It’s hard to describe just how much the 2024 eclipse mattered to me. Seeing the 2017 eclipse was one of the top highlights of my life. Maybe even the best moment of my entire life. Not just the uncanny, indescribable, mind-bending beauty of the eclipse itself but the whole day—from camping with my cousins to the post-eclipse traffic jam where we prepared vats of iced tea and lemonade for strangers and opened our home to anyone and everyone who needed to use the bathroom.
That day, my whole family started talking about the 2024 eclipse. It would be far away from Oregon, but maybe we could still see it. Visit relatives in Ohio or something.
But once I moved to Texas, the answer seemed simple: I’d just drive north into totality. There are lots of Mennonites in Texas. Surely someone would let me join their party.
I ended up connecting with my second cousin Otoniel and his wife Jennifer. I’d never met Jennifer before, but when I reached out, she invited me to stay the weekend.
The funny thing is, Otoniel was at the Great Smucker 2017 Eclipse Viewing Party, so I guess we’re eclipse buddies now. He lived in Mexico at the time, but he’d come to Oregon to work that summer. I’d completely forgotten that he was there, but when I looked over my photos of that day, sure enough, there he was.
The Plan
Jennifer and Otoniel were living in a camper on her parents’ property while they renovated their house. But she was sure someone at her church could host me. And sure enough, when she put the word out, a girl named Eileen, whom I met years ago at a wedding in Alaska, said I could stay with her.
I planned to arrive Saturday and potentially stay through Monday night before heading back to Houston. Frankly, I was very worried about traffic, as you can imagine, given my 2017 experience. It’s great fun being the one handing out drinks and offering a restroom, but I had no desire to be the one stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
But the other issue I had to contend with was the weather. Severe clouds, rain, thunderstorms, and other scary things were supposed to begin Monday and last for several days. Would the clouds ruin my chance to see the eclipse?
Saturday morning, equipped with iced tea and a sense of adventure, I drove out of the city and into the glorious countryside, marveling at the rolling green landscape and endless wildflowers. And while I drove, I prayed for clear skies on Monday. Even a wee gap in the clouds.
I could tell when I entered the “totality zone” because there were frequent signs stating that we were absolutely not allowed to park on the side of the road on eclipse day, as well as signs imploring us to arrive early and stay late because the eclipse might cause traffic delays.
The Weekend
An eclipse is never just an eclipse. Not in 2017, not in 2024. It’s a whole experience, full of bizarre, wonderful things I’d never have experienced in any other circumstance.
For example, since 99% of my relatives are white, I’ve never known what it feels like to be part of a Latin American family. Although Otoniel grew up in Mexico and his mom is Mexican, I’ve only ever hung out with him in an Oregon Smucker context. I didn’t realize that Jennifer and her family were from Costa Rica, nor did I know that her sister is engaged to a local guy whose family is from El Salvadore.
But as soon as I showed up I was fed a huge lunch, and every day there was some sort of gathering or party with so much food and aunts and cousins everywhere chattering in Spanish. English, of course, if I was involved in the conversation, but Spanish in the corners.
And I was sort of an outsider but sort of not really, because I was family too.
Then there were the Texas bluebonnets. I noticed the profusion of wildflowers as I drove, but I wasn’t prepared for the pure, ethereal beauty of the bluebonnet fields. We went out late Sunday afternoon just to take pictures, and I made a little nest for myself and read The Enchanted April.
Then, after a weekend of family, food, fellowship, and fun conversations, Monday arrived.
Eclipse Day
The first thing I noticed when I woke up in Eileen’s adorable cabin Monday morning was the sunshine. Glory be! The Lord heard my prayers! A few clouds drifted through the sky, but it was amazingly clear.
In the late morning, we all headed over to Jennifer’s sister’s boyfriend’s parents’ house because they had a wide-open field perfect for eclipse viewing. As usual, there was an abundance of aunts, food, and Spanish.
Most people drifted here and there, cooking and chatting. When the first teeny tiny black dent appeared in the sun, the only people watching it were me, Eileen (who came over on her break from work), and a boy who seemed about 11 or 12. All three of us were extremely invested, with frequent interjections such as “wow, look at it now!” and “it looks like the Apple logo” and “now it looks like a fat moon.”
Presently, other family members would come out and take a peek through eclipse glasses or a welding mask every now and again. And as the world began to grow a little dimmer and a little colder, everyone collected outside. The food preparation never quite ceased, but it did at least settle down a bit as we all waited for the big event.
The UPS man dropped off a package. Someone handed him a welding mask to look at eclipse progress before he headed on to the next house.
Most of the time, the sky was clear enough that we could put on our eclipse glasses and watch the moon slowly advance across the face of the sun. Every once in a while, a dense cloud would block our view, but honestly, it was a welcome reprieve from the heat.
But when there was just the tiniest sliver of sun left, a bank of clouds rolled right across it, making it impossible to see anything through eclipse glasses. But you could see it with your naked eye. What a dilemma! The desire to stare at something that could permanently damage my eyes has never been so strong. So I just kept peeking at it in quick, furtive glances.
And then, bloop! The sun was gone.
There’s something absolutely indescribable about that moment when the sun disappears behind the moon. It feels like you’re living in a slightly altered reality. We cheer or yelp in astonishment without realizing we’re doing so. There’s no quelling the unearthly wonderfulness of it.
And we got four minutes of totality—more than twice what we got in 2017. Unfortunately, for part of that time, the eclipse was behind a dense bank of clouds and looked like this (except darker in real life).
But since we had four whole minutes of totality, there was plenty of time for the cloud to blow away, giving us a great view of the eclipse. This included a strange red spot on the bottom that we assumed was a solar flair, but which was apparently actually a solar prominence.
If you’ve never seen an eclipse before, the sky goes dark, but there’s a ring of light near the horizon, like a sunset in every direction. Presently, Eileen said, “Is the sky getting lighter over there?” and we went running to look around the corner of the garage where, indeed, the sky was getting lighter to the southwest. We looked to the northeast and saw that the “sunset” look had disappeared and the sky was dark to the horizon.
Just then, a bead of light appeared at the edge of the moon. A diamond ring, just for an instant, and then light rushed into the world again and the eclipse was over.
The children started spontaneously cheering. The adults were wide-eyed. “That was amazing!”
“It’s like two days in one,” said the boy next to me. Then, a few moments later, “I wish it could be that beautiful forever.”
After
Back in 2017, we ate brunch before the eclipse, and once totality was over, none of us had the urge to linger. In fact, many of us felt a deep weariness and wanted nothing more than a nap, although, with the subsequent traffic jam/iced tea and lemonade/bathroom situation, we didn’t get a chance.
But here, the eclipse was merely the beginning of the festivities. Once it was over, we feasted, talked, and laughed, and no one showed any inclination to go home to take a nap.
A great weariness stole over me, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I hadn’t slept well the night before. I wasn’t sure what to do. If I asked to nap at Eileen’s, I’d pretty much drive her from her own home since the air mattress took up most of the floor space of her studio. Besides, I’d come with Jennifer and didn’t have my car with me.
My weariness must have shown on my face. Jennifer asked if I’d like to nap. The lady who owned the house offered me the couch. Jennifer’s mom offered to let me take her car to her house. Jennifer’s sister offered to let me use her bedroom. So before I knew it, I was in an empty house, in Jennifer’s sister’s bedroom, taking a glorious two-and-a-half-hour nap.
I checked Google Maps a few times, and it didn’t seem like traffic ever got too crazy. So maybe I could have gone home on Monday. But after my nap, it was late enough that going home would mean driving after dark in possible storms.
Instead, I went back to the house where we’d seen the eclipse, dashing inside just as a deluge broke from the heavens. Most of the eclipse guests had left, but a few remained yet. We ate leftovers and hung out with parakeets.
Going Home
The next morning, Eileen tried to show me how to use the weather radar, but all I gathered from it was that terrible storms seemed inevitable. Already, a deep darkness was on the horizon. I said goodbye, hopped in my car, and hoped for the best.
The rain got worse and worse. I was on the Interstate, and the semi-trucks kicked so much water into the air I couldn’t see, only staying vaguely in my lane by watching the taillights of the car ahead of me. It wasn’t worth it. I pulled off at the nearest exit, on the north side of Waco, and parked by a Starbucks where I hoped to wait out the storm.
Having no umbrella, I poked through a plastic bag full of plastic bags I’d meant to recycle at Kroger and selected the biggest piece, which had originally encased a bulk package of toilet paper.
Then I ran inside with a giant toilet paper wrapper over my head and shoulders.
Unfortunately for me, this Starbucks was not designed for people to sit in, cozily sipping tea, tapping away at their computers, and waiting out storms. Its only seating area was one long bench with three teeny-tiny tables that were barely bigger than armrests. The sort of thing where you might rest a cup of coffee, but not a laptop.
Also, it was full. I got my tea and sat on the floor.
“We’re leaving soon, so you can sit here,” a woman on the bench informed me. “But watch out because the roof leaks.”
Something about the wild weirdness of an eclipse turns strangers into friends. Everyone in that Starbucks seemed, like me, to be going home after watching the eclipse and temporarily avoiding the storm. We traded stories and pictures. It was truly lovely. The guy next to me was from Virginia but had spent time in California, and we chatted about the West Coast, the 2017 eclipse, and how amazing it would be to see the Iceland eclipse in 2026.
Buckets of rain poured from the heavens, roaring on the roof of the Starbucks, and wee dots of water fell through the ceiling and splashed on my lap. I looked at the radar on my phone, trying to understand it. The deluge seemed inevitable, lasting for hours and hours. Waco was under a tornado warning.
But presently, I glanced outside and saw two people walking, not running, through the parking lot with no umbrella. I hastily gathered my things and ran outside. Sure enough, the rain had calmed to a mere sprinkle.
I took several interchanges in Waco and ended up on a four-lane highway, where the deluge began again. This time, however, there were very few semi-trucks, no middle lanes to get lost in, and almost no vehicles merging onto the road. 80% of the drivers slowed to sensible speeds. After another half hour or so, the rain slacked off to a downpour, then a gentle rain, then a drizzle, then a sprinkle.
By the time I got to Houston, the sun was shining. The traffic here was heavier than usual but overall wasn’t that bad.
Matt and Phoebe, on the other hand, had gone to the Kerrville Eclipse Festival hosted by NASA, where they met up with Phoebe’s cousin. Even though they left Sunday and came back Tuesday, they encountered a lot of backed-up traffic. So I guess the lack of traffic I experienced was due to choosing a more unpopular spot to eclipse watch.
Final Thoughts
My eclipse weekend was just about as close to perfect as possible, but I was disappointed by two tiny things.
First, although the eclipse was phenomenal, mind-blowing really, it was a bit like reading my favorite book for the second time. You notice more details the second time through, and you realize just how much you love it, but at the same time, you feel a little bit sad because there truly is no way to recapture the feeling of experiencing it for the first time.
Second, there were no weird shadows.
Both at the 2017 eclipse and during the “ring of fire” eclipse last October (we had 85% totality in Houston), there were very peculiar shadows. The leaf shadows made little crescent shapes all over the concrete, and when you stretched out your hands, there were little shadow bumps between your fingers.
But this time, the shadows were barely weird at all. Just a bit of blurriness around the edges. I kept stretching out my hands to see those bumps between the fingers, but they weren’t there, and Eileen thought I was crazy.
I’m not sure if the problem was the clouds, the fact that there were no trees or slabs of concrete near us, or something else. But I was disappointed. I would have liked to share the weird-shadow joy with the first-time eclipse viewers around me.
Ever since the eclipse, I’ve been reflecting on how miraculous it seems, even though it’s really a simple concept: Just like a tree, a cloud, or your own hand, the moon casts a shadow on the earth when it passes in front of the sun.
But in my opinion, the truly miraculous part is that the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun but also 400 times closer, so that they seem, to the naked eye, to be exactly the same size. This means the moon blocks the sun but allows us to see the sun’s corona. Which is wild.
Many people, religious and non-religious alike, feel a spiritual awe when viewing the total solar eclipse. And I think God did that on purpose. As much as we marvel at willow trees and puppies, mangos and wisteria vines, these things grow common over time, and we forget how much of the universe was created specifically to ignite our sense of wonder.
And then we travel 300 miles to see the eclipse, and we remember.
This April Blogging Challenge has been a real challenge in the sense that when you’re traveling to see eclipses and such, you may find yourself crouched in the bathroom of your friend’s studio hurriedly trying to finish a blog and post it with no Wi-Fi and only one bar of service on your phone.
Needless to say, I haven’t been the best at linking to the other blogs in the challenge, so I’m going to fix that here.
Here are all the posts we’ve done so far this year. (I recommend reading Phoebe’s post if you’d like a life update!)
- April Blogging Challenge (And the End of the Christmas Quest) (written by me)
- Belize–Touches of Familiar in a Foreign Place (written by mom)
- Amy’s Update from Thailand (guest post written by Amy)
- The Trip to Belize (written by me)
- What’s Going On With Phoebe and Matt (written by Phoebe)
- Notes on Poetry Workshop (guest post written by Hudson Kropf)
The next post will be written by mom and coming out on Monday, April 15!
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