Thankfully, that isn’t my eclipse story. We watched the eclipse from our back porch, which, while not in the path of totality, was plenty dramatic and neat-o. I had to take a break to go retrieve each kid from their bus during the time we were out there with our glasses, but that only added to the excitement—it was fun to see how much it had changed just in the few minutes I was gone, between around 3:05 and 3:10. Then it suddenly got a lot darker and colder outside when the moment of totality was near. It was so wild how quickly that happened, even here, at only 93%. And then the light came back and it got warmer again. Just like that!
I also have an EARTHQUAKE story from the EARTHQUAKE that took place just a few days before. We felt the rumbling beneath us, like a train coming into a station except it was right under us. WHAT WAS THAT? My husband and I looked at each other, looked around, he went outside, everything was normal…we knew it had been an earthquake! Immediately I went onto the local Facebook group to see if anyone was talking about it. Immediately, everyone was.
Then when I tried to wash my hands, I found that we had no hot water. My husband went down to the basement and found that there was a giant gash in the side of our hot water heater and water was pouring out of it. He managed to turn the valve off before the flooding ruined any of our belongings. And then we had to get a new hot water heater. Apparently our old one was from 1996 and “shouldn’t have lasted this long.” Well, the earthquake took it out! In just a few seconds!
That’s great that you were able to get out to Niagara for the big event! I was very grateful that my son’s school provided glasses for all the kids as well as parents, so we were able to watch it there. Even though we only had 89% coverage here in DC, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. It invoked some pretty deep thoughts - how darkness and light co-exist, how small and insignificant we are in the universe and how our possibilities are limitless. I wrote a short reflection piece on all of this, as I was feeling inspired!
We were in the path of totality in Vermont. It lives up to the cliches of being a life changing thing to see. It was crazy to feel it start to get gradually colder, the light take on a weird vibe like a bad Instagram filter, and then become dusk instantaneously. We also stayed up north so luckily we didn't hit too bad of traffic on the way back to our hotel. It was gridlock to get out of the town, but once we hit the highway, it was pretty smooth sailing. Had we been trying to go back home though, we would have sat in some brutal traffic.
I'm in SE Michigan and we decided it would be worth braving the traffic to head down to Bowling Green State University in Ohio where they held a big watch party in their stadium. Normally it would take an hour to get there, and on the way down it was more like 1 hr 20 min, which wasn't bad. It was a lot of fun for our 5 yo daughter since they had a bounce house and obstacle course set up, and tables with other space-related activities. We put our blanket down on the football field and got to enjoy the eclipse with several thousand other people. It was SOOOO worth it! People were cheering as the sun went away and when we got to see totality, many people were screaming and just in awe. Where we were at meant we got about 3 minutes of totality and it was pretty unreal to see it in the sky and look around at how dark it was in the middle of the day. I loved seeing the "diamond ring" and the solar prominences looked like neon pink dots to me in a few places around the ring. Right when totality was ending, there was a bright pink spot that quickly got bigger before the full brightness took back over and we quickly got our glasses back on. It was AWESOME!!! The drive home took much longer - about 3 hours, but generally traffic kept moving and since we were prepared for insane traffic it really wasn't too bad overall. And now we are thinking it might be worth a trip to visit Australia in 2028 for that one.... lol
Imagine two seventy-ish year-olds lying in the grass looking up around and through the clouds in Austin. We could see the cloudy eclipse very well, loved the rapid descent of cool darkness, and later appreciated pictures of totality sent from friends in Little Rock. A total win!
We live in Massachusetts but my 10 y.o. and I went to Vermont where we met up with my cousin and her family, who rented a house up there. They live in Wyoming and were in the path of totality for the last one, and she insisted it was a "life-changing experience" and wanted to come out here for this one. She was completely right! We looked at a map and found a small town about an hour from where we were staying to try to ensure less cloud cover and two more minutes of totality, and on the drive out there we saw so many people barbecuing in their yards, setting up camp chairs, kids setting up lemonade stands, and just general excitement. We set up a blanket and chairs in a totally empty soccer field and it just soaked up the cosmic-ness of it all. If you've read The Phantom Tollbooth, it made me think about the chapter where Milo decides to conduct the sunrise and everything goes sideways.
10 y.o. was totally in awe and couldn't stop talking about how cool it was.
On the parenting front, it was also great because I also have 6 y.o. twins who are wonderful but just take up a lot of emotional/physical/aural space (they stayed home with dad) and it was nice to do something with just him. He also loooooved being with my cousin's teens and do "big kid" stuff. The traffic was bad just trying to get back to our rental house so I scrapped our original plan to drive home that night (which was good, because I had co-workers that said it took them 13 hours to do what would normally be a 3.5 hour drive!!) and got up at 5am the next day instead and THAT - just me with one sleeping kid in the car, watching the sunrise over the mountains, listening to music - was also amazing. I'm still on a high from the whole thing and being part of such a huge collective experience.
We went to visit my parents outside of Detroit, because I'm turning 40 tomorrow and that's what I wanted to do for my birthday. My husband had to come separately from me and the kid, because of work, but we made it happen.
We all drove down to a small town in Ohio, and my dad somehow timed it perfectly despite a little bit of traffic, so when we showed up and parked the car at the edge of the park with the huge playground we only had to wait 20 minutes for the dent to start, which was plenty of time to eat the lunch my mom packed. Locals were driving around in golf carts taking photos and stopping to ask people where they're from and telling us they're happy we're here and inviting us to get ice cream and buy a t-shirt on our way out and they hope we get home safe.
My mom took my kid to the playground. I still don't know if I made the right decision, not watching the eclipse with him. I'm not sure it even matters, and yet I keep thinking about it. I've been putting him first for so long that I thought I might just go sit on these handmade wooden bleachers in Forest, OH with my husband and just relax in the knowledge that my mom was playing with my kid so I could watch the eclipse without worrying about him. He'll be 8 this summer so he's getting into the age when he'll actually remember things, but I think he'll probably remember the playground and the trip and all the nerf gun battles he had with my mom and maybe how it got dark and weird for a few minutes more than whether I was right next to him or not.
My husband and I sit on the bleachers and talk about how friendly people were in the Midwest compared to how we feel they are to us where we live in Colorado. We keep talking about how in this Ohio town people have roped off their driveways and yards with caution tape to keep people from parking there but if this were Wyoming they would also be on their porches with shotguns. We both grew up in Colorado but we don't feel like it's our place anymore. Everyone we meet seems to either plan their entire lives around their two kids going to sports and kid activities or else they don't have any kids and don't want to ever be reminded that kids exist because they're busy doing grownup things where kids are not welcome. I keep thinking our people are there and we just haven't found them yet.
Without my kid poking me every 20 seconds, when the totality comes I have a chance to look around at the 360-degree sunrise, and stare at the corona, and the pink sparkles around the edges of the moon. It's dark for over 3 minutes and that seems like forever but also no time at all, and when it's over I immediately wish it wasn't, and I also start worrying that I didn't enjoy it enough, didn't soak it in properly, and there's another one coming through Colorado but not for 21 years and who knows where we'll be then? I'm always worried about this lately, that I'm not present enough, that I'm not experiencing things in the moment.
When we meet back up with the kid, he tells me a joke after my mom nudges him: "I looked at the sun and now I can't see" and I pretend I believe him and he laughs. He agrees it was cool when everything went dark but he's more concerned with his stomach because he did too many spinny things on the playground. He lays down in the grass for a few minutes and perks right up. He's ready for ice cream.
On our way out we get ice cream, and the traffic is much worse on the way back to Michigan, and in the car I find out the airline has assigned seats to my 7yo and I that are not next to each other, and this will be solved by the time we board the next evening but in the moment I panic and it colors the whole day in a way, and after I am 40 will I be able to enjoy things properly?
We were lucky that my parents’ home was in the path of totality in TX. It was also very cloudy there and those that were patient got glimpses of the partial. Luckily, we did get a clear view during totality. My 7yo enjoy himself but he did say he was disappointed because of the clouds. I drug my 5yo out of the house 5mins before the totality, and she was not impressed. She would have preferred to listen to Doc McStuffin’s songs on my parents’ Alexa.
We road tripped to central Texas from our home in the Phoenix metro area over the weekend. The skies were perfect for the totality and it was just an incredible experience. It was so meaningful to be there as a family, all experiencing the awe-someness together at the same intensity. We saw Venus and Jupiter appear in the sky! It's a beautiful time of year to be in that part of Texas for any reason and we had been graciously invited to join an eclipse party instead of our original plan of finding a good roadside spot, which was another reminder of what the best of living in Texas was like.
Now, the driving back to Phoenix in a day and half and going right back to school? That has been a bit less awesome! haha. The kids are fine, the adults a little less fine.
Over a year ago, I decided that we'd go to Burlington, VT for the eclipse from our home in Philly. It was within driving distance, and I had a friend up there who offered to let us (me, husband, and 8-yo son) stay with him. As the date kept getting closer, I starting having major regrets about going to Vermont - the historical cloud coverage in April there was abysmal for eclipse-viewing and I really thought about trying to change our plans. In the end, we stuck with our original idea (mostly because hotels and rentals were non-existent at this point), and boy am I glad we did. All the news reports were talking about how unlikely it was that Vermont and New England had the best chances for clear skies, while places like Texas and the midwest were looking really iffy.
We walked around Burlington the day before the eclipse and it was amazing to see how lively and active the city was - drum troops out with gold sun headbands on the main street through town, tourists packing local breweries and getting photos on the waterfront of Lake Champlain. We watched the actual event at my friend's house in a tiny town northeast of Burlington. It was just the four of us and I had built up so much excitement and anticipation (we traveled to Nashville in 2017 for totality, and a thick cloud obscured most of our view of the event on what was an otherwise mostly sunny day), that when it actually happened, I gasped. I took no pictures (though I regret a little bit that I didn't), but when it was over, my kiddo, who is unimpressed by life, said "THAT WAS SO AWESOME." I'll hold onto that forever.
Unfortunately, we jumped in the car almost immediately thereafter to try to get back so he wouldn't miss two days of school, and watched as the ETA on our maps climbed higher and higher every mile we got closer to New York. The Thruway was just totally packed and in the end, we ended up grabbing an emergency hotel room in Mahwah, NJ, just so we could steal a few hours of sleep. We swiped enough food from the hotel's breakfast bar to call it "lunch" for my son, and dropped him off at school at 9 am the next day.
And yes - already looking at how to travel and see more! August 2, 2027 will have over 6 minutes of totality in parts of Egypt, Morocco, and southern Spain. Might be a perfect summer trip.
I was in Dayton, Ohio for a conference so I decided to add a couple of days onto the trip after it ended to stay for totality. My husband and kids also flew out.
We had driven from Colorado to Wyoming for the previous total eclipse and the traffic (especially on the way home) had been a *nightmare* so I was bracing for it to be bad and we almost just watched from the hotel we were staying at.
But we deciedd to go to a nearby Aviation Heritage National historic park and it was great. Smallish crowd, junior ranger eclipse badges for the kids, and the rangers were handing out eclipse glasses and had chairs for people who needed them. No traffic driving there or back.
We had low expectations for weather because Ohio is not really known for clear skies, but we lucked out and had clear skies and saw it really well. It seemed better this time and my kids hadn't really remembered the previous one. Fun to be in a crowd with everyone cheering and my kids were into it and I think my husband (who does solar research) may have gotten a little teared up.
Of course then later that afternoon one of my kids came down with a fever and now we all have a somewhat awful cold (can't win them all!).
We flew from North Dakota to Memphis. Also with a 12-year old. Strange choice based on my mother-in-law (who joined us from California) wanting to check out property in southern Missouri. I was also very worried about traffic jams and water and bathrooms, but it was fine. We ended up at a city park with lots of families with telescopes and someone playing Also Spake Zarathustra. We’d also traveled to the totality in 2017, but our son barely remembers that one, so I’m thankful for this second opportunity.
Da-doo!
I was walking in the wholesale flower district….
Thankfully, that isn’t my eclipse story. We watched the eclipse from our back porch, which, while not in the path of totality, was plenty dramatic and neat-o. I had to take a break to go retrieve each kid from their bus during the time we were out there with our glasses, but that only added to the excitement—it was fun to see how much it had changed just in the few minutes I was gone, between around 3:05 and 3:10. Then it suddenly got a lot darker and colder outside when the moment of totality was near. It was so wild how quickly that happened, even here, at only 93%. And then the light came back and it got warmer again. Just like that!
I also have an EARTHQUAKE story from the EARTHQUAKE that took place just a few days before. We felt the rumbling beneath us, like a train coming into a station except it was right under us. WHAT WAS THAT? My husband and I looked at each other, looked around, he went outside, everything was normal…we knew it had been an earthquake! Immediately I went onto the local Facebook group to see if anyone was talking about it. Immediately, everyone was.
Then when I tried to wash my hands, I found that we had no hot water. My husband went down to the basement and found that there was a giant gash in the side of our hot water heater and water was pouring out of it. He managed to turn the valve off before the flooding ruined any of our belongings. And then we had to get a new hot water heater. Apparently our old one was from 1996 and “shouldn’t have lasted this long.” Well, the earthquake took it out! In just a few seconds!
My not-quite-7-yo's reaction: "That was a great experience." 🤭
That’s great that you were able to get out to Niagara for the big event! I was very grateful that my son’s school provided glasses for all the kids as well as parents, so we were able to watch it there. Even though we only had 89% coverage here in DC, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. It invoked some pretty deep thoughts - how darkness and light co-exist, how small and insignificant we are in the universe and how our possibilities are limitless. I wrote a short reflection piece on all of this, as I was feeling inspired!
We were in the path of totality in Vermont. It lives up to the cliches of being a life changing thing to see. It was crazy to feel it start to get gradually colder, the light take on a weird vibe like a bad Instagram filter, and then become dusk instantaneously. We also stayed up north so luckily we didn't hit too bad of traffic on the way back to our hotel. It was gridlock to get out of the town, but once we hit the highway, it was pretty smooth sailing. Had we been trying to go back home though, we would have sat in some brutal traffic.
I'm in SE Michigan and we decided it would be worth braving the traffic to head down to Bowling Green State University in Ohio where they held a big watch party in their stadium. Normally it would take an hour to get there, and on the way down it was more like 1 hr 20 min, which wasn't bad. It was a lot of fun for our 5 yo daughter since they had a bounce house and obstacle course set up, and tables with other space-related activities. We put our blanket down on the football field and got to enjoy the eclipse with several thousand other people. It was SOOOO worth it! People were cheering as the sun went away and when we got to see totality, many people were screaming and just in awe. Where we were at meant we got about 3 minutes of totality and it was pretty unreal to see it in the sky and look around at how dark it was in the middle of the day. I loved seeing the "diamond ring" and the solar prominences looked like neon pink dots to me in a few places around the ring. Right when totality was ending, there was a bright pink spot that quickly got bigger before the full brightness took back over and we quickly got our glasses back on. It was AWESOME!!! The drive home took much longer - about 3 hours, but generally traffic kept moving and since we were prepared for insane traffic it really wasn't too bad overall. And now we are thinking it might be worth a trip to visit Australia in 2028 for that one.... lol
Imagine two seventy-ish year-olds lying in the grass looking up around and through the clouds in Austin. We could see the cloudy eclipse very well, loved the rapid descent of cool darkness, and later appreciated pictures of totality sent from friends in Little Rock. A total win!
We live in Massachusetts but my 10 y.o. and I went to Vermont where we met up with my cousin and her family, who rented a house up there. They live in Wyoming and were in the path of totality for the last one, and she insisted it was a "life-changing experience" and wanted to come out here for this one. She was completely right! We looked at a map and found a small town about an hour from where we were staying to try to ensure less cloud cover and two more minutes of totality, and on the drive out there we saw so many people barbecuing in their yards, setting up camp chairs, kids setting up lemonade stands, and just general excitement. We set up a blanket and chairs in a totally empty soccer field and it just soaked up the cosmic-ness of it all. If you've read The Phantom Tollbooth, it made me think about the chapter where Milo decides to conduct the sunrise and everything goes sideways.
10 y.o. was totally in awe and couldn't stop talking about how cool it was.
On the parenting front, it was also great because I also have 6 y.o. twins who are wonderful but just take up a lot of emotional/physical/aural space (they stayed home with dad) and it was nice to do something with just him. He also loooooved being with my cousin's teens and do "big kid" stuff. The traffic was bad just trying to get back to our rental house so I scrapped our original plan to drive home that night (which was good, because I had co-workers that said it took them 13 hours to do what would normally be a 3.5 hour drive!!) and got up at 5am the next day instead and THAT - just me with one sleeping kid in the car, watching the sunrise over the mountains, listening to music - was also amazing. I'm still on a high from the whole thing and being part of such a huge collective experience.
We went to visit my parents outside of Detroit, because I'm turning 40 tomorrow and that's what I wanted to do for my birthday. My husband had to come separately from me and the kid, because of work, but we made it happen.
We all drove down to a small town in Ohio, and my dad somehow timed it perfectly despite a little bit of traffic, so when we showed up and parked the car at the edge of the park with the huge playground we only had to wait 20 minutes for the dent to start, which was plenty of time to eat the lunch my mom packed. Locals were driving around in golf carts taking photos and stopping to ask people where they're from and telling us they're happy we're here and inviting us to get ice cream and buy a t-shirt on our way out and they hope we get home safe.
My mom took my kid to the playground. I still don't know if I made the right decision, not watching the eclipse with him. I'm not sure it even matters, and yet I keep thinking about it. I've been putting him first for so long that I thought I might just go sit on these handmade wooden bleachers in Forest, OH with my husband and just relax in the knowledge that my mom was playing with my kid so I could watch the eclipse without worrying about him. He'll be 8 this summer so he's getting into the age when he'll actually remember things, but I think he'll probably remember the playground and the trip and all the nerf gun battles he had with my mom and maybe how it got dark and weird for a few minutes more than whether I was right next to him or not.
My husband and I sit on the bleachers and talk about how friendly people were in the Midwest compared to how we feel they are to us where we live in Colorado. We keep talking about how in this Ohio town people have roped off their driveways and yards with caution tape to keep people from parking there but if this were Wyoming they would also be on their porches with shotguns. We both grew up in Colorado but we don't feel like it's our place anymore. Everyone we meet seems to either plan their entire lives around their two kids going to sports and kid activities or else they don't have any kids and don't want to ever be reminded that kids exist because they're busy doing grownup things where kids are not welcome. I keep thinking our people are there and we just haven't found them yet.
Without my kid poking me every 20 seconds, when the totality comes I have a chance to look around at the 360-degree sunrise, and stare at the corona, and the pink sparkles around the edges of the moon. It's dark for over 3 minutes and that seems like forever but also no time at all, and when it's over I immediately wish it wasn't, and I also start worrying that I didn't enjoy it enough, didn't soak it in properly, and there's another one coming through Colorado but not for 21 years and who knows where we'll be then? I'm always worried about this lately, that I'm not present enough, that I'm not experiencing things in the moment.
When we meet back up with the kid, he tells me a joke after my mom nudges him: "I looked at the sun and now I can't see" and I pretend I believe him and he laughs. He agrees it was cool when everything went dark but he's more concerned with his stomach because he did too many spinny things on the playground. He lays down in the grass for a few minutes and perks right up. He's ready for ice cream.
On our way out we get ice cream, and the traffic is much worse on the way back to Michigan, and in the car I find out the airline has assigned seats to my 7yo and I that are not next to each other, and this will be solved by the time we board the next evening but in the moment I panic and it colors the whole day in a way, and after I am 40 will I be able to enjoy things properly?
We were lucky that my parents’ home was in the path of totality in TX. It was also very cloudy there and those that were patient got glimpses of the partial. Luckily, we did get a clear view during totality. My 7yo enjoy himself but he did say he was disappointed because of the clouds. I drug my 5yo out of the house 5mins before the totality, and she was not impressed. She would have preferred to listen to Doc McStuffin’s songs on my parents’ Alexa.
We road tripped to central Texas from our home in the Phoenix metro area over the weekend. The skies were perfect for the totality and it was just an incredible experience. It was so meaningful to be there as a family, all experiencing the awe-someness together at the same intensity. We saw Venus and Jupiter appear in the sky! It's a beautiful time of year to be in that part of Texas for any reason and we had been graciously invited to join an eclipse party instead of our original plan of finding a good roadside spot, which was another reminder of what the best of living in Texas was like.
Now, the driving back to Phoenix in a day and half and going right back to school? That has been a bit less awesome! haha. The kids are fine, the adults a little less fine.
Over a year ago, I decided that we'd go to Burlington, VT for the eclipse from our home in Philly. It was within driving distance, and I had a friend up there who offered to let us (me, husband, and 8-yo son) stay with him. As the date kept getting closer, I starting having major regrets about going to Vermont - the historical cloud coverage in April there was abysmal for eclipse-viewing and I really thought about trying to change our plans. In the end, we stuck with our original idea (mostly because hotels and rentals were non-existent at this point), and boy am I glad we did. All the news reports were talking about how unlikely it was that Vermont and New England had the best chances for clear skies, while places like Texas and the midwest were looking really iffy.
We walked around Burlington the day before the eclipse and it was amazing to see how lively and active the city was - drum troops out with gold sun headbands on the main street through town, tourists packing local breweries and getting photos on the waterfront of Lake Champlain. We watched the actual event at my friend's house in a tiny town northeast of Burlington. It was just the four of us and I had built up so much excitement and anticipation (we traveled to Nashville in 2017 for totality, and a thick cloud obscured most of our view of the event on what was an otherwise mostly sunny day), that when it actually happened, I gasped. I took no pictures (though I regret a little bit that I didn't), but when it was over, my kiddo, who is unimpressed by life, said "THAT WAS SO AWESOME." I'll hold onto that forever.
Unfortunately, we jumped in the car almost immediately thereafter to try to get back so he wouldn't miss two days of school, and watched as the ETA on our maps climbed higher and higher every mile we got closer to New York. The Thruway was just totally packed and in the end, we ended up grabbing an emergency hotel room in Mahwah, NJ, just so we could steal a few hours of sleep. We swiped enough food from the hotel's breakfast bar to call it "lunch" for my son, and dropped him off at school at 9 am the next day.
And yes - already looking at how to travel and see more! August 2, 2027 will have over 6 minutes of totality in parts of Egypt, Morocco, and southern Spain. Might be a perfect summer trip.
I was in Dayton, Ohio for a conference so I decided to add a couple of days onto the trip after it ended to stay for totality. My husband and kids also flew out.
We had driven from Colorado to Wyoming for the previous total eclipse and the traffic (especially on the way home) had been a *nightmare* so I was bracing for it to be bad and we almost just watched from the hotel we were staying at.
But we deciedd to go to a nearby Aviation Heritage National historic park and it was great. Smallish crowd, junior ranger eclipse badges for the kids, and the rangers were handing out eclipse glasses and had chairs for people who needed them. No traffic driving there or back.
We had low expectations for weather because Ohio is not really known for clear skies, but we lucked out and had clear skies and saw it really well. It seemed better this time and my kids hadn't really remembered the previous one. Fun to be in a crowd with everyone cheering and my kids were into it and I think my husband (who does solar research) may have gotten a little teared up.
Of course then later that afternoon one of my kids came down with a fever and now we all have a somewhat awful cold (can't win them all!).
We flew from North Dakota to Memphis. Also with a 12-year old. Strange choice based on my mother-in-law (who joined us from California) wanting to check out property in southern Missouri. I was also very worried about traffic jams and water and bathrooms, but it was fine. We ended up at a city park with lots of families with telescopes and someone playing Also Spake Zarathustra. We’d also traveled to the totality in 2017, but our son barely remembers that one, so I’m thankful for this second opportunity.