Once in a Lifetime...

The spectacle!

I have written before about my early interest in astronomy.  This past week, I finally got to see a total solar eclipse, something I have looked forward to my entire lifetime.

In June, 1954, some close friends, the Goble family, pulled their three boys out of school early so they could head to Wisconsin to view a total solar eclipse.  I remember them packing up their 1950 Studebaker with luggage and camera equipment and heading out.  Dr, Alfred Goble was the head of Union College's physics department.  His wife, Ethel, was like a second mother to me.  I practically lived at their house, where Rob, Louis, and Jonathan were like family.  I had spent a summer with the Goble family in Maine.  And now, they were going to get to see a total eclipse and I wasn't.

I've waited since that time for this opportunity.  Several months ago, I looked at the NASA-generated state map of Tennessee that included the path of totality.  I wanted to observe the eclipse from near the center line.  Looking for the closest point to our residence, I came up with Silver Point, TN.  There seemed to be a couple of nearby highways -- 96 and 141 -- and it was just south of interstate highway 40 that runs from Nashville to Knoxville.  Then I noticed that only a few miles away was a state park - Edgar Evins State Park!  Wouldn't it be great to observe the eclipse from the tranquil setting of a state park?

Location of Edgar Evins State Park

I called the Park Superintendent, a very helpful young lady who informed me that they were anticipating up to 5,000 people coming to the park for the event.  Mary Ann and I decided to use this as our observation point in spite of the potential crowd.  As the magic date approached, August 21, 2017, we packed our observing gear (I had bought our solar glasses months before).  We were going to be ready.

On Monday morning, we headed out around 8:30.  The park official had recommended we get there "as early as possible."  We (including Bella, of course) wanted to find a good place to observe this amazing event.  We programmed the GPS with the address of the park headquarters and headed out.

More than once, our GPS has taken us on routes that were less than ideal.  On one of our trips to Iowa, we were directed on to a barely-paved two lane road, which became progressively less paved, evolved into a gravel road, and suddenly opened up to an interstate highway access road.  On this trip, we were somewhere on Federal highway 70 and were directed to take a left turn onto Main Street, followed by an immediate right turn.  We followed those directions and found ourselves on what appeared much more like a driveway than a public road.  Two miles later, after three harrowing "passes" to ease by oncoming traffic, we found ourselves emerging on to a beautiful, newly-paved highway.

As we were getting fairly close to the park, we encountered a roadblock staffed by a young lady park ranger.  As she talked to the cars ahead of us, we saw that she was frequently mopping her brow, obviously suffering from the heat as she stood on the hot pavement.  We approached her checkpoint.  She informed us that the park was really full and suggested we might want to go to an alternative location.  She suggested a picnic area within a few hundred yards of our location, just to our left, below the dam that forms Center Hill Lake.

The picnic ground where we observed the eclipse

The location she suggested was perfect.  When we got to the large parking lot, we saw shade trees, lots of grass (great news for Bella), a picnic pavilion, and a convenient rest room building.  It looked like the perfect setup!  We unloaded our chairs and set them up in the abundant shade.  A couple of gentlemen nearby informed us that they had driven from Illinois and Minnesota.  We all shared our good fortune at finding such a great observing point.  Mary Ann and I enjoyed our lunch and soon we were ready to see the beginning of the eclipse.  She was able to sit in the air conditioned car between observations while I remained under the shade trees and made frequent trips into the sunlight to look upward through my special solar glasses.

Mary Ann and Bella enjoy the shade

The moon gradually "ate" the sun.  As totality approached the light seemed to gradually dim around us.  I let Mary Ann know when totality was imminent.  We watched together as the as the occultation became complete.  What a sight!  I looked at the remaining sky and saw Jupiter and the brilliant Venus.

The biggest surprise for me was the intensity of the corona.  Its radiating spokes were a brilliant blue-white.  As I looked around our surroundings, it looked like a room with dimmed lights. The crickets began chirping.  I looked back up, wishing I could extend the sight forever.  It was magnificent!  And then, way too soon, the brilliance of the sun peeked out from behind the moon, and it was once more time to use our solar glasses.

The crescent sun projected on my chair through
the pinhole camera effect of the tree leaves

A few minutes later, we began packing the car to head home.  The GPS took us home by a different route.  We repeatedly ran into traffic jams as everybody who had viewed the event tried to get home.  The trip that had taken 2 hours going north took over 4 hours going homeward.  We arrived safely a little before 6:00 p.m.

The next U.S. total eclipse will take place in 2024.  I'm looking forward to seeing that one too.  It's an event not to be missed!