As of the date of posting, (September 25, 2018), the “Great American Eclipse” was 400 days ago on August 21, 2017. Why 400 days instead of a year? Well, 400 is just a much nicer number than 365 (actually, it’s 365 and a quarter days (actually actually, it’s 365.2422 days (actually actually actually… yeah, I just didn’t get this ready in time for the one-year anniversary))).
I had never seen an eclipse before, or even a partial eclipse (technically, I had seen lunar eclipses before, but that doesn’t really count). Sure, I’d seen photos online, but never IRL. So, I was very excited to find out that there was one within easy driving distance of me in mid-south Oregon. I did quite a bit of research beforehand – the Youtube channel Smarter Every Day made a few videos that were quite helpful.
I scheduled the day off from work. After two attempts to get eclipse viewing glasses fell through, I was able to beg a pair from a friend. Then, I made a plan and a backup plan to actually get in place to view it. The forecast was iffy all the way up to the day before, so if it was cloudy, I would drive up to the mountains to get above the clouds. Luckily, that wasn’t the case – it ended up being a beautiful day, so I was able to view it from the Oregon Garden, thanks to a friend who a spare ticket to the viewing party there.
The eclipse was being hyped up by the media, so traffic was going to be bad – I decided I’d drive down in the middle of the night. Even then, there was a fair amount of traffic – apparently, a fair number of people had the same thought as me, but I didn’t run into any traffic jams on the way down to Silverton. I slept in the car, then got up bright and early to head into the garden, wearing appropriate attire. I met up with my party and we had a great time walking around the garden for a couple hours.
During an eclipse, there are 4 times to be aware of, referred to as C1 through C4, which depend on where you are and the exact positioning of the Earth and Moon. C1 (9:05 am) is when the moon’s shadow first starts to cover the sun, then there’s about an hour as it progresses. C2 (10:17 am) is the moment when the sun is fully occluded (totality), and C3 (10:19 am) is when it ends. After another hour, you’ll hit C4 (11:38 am) which is when the moon finally clears the sun.
Besides totality (C2 to C3), there are a number of neat things that happen. For instance, any small points of light (where the sun shines through tree leaves, for instance) become crescent-shaped (see photo to the left). Just before and after totality, you can see weird shadows called shadow bands dancing around (they’re almost impossible to video – I tried and failed miserably, but I did see them). Right at the start and end of totality, you get Bailey’s Beads (sun shining through the craters on the moon but blocked by the mountains, so you get bead-like points of light) and the Diamond Ring (see the image at the top of this post). The temperature drops and climbs drastically (on the order of about 15-20 degrees over those 2 hours). Plants will close up, so the garden actually looked different before and after the eclipse. During totality, the entire horizon looks like sunrise.
Then, there was the eclipse itself. I’m not prone to waxing lyrical about stuff, but this… It was unlike anything I had experienced before – absolutely breathtaking, stunning, and beautiful. I’d gone into it thinking it would be cool, but that the hype surrounding it was overblown. Coming out of it, I can say categorically that it completely lives up to the hype. To put it into perspective, it was amazing enough that I spent an entire day writing and editing this massive 800-word post, more than a year after it had happened. It’s the kind of thing that makes me seriously consider flying to one of the next ones (South America in 2019 and 2020), but I’ll definitely hit the one in the Eastern US in 2024. I mean this very sincerely – if you can possibly find a way to get into the path of totality for an upcoming eclipse, you absolutely should – pictures and videos don’t do it justice at all.
Of course, getting back home afterwards was an adventure in and of itself. Even after waiting for 4 hours, there was still a 2-hour traffic jam to get out of town, and very heavy traffic all the way up the interstate. Worth it, though. Every second.
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My sincere thanks to Peter Allen for the use of his photos, and for the ticket to the viewing event.