You’re probably not surprised to hear that I spent about a month (which was still too late) preparing for this eclipse. Besides logistical stuff like booking a flight, finding a place to sleep, and arranging rides, I was also reading every article and watching almost any YouTube video I could find. If you know me, you know that I tear up really easy, so if you looked hard enough at me at my desk at work, you could see me wiping away tears as I watched other people on my screen experience a total eclipse. I’m a baby I know, but it really was moving. I told Connor that this was so important to me because it’s the only way that we have right now to directly experience the scale of the solar system without ever leaving earth. It just seemed to so personal to me to be in the middle of the uncomprehendingly large celestial objects and distances. But of course, what I expected was nothing like the actual experience.
Because I’m a procrastinator (surprise!), by the time we, as in my mom, dad and sister, were searching for flights to Casper, Wyoming tickets were around $800, there were no hotels available in Glendo, Wyoming, and there were no more rental cars in the entire state of Colorado…
The plan became to fly to Denver, stay with family in Fort Collins, drive up early morning Monday to Glendo then drive all the way back to Denver. Haha oops.
We woke up at 4 am on Monday, packed up our luggage and borrowed my great aunt’s Prius (make all the fun you want, but that thing saved us), and drove north up I-25 for three hours. Every time a new car drove up the on ramp and onto the freeway, I thought, welcome nerd! We’re in for a treat! But it was nice because despite these feeling of dread that something bad might happen (because of large amounts of people gathering or traffic blocking us from the path of totality), it made me more excited to see so many people actually interested in this event.
We got to Glendo and the offramp to the city of 200 was backed up for miles. We drove past accidentally (thanks, dad) but it ended up working out perfectly. A few miles further was a rest stop area where a bunch of people had already started gathering. As long as we had a toilet, we had everything else we needed!
We pulled off to the side of the road near the rest area and found an open spot on a hill. We laid out layers of blankets and chairs and waited, talking to people, trying out our glasses and napping.
At about 10:20 I thought I saw a chip of the sun missing through my eclipse glasses. My dad saw it too and the timing was right. It had begun! Slowly the moon ate away at the sun, but what made it so weird was that you couldn’t see the moon. I know it’s obvious to say that the sun is too bright to see it, so it’s hidden like the stars, but it’s still surreal to see the world around you go darker for no apparent reason.
At about 60 percent coverage, I took off my glasses and cleaned them, only to realize that it was the lighting around me that was changing. My mom said she felt like she was wearing sunglasses. It was the weirdest thing. I kept rubbing my eyes. My sister, dad and I started running around looking for ways the world was changing. We hung out under a tree, giggling at the crescents on our hands, and the floor, and in the pages of my notebook. It was exciting then, and I was relieved to think people in Tucson were having a good time too.
It kept getting weirder. The sun didn’t look dimmer at all though, it was just the air around us. It was like an overcast day, but instead of the colors muting, they were still bright, but weirdly silver. I put on my jacket. Later I learned that the temperature had dropped 25 degrees as the moon shaded us.
I was going through a mental checklist of what I was going to look for during totality. I had been asking astronomers to share their experiences with me for weeks. In the end, every bright idea that I had before the eclipse was erased along with the sun as the moon moved in front of it.
We looked west, in the opposite direction of the sun, and saw a dark blue-gray thunderstorm building. But in reality, it was the shadow of the moon flying toward us.
I looked at my family. It looked like the blood had drained from their faces. We kept pointing at each other and saying you look really gray! (Devyn, my sister, actually does turn gray when she’s tired haha). It was the weirdest thing, and I thought multiple times that we were aliens on another planet. The world was so surreal. Everything didn’t lose it’s color, I just feel like I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. The air was silver and this dark storm raced at us. We started getting giddy, and I’ll admit it, I looked at the sun! I had to see what the hell was happening, but I still couldn’t see the moon even though when I looked through my eclipse glasses, all that was left of the sun was a tiny sliver that shrank every second. It was so weird to know it was there and never see it.
Then BOOM, the blackest black you have ever seen just materialized in front of the sun. Watching the moon (through glasses, it didn’t exist without them) inch in front only to pop into existence at the last second was jarring. I had been ready to tear up at the sight, but all I felt was this deep deep panic. People cheered and gasped and all I could do was freak out silently. My heart started racing and I didn’t have a thought for a full 10 seconds. When I snapped out of it, I thought, “I have about 2 minutes and 20 seconds left, what am I going to do?!” Flustered, I started whipping my head around and up, trying to take it all in.
The sky was the most beautiful blue I have ever seen. I’m not just saying that. It was a deep deep blueish purple. My dad pointed out the horizon and I could hear him giggling as he took a 360 video of the orange and pink glow long the ring of the horizon. I spun in a circle, still not believing what I was seeing even though I KNEW this was what was going to happen.
I heard my mom say something about the corona, so I looked up again and saw the most delicate whisps of white streak out from the sun, and not like a ring like we draw as kids, but almost like incredibly thin, glowing white pedals of a flower. The corona was divided into three spikes and I didn’t know it would be so big–each as long as the sun’s diameter. A the center was this incredibly perfect black circle. I’ve NEVER seen anything in nature so perfect. I think that was the strangest and most memorable part of this experience. Nature is never perfect. But this was.
My mom laid down on the blanket on the grass and took it in. I thought I could join her but as soon as I laid down I jumped up, looking around for more. I saw Venus, the next brightest body in the sky. My dad and sister called me over to look at Baily’s beads through someone’s telescope. The most perfect circle of black was transformed into tiny mountains in sunset in that telescope. That’s what my dad was most excited for.
Then, way too soon, someone said, “It looks like morning over there.” The western sky was growing light (which was strange in itself). I turned around, not wanting to let the perfect black circle and white pedals leave the sky.
Then, like morning, a piece of the sun flared over the edge of the moon’s mountains and I saw the diamond ring that everyone had been sharing so many pictures of. But it only lasted a few seconds and was gone. I’ve been staring at pictures for so long that I didn’t realize how soon it would be over. Just as soon as I could comprehend how beautiful it was, it was already gone.
Everyone around us, including myself, cried, “nooo!” And we watched the shadow recede over the eastern landscape, and the alien silver air returned. And we grabbed our things in silence and got int0 he car to try and beat something as mundane as traffic, which didn’t seem to feel right after such a unique experience.
I felt like the excessive coverage of the eclipse leading up almost made the eclipse commercialized and vulgar, and I know I contributed to that steady stream of news about it. But man, NOTHING that you hear about it is exaggeration. It wasn’t just beautiful. It was terrifying and surreal, and honestly if I would have seen this the way people did hundreds or thousands of years ago, I would have sacrificed someone too! Like “Oh shit, sorry gods! We get it, we messed up, because I don’t know what the hell just happened to the sky!” I had prepared and I still freaked out. But once my pulse fell back to normal, I could just stand in awe at the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen, which to me was the biggest emotion I felt.
But for all it’s perfection, it was definitely strange. This was the most other worldly experience I have ever had and probably will have until I get to go to Mars… haha
Sonoran Stargazer 