Back in 2017, we travelled to Simpsonville, South Carolina to witness a total solar eclipse. It was awesome. It’s hard to plan for these things, given the vagaries of weather forecasting, but sometimes you just have to go for it. We went with friends who are simply amazing planners. The featured picture for this post is from that event, as is this one:
with all of us posing looking up at the sun with our eclipse glasses.
This time around, with kids fully grown and doing their own things, we were a smaller group:
This year, we drove west to Rochester, New York, to witness the eclipse. Weather was not on our side this time around, but we made a strategic decision on the morning of the eclipse, to head about an hour east to Syracuse. The weather prediction was slightly more favorable, and even though there would be less time in totality, the likelihood of experiencing any totality in a meaningful way meant the tradeoff was worth it.
In the end, the cloud cover stole much of the awe inspiring visible experience from us, but we still had a great time. From our vantage point, we were able to see the umbra moving from west to east, and it got much darker than we remembered from 2017. And then, the three hundred mile drive home went as smoothly as it possibly could, getting us home by 8:00 p.m. which was a blessing. We had friends who were in Burlington, Vermont, who headed home after the eclipse and who didn’t arrive home until 5:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Yikes!
All in all, a great experience, and we would be inclined to do it again.