Solo Eclipse Written April 11, 2024   Several years ago, I became aware that a total eclipse of the sun would be visiting my part of the country in 2024.  I've been around for a couple of partial eclipses, but I couldn't pass up the chance to experience a total.  The “path of totality” would cut diagonally across Ohio before continuing into Pennsylvania and beyond. Many people from Pittsburgh planned to travel north to Erie and watch the eclipse in the company of friends and family.  But I'm an introverted loner.  I decided to travel west to Ohio, where I grew up in the village of Richwood and went to college in the town of Oberlin.  Nowadays I no longer communicate regularly with the people who live in either place, but both would be near the middle of the path. Newspapers warned that preparations were required.  In Richwood's Union County, the Health Department encouraged people to make sure they had a supply of food and medicine on hand because “eclipse travelers could lead to a significant increase in traffic” and that could mean “potential gridlock.”  In Oberlin, where 10,000 to 15,000 people from out of town were expected, the college planned musical performances at an OCLIPSE viewing party on the football field.  Unfortunately, nearby streets and parking lots would be closed.  In some locations clouds might obscure the sky, so I wanted to keep my options open.  I reserved a motel room in Ashland, roughly halfway between Richwood and Oberlin.  From there, depending on the weather, on the morning of the eclipse I could decide whether to drive southwest or north. On each of the first seven days of April, I charted the predicted cloud cover percentages for April 8 at three o'clock. Erie gradually climbed out of the running.  Afterwards, Neena Hagen would report for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that “hundreds of thousands of people were supposed to descend on Erie for the much-hyped total solar eclipse, but just hours before the main event, it looked like a typical Monday morning.  There were few people Downtown and no sun to be seen.  A thick layer of clouds hung over the Bayfront — one of the prime viewing locations for the eclipse — covering the sun completely before the moon had a chance to.” Conditions were similar at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York (left).  CFI had promoted its potluck and viewing party with the promise that “The experience is profound.” Meanwhile, the cloud prediction for my two Ohio towns hovered around 50%.  But a more detailed forecast suggested that a little further west, there would be only thin high clouds which would not block the view.  I added Findlay to my data gathering.  Only a 35% chance of clouds?  Go west, young man! Around noon on April 8, a few people were in downtown Ashland including one guy with a Mylar balloon.  I drove westward towards Attica, a town I remembered on Ohio Route 4.  A sign there pointed me to the fairgrounds, also known as Attica Raceway Park, where an offer of $2 parking had drawn a few folks.  But I wasn't interested in mingling with a group of strangers.  The eclipse was still at least an hour away and there would be even clearer skies further west, so I continued in that direction. Not far outside Attica I discovered the sprawling Seneca East High School.  There were plenty of empty spaces in the parking lot; classes must have been canceled for the day.  But a sign warned me that unauthorized persons were not allowed there.  I saw a cop car in another lot a few hundred feet away, and I wasn't looking for a confrontation. I resumed driving westward on straight and almost-deserted US 224.  More signs warned that parking on the shoulder was prohibited.  A couple of sheriff's deputies were ready for trouble, but there wasn't any. The moon was scheduled to begin hiding the sun at 1:57 pm.  Well before that time, I reached the edge of the city of Tiffin and found just the sort of mostly-empty parking lot I wanted, in front of the Hampton Inn and Carmie's BBQ & Grill.  I parked in an out-of-the-way space on the edge of the lot, facing south.  The sky was almost clear. I waited until after two o'clock, then stepped out of the car, put on my special ultra-dark eclipse glasses, and looked to the southern sky. I saw nothing. Then I remembered that the sun was supposed to be at an elevation of 56°, so I looked up higher. There it was!  The part of the sun not yet blocked by the moon was easily burning through the wispy clouds. I made no attempt to photograph what was happening in the sky, confident that the professionals would obtain better results which could be added to this story later. There was still nearly another hour to wait until predicted totality, so I climbed back into the driver's seat.  Could I watch the eclipse from inside the car?  With the special glasses on, I awkwardly leaned forward and looked up through the top of the windshield to observe the occultation. It was then that I realized there was another window above me.  Opening the moonroof / sunroof, I leaned back and looked up.  Perfect!  I had brought a kitchen chair to set outside, but the driver's seat would be much more comfortable. Settling in to wait, I could tell that the scenery was becoming dimmer, but for the first half hour I probably wouldn't have noticed had I not known that an eclipse was in progress. Sunlight was still glinting off other vehicles and casting shadows on the ground.  At 3:00, eleven minutes before totality, I started an audio recorder to take notes. With “night” approaching, starlings prepared to roost nearby.  At 3:01 a robin started its evening song.  Through my eclipse glasses, I noted at 3:05 that the sun had been reduced to a line around the edge of the moon. At 3:07 my surroundings had become “very dark, very odd.”  By 3:09 the cloudless portion of the sky had turned a difficult-to-describe dimmer shade of blue, and the automatic exterior lights at the barbecue grill switched on.  I looked up again at 3:10 and saw that the sun was now just “half a sliver.”  I took the glasses off, laid them on the passenger seat, and again surveyed the scene.  The sky was darker to the west but sunrise-like to the east. Totality reached Tiffin at 3:11:24, but I didn't realize it!  Although my audio recording captured a couple of faint far-off cheers, my peripheral vision told me that that there was still a light above me in the sky.  I didn't dare look at it, because we had been warned not to gaze directly at the partially-eclipsed sun without protection. It had become so dark that I couldn't find the eclipse glasses, but shortly after 3:13 I took a chance.  I looked up with naked eyes, and there it was! The total eclipse appeared exactly as it had been depicted in all the pictures I'd seen:  the moon as a black circle surrounded by the sun's corona.  I could just make out a few red-orange solar prominences peeking around the edge of the moon. The only surprise was the planet Venus off to the right, photobombing the scene with a rare mid-afternoon appearance.  Had I looked off to the left, I would also have seen Jupiter. "Huge crowds in the path of the totality watch excitedly as the sky gradualy turns completely dark, a spectacular sight that most people will never witness again in their lifetimes unless they're still around at sunset."  —Dave Barry's 2024 in Review At 3:15:16 the sun began to reappear from behind the moon. Totality had lasted for 3 minutes and 52 seconds.  I had managed to observe it during the final third of that time. Later, I talked to one Pennsylvanian who experienced only a partial eclipse.  He was amazed by how much cooler he felt while the sun was obscured.  According to V. Kelly Turner, an urban-heat expert at UCLA, the amount of sunlight that hits a person's body is by far the determining factor in how hot they actually feel.  Blocking the sun can lower how hot a person feels by 36 to 72 degrees Fahrenheit.  In my case, already shaded inside my car, I didn't perceive any change in temperature. I returned to Ashland to spend another night, then drove back to Pennsylvania the next day.  The predicted traffic jams weren't there, except for the usual morning-rush congestion around Akron and a miles-long backup approaching the state line on the Ohio Turnpike where drivers had to present their papers (toll tickets) to government agents.  Not me; I have E-ZPass.  On the other side of the border there was no slowdown at all, as Pennsylvania has fully automated its toll collection. So what did I think of the great event?  Others were euphoric. Clyde Owan of the Oberlin Class of 1979 was on campus, and he said that viewing the eclipse there “was an amazing treat!”  The photo comes from those posted by the college's Kadrian Hinton and Mike Crupi. From Lordstown, Ohio, James Hilston of the Post-Gazette used the word “sublime” to describe “this matchless and inexpressible beauty.” Elizabeth Dias, who writes about faith and spirituality for the New York Times, wrote that “millions of people from Mazatlán to Maine stopped to gaze upward in a profound experience of awe.  It was a reminder to everyone, on the same day and at the same time, that life can be magical.  That there is something astonishing about being part of the greater story of things.” Kate Russo, who's seen more than a dozen total solar eclipses, told Scientific American that when totality happens, “we feel in the presence of something greater than us and more powerful than us.  It makes us think about our lives in a different way.” I was glad to have seen it, but I have to admit that the eclipse didn't reduce me to tears.  For me, it was simply a natural phenomenon well-understood by science, beautiful like the emergence of the leaves in April, but neither unexpected nor mystical.