![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonThe best-laid plans of squirrels, in particular, always seem to change many times, and that's partly due to having a kid in the mix and partly just due to planning for a group who all have different needs to meet. That got a little expensive in terms of hotel rooms, this time. However, the important things on this small two-night road trip all went really well. After much discussion about cloud cover we drove to the AirBnB I'd originally reserved more than a year ago, and used it as home base while walking around experiencing the solar eclipse. In particular, we got there in time for the partial to start and for us to not be especially hurried.
The place turned out to be right next to a picturesque bridge over a gorge, with a dam just upstream of the bridge and a functioning-but-cute hydroelectric power plant just downstream. Just across that bridge, a peopled but not crowded park! Further downstream, an even prettier bridge from which to take pictures of the first bridge and all its attendant waterfalls / spillways. So far, so lucky. I scouted around for locations where the shadows might get interesting, and the bug looked for places to photograph from. The sun was being eaten from the lower right, not at all the same orientation as I saw in 2017.
Then while the sun was still being eaten I wandered slightly upstream toward the spillway, which was the ungated and smooth kind that looked like a wide waterslide, and found even more magic: the water above the dam was smooth and we could catch a reflection of the crescent sun in the water, and it was easy to clamber down to some rocks like a wide, somewhat crumbly stairway. The rocks are where we all gathered for totality and, despite a few wispy clouds coming and going in the high atmosphere, I think we got everything we could have wished for! Strange colors on the rocks and in our clothing, extra-sparkly waves as if the water had turned into fairy water, flickering light on the rocks... small waves of light, I think different from the larger bands of shadow we saw in 2017, though the landscape might have been less conducive to seeing those. The sunlight got all strained and weak, and the anticipation got pretty intense.
When the sun finally gets eclipsed, it goes pretty suddenly over the course of a few seconds. The corona appears, and you notice it because the eye doesn't flinch away (like it does pretty naturally, at least for me, for any part of the full-on sun). We briefly tried to see it through the eclipse glasses but nope, that view is just gone. Maybe the thrill of totality is, in part, that the dangerous becomes safe (alien, beautiful) as a deep purple night falls. Unlike normal sunrise or sunset, at least near maximum totality on the center line of the path, the horizon is dark purple all the way around. It must also be mentioned that the mosquitos and other crepuscular insects were out and about, obviously lured by the false evening as well as the tasty smelly humans. There were only two other people out on the rocks with our party of four and they didn't bother us, so we got to mostly just experience it with each other. The bug's eclipse-timer app told us when totality was going to end, and as that moment came close I realized the horizon was lighter on one side than the other. Something I might have noticed on the early side, as well, if I'd thought to look? The bug counted down, and I was watching through eclipse glasses when the tiniest orange chip of sun reappeared ("It's back, it's back, it's back!"). I scurried around in the post-totality extreme-crescent phase, trying to get cool shadow-pictures -- not doing as well as in '17, because the trees were bare, but still liking it -- and we all went back to the base to recuperate. I watched the partial eclipse alone from the porch until the sun was fully back, I think burning my face a tiny bit in the process, and... that was the good part. A few minor misadventures later, an early rise, and we were home.
I feel lucky that this event came so close to us; it required a few hours of driving but not full-on travel with jet-lag and everything. This was the squirrel's first total solar eclipse as an adult, and it's already chittering now about Sydney, Australia in 2028. Has it caught the eclipse bug? Perhaps! We were listening to a brief podcast in the car on the way, where one of the world's most avid shadow-chasers was being interviewed about his upcoming trip to see totality in Mexico. What's special about this upcoming one? Anything? the interviewer asked. And he said simply It's the next one!, which just seemed like the perfect answer when you really love something. Made me think for a while. At any rate, I've never been to Australia (or New Zealand), and the timing is about right for an epic 50th birthday celebration, so I'm not opposed.
The place turned out to be right next to a picturesque bridge over a gorge, with a dam just upstream of the bridge and a functioning-but-cute hydroelectric power plant just downstream. Just across that bridge, a peopled but not crowded park! Further downstream, an even prettier bridge from which to take pictures of the first bridge and all its attendant waterfalls / spillways. So far, so lucky. I scouted around for locations where the shadows might get interesting, and the bug looked for places to photograph from. The sun was being eaten from the lower right, not at all the same orientation as I saw in 2017.
Then while the sun was still being eaten I wandered slightly upstream toward the spillway, which was the ungated and smooth kind that looked like a wide waterslide, and found even more magic: the water above the dam was smooth and we could catch a reflection of the crescent sun in the water, and it was easy to clamber down to some rocks like a wide, somewhat crumbly stairway. The rocks are where we all gathered for totality and, despite a few wispy clouds coming and going in the high atmosphere, I think we got everything we could have wished for! Strange colors on the rocks and in our clothing, extra-sparkly waves as if the water had turned into fairy water, flickering light on the rocks... small waves of light, I think different from the larger bands of shadow we saw in 2017, though the landscape might have been less conducive to seeing those. The sunlight got all strained and weak, and the anticipation got pretty intense.
When the sun finally gets eclipsed, it goes pretty suddenly over the course of a few seconds. The corona appears, and you notice it because the eye doesn't flinch away (like it does pretty naturally, at least for me, for any part of the full-on sun). We briefly tried to see it through the eclipse glasses but nope, that view is just gone. Maybe the thrill of totality is, in part, that the dangerous becomes safe (alien, beautiful) as a deep purple night falls. Unlike normal sunrise or sunset, at least near maximum totality on the center line of the path, the horizon is dark purple all the way around. It must also be mentioned that the mosquitos and other crepuscular insects were out and about, obviously lured by the false evening as well as the tasty smelly humans. There were only two other people out on the rocks with our party of four and they didn't bother us, so we got to mostly just experience it with each other. The bug's eclipse-timer app told us when totality was going to end, and as that moment came close I realized the horizon was lighter on one side than the other. Something I might have noticed on the early side, as well, if I'd thought to look? The bug counted down, and I was watching through eclipse glasses when the tiniest orange chip of sun reappeared ("It's back, it's back, it's back!"). I scurried around in the post-totality extreme-crescent phase, trying to get cool shadow-pictures -- not doing as well as in '17, because the trees were bare, but still liking it -- and we all went back to the base to recuperate. I watched the partial eclipse alone from the porch until the sun was fully back, I think burning my face a tiny bit in the process, and... that was the good part. A few minor misadventures later, an early rise, and we were home.
I feel lucky that this event came so close to us; it required a few hours of driving but not full-on travel with jet-lag and everything. This was the squirrel's first total solar eclipse as an adult, and it's already chittering now about Sydney, Australia in 2028. Has it caught the eclipse bug? Perhaps! We were listening to a brief podcast in the car on the way, where one of the world's most avid shadow-chasers was being interviewed about his upcoming trip to see totality in Mexico. What's special about this upcoming one? Anything? the interviewer asked. And he said simply It's the next one!, which just seemed like the perfect answer when you really love something. Made me think for a while. At any rate, I've never been to Australia (or New Zealand), and the timing is about right for an epic 50th birthday celebration, so I'm not opposed.
no subject
Date: 2024-04-09 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-09 08:52 pm (UTC)