Darkness on the edge of town

We had arrived in Madras. The little town was packed to the rafters with eclipsophiles and their friends and loved ones. It was 18 hours to eclipse time. We went down to SolarFest to dine and relax the evening before the big event. I wanted to attend some NASA-talks, but we arrived so late that the last lecture just finished as we arrived.

So we just enjoyed the food, the concerts, the people, the shows and the shopping. I bought my sister and my niece big buttons with "1st timer" written on them. In preparation for the next day.

There were no more pins to place, so I used my finger...

Halo with slightly visible sundogs just before sundown.

We didn't bring any tent, and had planned to sleep in our car. My niece in the back seat and us in the front seats. It wasn't comfortable, but it worked. I didn't sleep much during the night. Mostly because of anticipation. But also because of people here and there either arriving, or partying. But in the early hours of the morning, I got to see the beautiful colors of the sunrise.

We had breakfast "tickets", and we got it from a wagon on the other side of the field. Bread, scrambled eggs, juice and some other stuff I cannot remember. Or name. It was filling, and tasted OK. I really didn't care. It was just a necessity for the morning. The sun was rising. And only a couple of hours away from the big event.
One of the reasons I had bought camp-site tickets for SolarTown, was that from maps I had found that SolarTown was smack in the middle of the centerline of the eclipse. I know, I know. It is a matter of maybe a second or two. But if I have a choice, I want as much of the eclipse as possible.
I pulled out my gear from the trunk and set it up behind the car. I had decided not to do anything manually this time. I wanted to just enjoy it all live. So I had made a small computer program that would control my camera and take all the photos. I set everything up and fired up the program. It was counting down. I watched and hoped everything would work. Didn't want to frantically fix things on the fly. I had already decided that if it failed, I would ignore taking photos and just enjoy it. I had photos of every eclipse I had been to so far. So it wasn't life threatening not to have photos from this.
The time was near. I watched the computer as much as the sun. 30 seconds before first contact, I heard the relieving sound of the camera firing. Just as scripted. I sighed in relief. Since I didn't get to set up the equatorial mount properly, I had to adjust the position every now and then. But not a big issue. There were a few clouds above, but nothing that a small adjustment of the exposure couldn't fix.
I set up my compact camera in the back of the car to shoot images every 15 seconds so I would have a record of things happening. Below are a few of those shots.

First contact!

Slight adjustments were needed every now and then.

First contact at the upper right (at around "2:30")

Moon soon covering the large group of sunspots

Sunspots gone

Closing in on totality

Getting ready to remove the solar filter. It is getting dark!

 

TOTALITY!!!!!

The field exploded in cheers and whistling! Totality was upon us. An incredible sight!

The suns corona during totality made up of different exposures combined

Beautiful protuberances just before third contact

"Diamond ring"

As it was all over, I felt the my heart pumping. The camera continued to fire as I stood there. Almost jumping for joy! My 10th totality was a success! It was all over! I looked around the field. People were cheering. Smiling. Clapping. My sister and niece loved it.
We had planned to try to jump ahead of the crowd by getting out just after totality. So I packed everything down as soon as the camera was finished shooting. I jumped in the car and drove 10 feet before I realized that a lot of other people had had the same idea. Traffic jam on the field. And this was just the beginning. All the roads were jammed with traffic. As the hours snailed by, it became increasingly clear we wouldn't make it out before nightfall. Again, a lot of frustration led to people taking chances. So traffic was halted on numerous occasions due to accidents. Some small. Some serious. We even got rear-ended during the night. But it was in 2-mph traffic. So no damage. The guy behind us either fell asleep or "his breaking foot slipped", so his car slid into ours.
We had a hotel booked in Reading, California. Normally, it would take about 5 hours to drive there. We arrived after 20 hours on the road. Tired. Hungry. Apathetic. The receptionist told us that a lot of people had arrived during the night, all from the eclipse. All stuck in traffic. I dropped on the bed and napped for an hour while my sister and niece took a shower. We had breakfast before we checked out. Our plan was to drive to a place called Clearwater that day. Luckily, no more traffic. We arrived at the time we expected. And got our room soon after. We crashed for a bit before heading out to more adventures.

This was my 10th eclipse, and the 9th I have actually seen. All eclipses are different. But my favorite is still the 2015 eclipse on Svalbard. Sorry Oregon! You just didn't cut it compared to that one. Maybe in the future, another eclipse will rise to the top of my list.

Ragnar
Eclipsophile and travel nut