Oh my goodness this eclipse.
No one wants to hear more eclipse stories at this point, but I need to get my experience down on paper because what I was lucky enough to witness for even a few brief seconds was nothing short of extraordinary. It was absolutely one of those rare times in life where you literally cannot believe what you are seeing with your own eyes. Made all the more surreal by the fact this is a live, natural, purely organic occurrence that manages to feel mathematically, geometrically, cinematically, perfect.
I’ve witnessed a handful of these at this stage of my life where the day adjusts to an evening glow for a few brief minutes, or the minuscule crescent shape appears through a pair of those flimsy eclipse glasses, but this was the first time where I made the effort to situate myself within the notorious “path of totality” which I now know is the single most critical factor for witnessing the eclipse’s full effect. This is the narrow strip of lunar shadow where the moon conceals the view of the sun a full 100%. Because the sun is so powerful, even 1% of the sun’s rays will negate the effect of the total solar eclipse as the brightness will always be visible. But if you can find your way into that path, things get biblical.
I was working in Detroit on the day of the eclipse and my meeting wrapped about 3 hours before it was to occur. Detroit was slated to witness 99.2% solar coverage, but the “path of totality” was passing a mere 60 miles away south near the Ohio border. The day was clear and my afternoon was free, so I decided to make a go at seeing how close I could get to the path. I figured I would take rural roads south and when the time arose I would simply pull over and watch the event.
The country roads where busy, but not bumper-to-bumper like the freeways, although I’m sure the various people who I saw cutting their lawn or sitting on their porch in preparation for the eclipse must have grumbled at the uptick in traffic on these infrequently traveled roads.
I started to get some Heavenly vibes when the town of Dundee suddenly appeared on my car’s navigation. That is the town where my father’s family comes from in Scotland. I never knew there was a Dundee in Michigan. Even crazier was the next street that I was instructed to turn on was Stewart Road. Stewart is the name of my dad’s father. I would have totally lost it right then and there if a Kent Road or Kent Creek were to suddenly appear.
My ancestral homeland appearing out of nowhere on the navigation.
I tuned into AM radio as I trudged along. They were reporting about the eclipse in various ways. A tip proved to be pivotal when the announcer mentioned that during totality, it would be possible to view Jupiter at the 11 o’clock position and Venus at the 5 o’clock position. Because the totality is so brief, these coordinates wold later help me quickly recognize those points in the sky.
With about 30 minutes to spare, I crossed the Ohio border. According to a NASA website I was technically within the path of totality, so I started to look for a scenic spot to pull over. I passed a few church parking lots and parks that were filled up with tailgaters and picnickers setting up for the spectacle. I decided to push on a little longer until I finally came upon the first stop light I had seen in a while. About a block from the intersection, a beacon startled me. Waffle House. I love the design of the Waffle House sign. I love the open kitchen format. I love the insane mix of individuals that always seem to inhabit these crazy places. And I had no idea there was a Waffle House so far north! I really only ever visit one when I am in Florida. This one had a quasi-festival going in the parking lot as numerous people were milling around sitting on tailgates and looking up at the sky. I pulled in, ordered a coffee, then camped out by my car with the rest of the sun seekers.
Outside Waffle House about 15 minutes before go time.
As the seconds inched closer, the light was definitely shifting from a bright sunny day to something that felt stormy despite no real clouds in the sky. The lights from the nearby gas station flickered on, followed by the Waffle House sign suddenly illuminating. When glancing through the glasses, I saw the slightest bit of sun poking out from behind the moon. When trying to view the sun with the naked eye, it still hurt to look up because the light was so intense.
And then my fellow observers start to howl. Oh. My. God. No way. Wow, wow, WOW! Looking through the glasses, I see nothing. When I take them off and look straight up into the sky, I see stars. Or planets. There was Venus as previously announced. Above that is the most perfectly black, perfectly circular hole in the center of the sky. Like a sinister heavenly orb that leads to another dimension. The sky all around is dark like it is an hour after sunset when you are near an ocean, but not pure black dark, so the moon’s stark silhouette really jumps out. I see hints of the faintly flaming corona like an iris surrounding a pupil. I look down at the pavement because I’m not sure if I should be looking directly at the eclipse with the naked eye. But I’ve come this far. I can’t not look! I peer up again to see that the magnificent moon is still there.
And then it’s not.
Much too soon, the sun concludes this cosmic tease by peeking out again. Its mighty rays overwhelm the scene. The black circle sadly disappears. The sky brightens. Within seconds you are asking yourself if what you saw even happened. In this case, the totality lasted less than a minute. You want to rewind or do it again, but the moon has continued on its merry way and one must wait a couple decades for a repeat of this celestial show.
Before and during the show, approximately 3pm and 3:14pm EST.
It’s true that solar eclipses happen with some frequency. The earth averages about two per year. But it is interesting to contemplate just how rare these events are to witness fully. Location, timing, weather and luck all need to work in your favor. For starters, since the Earth’s surface is 71% water, and the area above and below the Arctic Circle and Antarctic Circle is about 8%, the likelihood of most people to ever be in the remote vicinity one of these things is really about 1/5 (And the US only makes up about 6% of that non-ocean surface area, so chances go down from there). Assuming one is happening in your part of the world, you need to make your way somewhere within the path of totality which is different with each eclipse. In this most recent case, the path was 9,190 miles long and averaged 109 miles wide. Sounds like a large area, but that is only 0.005% of the earth’s surface. Finding your way into that sliver of the earth is no easy task because the eclipse occurs for such a short time and at such a precise moment that you will be dealing with potentially hundreds of thousands of other people who are all trying to get into that same sliver of earth at the same time. And even if you do get to the right spot at the right time, now you just need to hope that there are no clouds. The next one that will occur in the contiguous 48 states is 21 years from now. But I hear the real eyepopper is happening in Egypt in 2027 when the weather will likely be favorable and the eclipse will be visible for a whopping six minutes and twenty three seconds which is plenty of time to contemplate the wonders of our very existence.