’t even need to go anywhere.

The day came and we hit the road. We ran into the rain just south of Chicago, and it continued to pour down upon us the remaining 4 hours of the drive. And I mean: driving rain, folks. Horrible drive. No break in the clouds in sight.

We stopped at a random town to have lunch. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the Mexican spot, but it was serviceable and warm in contrast to the cold downpour outside. It did some good in lifting our spirits a bit.

With a little under an hour of driving left, we decided to stop at Harvest Market in Champaign for some supplies. This was the last bit of civilization, so to speak, as it’s mostly rural farmlands past this point, and we’d be at our rural rental for 3 days of meals. I had tossed some frozen bolognese sauce in a small cooler in the trunk before we left, but we needed pretty much every single other meal.

Also I mean: we NEEDED eclipse cupcakes to celebrate the momentous event, whether the skies cleared or not.

We made it to our little farmhouse by early evening. By then the rains had subsided to a drizzle, although the clouds remained.

Also guess what: while a bit rustic, the little rental was clean and comfortable and cute as a button. The boys’ bedroom was an add-on addition right off the kitchen, and was actually quite roomy and modern. And the home’s layout was almost identical to that of my first rental home when I was in college. So I found the place quite charming and homey.

Also our kind host left us many eclipse-related treats and some local newspapers on the event. I still think about how kind this gentleman was; he could have treated us like the others but he chose to be kind instead.

Usually when renting, people tend to leave whatever shelf-stable stuff they didn’t use, for the future renters to put to good use if they so desire. We follow this too, and frankly I think a lot of other renters are like us: happy to leave goods, but much less likely to use what was left. One time, we left several unopened packages of snacks (crackers, popcorn, candy) in a rental we stayed at over Thanksgiving in Kansas. We booked the same spot the next year, and the snacks were still sitting there in the cabinet, untouched and waiting for us.

Anyway, there were some real treasures in this rental’s cabinet. I get the feeling, just based on the area and the reviews left on the rental site, that it’s mostly single young dudes renting this place while fishing all day at the nearby lake. The food also spoke to that.

Thankfully I had my bolognese! There was literally 1 pot and 1 skillet, and one of the burners didn’t work so well (it’s options were essentially off, or smokingly-high heat), but we were able to make it work and pulled together a nice little dinner of Bolognese over pappardelle, caprese salad, and bread.

A feast, I tell you.

I could not stop anxiously looking out the windows. The land around us was all flooded and skies gray.

But out the westward direction, the clouds were starting to break up, so I had hope.

We settled in to the living room for the night. This rental had an antenna so we got the local news, such a treat! You never get more than streaming options in rentals any more.

The local news was squarely focused on the next day’s eclipse. The forecast was very involved and gave us lots of hope – “partly cloudy” was updated to “sunny with a few hazy clouds”. If the humidity could stay low, we’d be in great shape.

We celebrated by snuggling into the couch and watching Ghostbusters before heading to bed for the night.

I arose bright and early (and nervous) the next morning. And the sky!!

Beautiful. Now, for it just to stay that way.

I was abuzz the entire day, starting as soon as I woke up. It really felt like a special celebration day. And we came prepared: we had watched several science programs on what to expect, packed appropriately, and downloaded a scientist’s app that gives countdowns and tips based on your geographic location.

The eclipse was due to begin around 12p here, with totality right before 2p. Then a slow return to normal. All I had to do was prepare some lunch/sandwiches ahead of time and stick them in the fridge for the guys to grab whenever they were hungry, and make sure all our little “tracking bits “science project” goods were out and ready.

So of course: I brewed a huge pot of coffee and got started puttering around at like, 8am.

Skies still blue! I was still fretting and obsessively looking out the windows.

Also, I should note that while it was still quite cold in Madison, it was beautifully green and in the low 70s that day where we were. I love my long winters but it was a delightful reprieve.

Linus was up next, and started using the eclipse glasses immediately. He started off “practicing”, tracking the sun’s path across the yard.

He was in the back mudroom checking the sun with his special glasses about every 15 minutes.

I laid out all our “tools” on the table in the mudroom, so it would be easy to access as we ran in and out of the farmhouse. Steaming papers with perfectly round holes and white posterboard, eclipse glasses for everyone, binoculars, and my camera. To note: I intentionally did not research photographing this thing. I wanted to be in the moment enjoying it and not spending the entire eclipse with my camera in front of my face. Ha. Haha. More on that later…

Linus could not be contained to the house, even though the eclipse was still hours away. He scampered in and out, but mostly out. He would bide his time by scouring through the landscape rocks around the house, searching for fossils in the rocks. He ended up finding two rocks with fossils in them, ha. (Actually you can see them on our prep table in the picture above).

I’m not exaggerating about being in the middle of nowhere – there was a farm about a quarter-mile down one road but we never saw anyone there, and then there was a city building at the end of the gravel road we were on. That’s it. So we were all by our lonesome out here.

By about 11a, Linus was permanently stationed in the yard. He was ready for an eclipse.

At this point, the sky was getting hazy and I was getting nervous. The forecast was legit mind-boggling. Sunny until around noon, then hazy skies through 3p. Then full sun again. YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

Once partial eclipse started, the other two dudes came out to join us in the yard. Linus also laid out our picnic blanket and set up all his buddies so they could also enjoy the eclipse. We got out most of our toys. Everyone had glasses. The weather was near perfection. We were running in and out of the house, keeping an ear on the news from the TV while also keeping an eye to the sky.

In other words: here’s where the celebration of the day really started hitting.

The news. They were live somewhere in TX, where cloud cover ruined the eclipse. Yikes. Our turn was soon approaching. We ran outside and stayed there at this point.

While we were stationed in a random southern corner of the IL/IN border, I had two family members in the 95% range. And another sister was out chasing with her family in Arkansas. So we were all lighting up the family text with updates. I fired up my handpicked “Total Eclipse” playlist on our speaker and Scott and I cracked open beers. I continued to scan the skies, spy on the nonstop family chat, and get real nervous.

Skies still mostly clear.

At this point, it was past halfway eclipse. The air around us was weirdly sepia.

Here’s a picture from my camera through my eclipse glasses. Can’t tell from the sun, but the refraction shows the coverage (little dot below the sun).

We were getting some good shadows from our posterboard/steaming paper combo, too. I cannot explain clearly what the atmosphere looked like at this point. Everything was muted yet brown. Red/Green colors were muted out. It was definitely very strange, and we were a mix of excitement and anxiety.

I love this picture because you can see the weirdness in full effect, the colors and shadows. Sunny and mid-day but… not.

Peter pointed out the shadows at this point. The leaf shadows, which you rarely notice on a normal day, were all narrowed out and curvy.

Music pumping, not another soul in sight. We scouted where the sun should be at full eclipse, and decided to head to the gravel road to view it.

It was getting close for us. My family in Arkansas caught the eclipse, full on. My dad in SE KS said it looked like a tornado was coming outside. I absolutely get that description, because while fully sunny, the atmosphere was weirdly brown/sepia toned, and dark. We prepared for the full eclipse to hit.

Look at these shadows, lol.

And then: it was time. We moved to the gravel road. There was not a car in sight. The air felt weird and electric, but I think that was just because everything felt so weird and off. Definitely felt tornado-y.

Then our phones buzzed from our app, telling us it was time in 30 seconds. I looked around. It was so, so dark. At 2pm. There was a 360-degree sunset along the entire horizon. I heard chirping crickets. Scott faced the incoming dark, because I told him some see it hit and he wanted to experience that.

Then the app said ‘full eclipse in 3 seconds’. I tore off my eclipse glasses and looked up, and saw the diamond ring. It looked like a real diamond ring and the sky darkened like I was at the theater when a movie starts. A flash of light in a corner, then full eclipse. I screamed at everyone else to look up. I don’t remember a lot from here.

The Queens of the Stone Age’s “My God is the Sun” fired up from the speaker, right as “Black Hole Sun” ended (the perfect segue for GenXers, lol).

I stared at it. I am pretty sure I kept saying “it’s so beautiful!”, like a total moron. The sky was black, like someone pulled back a curtain and the full solar system was exposed. I noticed a little imperfection on the edge of the black moon circle, which I learned later was a solar prominence. There were gentle waves coming from the sun. It was all insane. For the first time in my life, I was looking at the actual Solar System.

And then like an idiot, I whipped up my camera.

Only half of my brain was focused on the eclipse because the other half was frantically trying to figure out how to best use the precious minutes to take a picture. I told myself I wouldn’t spend more than 30 seconds doing stuff with my camera. But then I went into full camera lady mode, and tried to frame things up. I stepped back a few steps, into the shoulder in the gravel road, and I felt myself slip. I yelped, and everyone turned to stare at me. Ope. I told them to ignore me and look back at the sun. It was all just crazy. Honestly, I’m still mad I brought my camera. But I guess I got a few pictures, like the one above and below.

The 3 minutes went by in a flash, and then the full eclipse was over. But it was life-changing, I know that sounds dumb but it really felt like we saw something we should not have. Eventually Scott and I popped open a bottle of (admittedly, really bad) “KU” champagne we had been keeping for a special moment. I ran into the kitchen to grab the sandwiches and other lunch bits, because suddenly we were ravenously hungry. We had a late lunch on the back deck, still trying to process it.

The shadows were all still so beautiful and I was still so off-center from what we had just experienced.

After some lunch, and after the world went back to normal, we cleaned up everything outside and packed so we were ready to head out the next morning. I tidied the rental, and then hid under the cover in our bedroom. Peering out the window and thinking.

We see stars all the time, so we’re well-acquainted with our reality living in outer space (even if it’s easy to forget in the day to day). But when I looked up at the sky during the total eclipse, it was the first time I had experienced another, totally different way to see with my eyes that… holy crap, we actually live in outer space. It was like I was 8 years old again and enthralled at the expanse of the universe, except instead of it being through those huge coffee table books I checked out at the local library, I was seeing it directly with my own eyeballs.

Also it reminded me of my mom and I got teary at that moment. Like, why though…

We had some frozen pizza for dinner to celebrate such a crazy, crazy day. We snuggled into the living room again that night, and were out the door early the next morning to head back home.

We decided to stop in Champaign, again, to see something on campus and also grab lunch. We saw a lot of fellow eclipse chasers.

Champaign is cute! Very classic college town. Scott and I decided we could easily live here (except for, you know: the hot gross weather lol).

We drove onto campus, to the Natural History Building. That was for one sole purpose.

A hint:

Yep. We couldn’t roll through town without stopping to see their famous woolly mammoth.

We grabbed some lunch before the long drive back, stopping at a very quintessential diner (sorry, again I cannot remember the name). I had the chowder. It was lovely.

That’s it. I mean, kinda.

I kinda remembered why it reminded me of my mama. Because we both loved Watership Down, she the book and me that 1980s animated version. I think I watched it a hundred times as a kid. And that part where El-ahrairah met Lord Frith.

Lord Frith had the same gentle waves of light. And this time I was the rabbit. My brain went back to being a kid again and my mom loved that book and I love my mom and she’s gone now. That’s why I was sad.

Memories are so weird, guys. Take care, love your mamas. Back again soon. Take care of yourselves and for god’s sake: PLAN A TRIP TO THE NEXT SOLAR ECLIPSE OKAY.