Solar Eclipse Road Trip - April 2024

 

                                                   On that day, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

                                                                                                 --    Book of Amos, Chapter 8, Verse 9

Early Saturday morning, April 6, with Arcade Fire's "Keep the Car Running" blasting from the speakers of my Subaru Forester, my younger son, Drew, and I set out on a four-day, 1,800-mile road trip to catch the highly-anticipated total solar eclipse that would cross the United States from Texas to Maine on April 8.

Our original plan was to drive from Albuquerque to Ardmore, Oklahoma, with an intermediate overnight in my hometown of Lawton, to position ourselves for a dash into the path of totality in northeastern Texas on the day of the eclipse.  But by April 1, for that part of Texas -- indeed, for most of the totality path in Texas -- the weather forecasts were getting progressively worse, predicting overcast skies.

I had been collaborating with my friend and fellow photographer, Alan, who was planning to base his attempt from San Antonio, but as the forecast for clear skies in Texas deteriorated, we developed Plan B where the sky was predicted to be clear:  Conway, Arkansas, a small college town on I-40 about 35 miles north of Little Rock, and about 30 miles east of the totality center line. 

Amazingly, even at that late date there were still hotel rooms available in Conway -- though they weren't cheap ($440 per night).  Alan and I made reservations independently and ended up in hotels right next to each other.  And as luck would have it, there was a large open space about 100 yards down the street where we could set up our cameras and canopies.  Perfect!

En route on Saturday, Drew and I stopped outside of Amarillo to visit Cadillac Ranch, where in 1974 ten ancient (1949-1963) Caddies were buried nose first in a line as an art installation.

As you can see, the cars are wildly spray-painted with graffiti -- an activity that is not just allowed, but is encouraged with the on-site sale of spray paint:

One Cadillac even sported a reference to our destination:

I have visited and photographed Cadillac Ranch multiple times. If you would like to see additional images and read more about it, click here or here.

We had some family business to take care of in Lawton, and on Sunday morning we drove out to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge northwest of Lawton and had breakfast in a tiny cafe in the resort village of Medicine Park.

After breakfast, Drew did some rock climbing on a "river" of  giant 500-million-year-old granite boulders on the slopes of Mt. Scott, the second highest peak in the mountain chain.

Just outside the Wildlife Refuge is a 122-year old store and cafe that's the only vestige of a turn-of-the-20th-century prospecting camp named Meers.  

The Meers Store and Restaurant is on the National Register of Historic Places, and serves a classic, plate-sized burger that the Food Network has named the best burger in Oklahoma and among the best in the entire U.S.  (There's another contender in El Reno, OK, that we'll mention later in this post.)

        NOTE:  This is one Meersburger cut into four quarters for Drew and me to share.

So whenever we are within striking distance, we always head for Meers and a great American meal.  This day was no exception.  Well fed, we hit the road back up to I-40, then on to Conway.

Eclipse day dawned with some high thin cirrus clouds that we hoped would burn off as the day went on.

We weren't sure how many people would show up to compete for space at the field we had scouted, so at 6:30am we walked down the street from our hotel.  The field was empty, so we went back to the hotel for our free breakfast, then walked back to the field -- still empty.

The "first contact" of the moon and sun was predicted for 12:33pm CT, and the almost four minutes of totality would begin at 1:51pm.  So about 9:30am we decided it was time to stake out our space, pitch the canopy, and set up all our gear . . . and wait.

Eventually, others began to trickle in . . . virtually all from elsewhere.  Many had driven from neighboring states -- Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, and from further away (Florida, Georgia, Colorado).

We encountered two with "Plan B" stories like ours . . . people who had originally intended to go to Texas but changed plans due to the weather forecast.  One was from San Francisco, and by the time he changed his plans the closest he could get to Conway by air was Albuquerque!  So he flew there and drove the rest of the way.  The other was from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.  His original plan was to fly into Houston and drive to his planned spot in Texas.  Instead, he kept his Houston flight and drove to Conway (and back).

About an hour before totality, there were probably 30-40 people in the big open field where we were . . . not crowded at all.  Everyone had their solar sunglasses and camera filters.  I took pictures of the sun every few minutes as the moon moved across the face of the sun:

Then, finally, totality!

You'll notice two bright little features on the perimeter at roughly 3:00 and 6:00.  These are not solar flares, but solar prominences (there's a difference) . . . and they are bigger than the Earth.

For most of the time the moon was progressing toward totality, the diminution of the light was hardly noticeable.  But about 5 minutes before totality it slowly got visibly darker.  And at totality, it was like someone had turned off the lights -- not pitch black, but very dark, like the sky an hour after sunset -- in the space of about 30 seconds.  In addition to my cameras on the ground, I flew my drone to get a view of the horizon and the city around us.

We didn't hear any dogs start barking (actually I don't think there were any dogs nearby), but the street lights came on and the temperature dropped noticeably.  Because I didn't have a tracking device on my tripod, I had to re-orient my cameras every 20-30 seconds to keep the sun in the frame.  And I was also manually flying my drone to get the aerial view.  The 3 minutes and 56 seconds of totality went quickly, but totally worth the trip -- it was an awesome experience!

As totality ended, there's a phenomenon called the "diamond ring" when the first limb of the sun reappears.  I was fortunate to capture that moment with one of my ground-based cameras before I had to slap the solar filter back onto my lens.

In the meantime, Drew had had the great idea to set up a GoPro camera on the roof of my car to create a time-lapse series looking at our viewing area all the way through totality.  Here's the video at 24x real time:

In addition, he used his drone to record the beginning of totality on the ground in real time.  Here's how it looked.  And if you turn up your audio and listen carefully, at about 25 seconds into the video you can hear the cheers when it gets really dark.

Here's a two-minute video (with music) condensing the eclipse event:

We didn't stick around for the moon to completely uncover the sun, but we did take our time packing up for the return trip because we figured there would be a lot of cars like us heading west out of Conway on I-40.  Little did we realize how many there would be!  The drive from Conway to Oklahoma City (where we planned to spend the night) is usually about 4.5 hours.  Because of traffic and accidents all the way to the Oklahoma-Arkansas border, it took us 7 hours!

Attempting to avoid the back-ups and make better time, we followed Google Map instructions and left the Interstate four or five times, driving on state highways, county roads, and in one case, for about 1.5 miles, a dirt road!

And we weren't the only ones using alternative routes.  Every time we got off the Interstate, there were almost always a dozen or so cars in front of us or behind us doing the same thing.  We finally rolled into OKC about 10pm and fell into bed.

The next morning we walked around downtown OKC during the "blue hour" just before dawn, and we were impressed by the huge buildings, sports arena, and a movie sound stage facility repurposed from the previous sports arena.

There is one more building in downtown OKC that I want to mention.  In the summer of 1966, I was part of a group of Oklahoma high school students heading for a 6-week trip to Europe (along with appropriate adult supervision).  Our trip began at the Santa Fe Railroad station in OKC.  Here's the station, now an Amtrak station.

Here's a picture of our group the day we boarded a train to Chicago on the first leg of our trip.  I'm the tall guy with glasses in the back.

And here's a picture of me in the same place, nearly 58 years later.

Nostalgia objective achieved, we hopped on I-40 West for breakfast at Sid's, a classic diner in El Reno, OK, west of Oklahoma City.

Sid's is one of those "everybody knows your name" places . . .

where the walls are plastered with photos of military servicemen and -women from WWII and after, and where geezers hang out for breakfast:

Sid's' is famous for its Oklahoma Onion Smash Burger -- not my favorite, but Drew goes for them (but not for breakfast).

Once again well fed, we hopped back on I-40 and blasted west back to Albuquerque.  We had a great trip!  Hope you enjoyed it too!