The North American Eclipse of 2024

Athena and I took the day on Monday to drive as far north as we could to see totality of the Solar Eclipse. The original plan was to make it to Pittsburgh, NH which is at the headwaters of the Connecticut river and just an amazing fly-fishing location. We got a slower start with an early morning appointment, so headed in that direction and planned to pull over when we saw a good spot equal to or north of st. johnbury, VT which seemed to be the lower limit of totality. It was a pretty smooth travel morning until we got just before the Laconia notch on US 93N. It was a complete dead stop and I had forgotten that the road drops to 1 lane over the notch and has a park at the top, which I guessed people where headed towards, even though it would not be in totality. A total Eisenhower oversight on the road construction and the last time I use 93N. Catching on early enough to make our way to the west around the mountains and pick up 93 above the notch we made it to Dalton, NH.

We were driving along a river on the NH/VT boarder and saw an old train bridge that had a pull off (likely for fishing). It looked to have one spot left and as I slowed to turn in we saw an old graveyard to the west of the road with a large field and a couple of cars stopped. This looked like a much better spot to stop and set up camp. It was already about 2:10 with the eclipse starting at 2:15ish.

Once we check that the eclipse was just starting we knew we had some time to kill so we crossed the train bridge to the VT side and played around some in the cemtery throwing a ball to help the time pass.

The eclipse itself was an experience I was not really ready for. As we watched with our glasses the moon move onto the sun it got a little darker, but not much that seemed very noticeable. Suddenly as it went into totality and you no longer needed the glasses and you saw the “black sun” that are in the images and the diamond ring I’ve heard about. Athena and I were also blown away by seeing stars (maybe Venus) just before and during the eclipse. We got to experience shadow waves as the eclipse came on and as it retreated. I honestly thought I might be having an issue until Athena said she saw them as well. Bands of light and dark shadows races across the field and a fast pulsing pattern, you can just make them out in the video.

I tried to get a photo of the black sun, but the phone kept auto-correcting, but I got this one which shows some of the stars.