It is famously difficult to adequately describe the experience of viewing a solar eclipse, but we can pretty accurately describe how we managed to view this Great North American Eclipse of 2024.  Maybe this will help someone get ready to view the next one when it comes along.

An important first step: Get a good breakfast in.  Roaming around all day requires fuel, and in the excitement it’s not a sure thing that you will remember to eat, or  even that you will always have access to food.

The Bangor Inn and Suites offers a good spread, and it opens at 6 am.  This worked well for us.  We had decided to visit Houlton – it was a little farther away, but it offered the chance to experience the eclipse in the presence of experts from NASA and lots of other people who were excited about it all.  It was 140 miles to Houlton.  We needed to be set up somewhere with Wifi by 9 am.  Finishing breakfast by 7 was pretty important.

Clear roads to Houlton were also important.  We breezed past Millinocket, Island Falls, and, really, only a handful of other towns.  We had great views of snow-topped Katahdin. And in almost no time, we were pulling off 95 and heading toward the heart of Houlton.  We stopped in a bank parking lot that seemed well-located.  It cost $20, and we later learned that the funds would go to the local Humane Society.  The lot was mostly empty at 8:30.

Getting a good parking space turned out to be important.  Our spot was right across the street from the Riverside Star Park, one of four such parks the town had set up for visitors.  We were able to visit the van several times during the day.   Upon arrival, we carried our bags and chairs across the street, and staked out some space, including a picnic table.  A man was there to let us know which direction to point our chairs to see the eclipse.

There was a van in the park’s parking lot with a satellite disk providing Wifi.  Another van  there was from The Weather Channel. There was even a bank of porta potties in the back corner of the park.  By 8:45, we were ready to view the eclipse.  We only had five hours or so until first contact – when the moon starts to cover the sun.   It was time to check out the Maine Eclipse Festival.

Across a pedestrian bridge and up a small sidewalk, we found Houlton’s wide Market Square.  There was a huge set of eclipse glasses, and a bust of George Washington wearing eclipse glasses.  There were open storefronts, food trucks, and tables with displays.  Large speakers on a stage pumped out eclipse-theme music. We found posters with the Festival’s catch line:  The End Is Here.

There were not a lot of people in the Market Square.  But it was still early.

Zoe was set up for her exam on a park bench near the library – in another one of the Star Parks the town had set up.  The rest of us poked in the shops and booths, picking up eclipse donuts and commemorative posters.  We mailed special post-marked cards to ourselves.   We watched the square slowly begin to fill up with people.   In not too long, the exam was done – Zoe got a 92!

Houlton had grand plans for the Festival, and the town worked really hard to make it happen.  Booths and displays around the square included bake sales and tie-die crafts.  There were Native American drumming displays, and a some noodling on an eclipse-themed electric guitar by a local rock legend.

Lanie could not turn down the offer to hold a snake, even though she and Jen had to wait in line about an hour for her chance.   Meanwhile, the crowd in the square got larger and larger.

At a booth in front of the movie theater – the movie theater where they would have simulcast the eclipse from a weather ballon if there had been clouds – we talked with NASA folks who asked us to download an app that would help them figure out the shape of the Sun.  Trisha and I decided to become citizen scientists.

We got closer to first contact.   The crowds in Market Square were not oppressive, but the mass of people was noticeable.  Some of us got lunch at a food truck.  We spent time in the riverside park, which had filled up with eclipse watchers.  We played Ransom Notes on the picnic table.  There were snacks and people in the park to talk to.  We could see the Weather Channel crew working a few dozen feet from our chairs.

As first contact approached, we tested our eclipse glasses and got our colanders.  The Sun shone on us.  It was around 60 degrees.

It’s important to know what kind of environment you want to watch the eclipse in.  At least, it was important for us, because we were fortunate enough to have a choice.  We sought out communion with fellow enthusiasts.  Early in our eclipse day, we heard reports of our friends the Ervins closing in on Houlton, a few hours behind us.  I kept a lookout for them all day long.  There were a lot of people in Houlton and the down had dedicated an impressive amount of space to the Festival; but it wasn’t so big and crowded that I thought it likely that the Ervins would escape me.

We later found out that they never made it to Houlton.  They stopped for gas in, Smyrna, the town right before us.  Talking to a few locals they were told something like: “I wouldn’t go to Houlton.  It will be crazy there with so many people.”

It’s true that Houlton swelled with more than 20,000 visotrs on eclipse day, and it’s also true that personal jet traffic into Houlton International Airport was very brisk that day.  Rumors swirled that Taylor Swift herself was in town for the day.  We did not see her — or did we?  The band of roving martian creatures was very well choreographed and definitely had a diva-esque vibe.  What better way for her to let down her tentacles and migle with the commoners.

Besides that buzz of excitement, though, things never really got oppressively crowded or overly intense.  We enjoyed mingling with the commoners as much as Taylor did.

Meanwhile, the Ervins ended up finding a hillside in Smyrna where a handful of other people were set up to observe the eclipse.  They sat on the hill and watched nature all day, up to and including the eclipse, with a view of Katahdin.  It was just the experience they were looking for.

In “crazy” Houlton we experienced the surreal experience of totality.  From the first second of contact, which I learned about because the people behind me had an app that announced eclipse milestones, through the various percentages of moon coverage, we shared the experience with several hundred people in the park.

We found ourselves in the background of the Weather Channel broadcast, and kept abreast of the milestones thanks to our neighbors’ app.  To my immediate left was a man named Chris who talked about how he had viewed his first eclipse at a child in Bucksport, ME.  He watched his second eclipse with his son in the Midwest.  Today was his third eclipse.

We talked with a photographer from the New York Times who was interested in our colander trick.   We took pictures of each other peering through eclipse glasses or manipulating the pinhole camera that we made. We heard snippets of conversations in 360 degrees all around us.

The light certainly changed gradually, but we noticed the change suddenly.  It wasn’t noticeably darker;  Zoe described it as “more saturated.”  Darks looked more profound.  Red and green looked more vivid.  Other colors were washed out.  We spent time remarking on this, and how we were at about 98 percent coverage, which is about as much of an eclipse as the people who stayed back home would get to see.

Then it got progressively and noticeable weirder.  Definitely darker, definitely colder.  Most people had put their coats on.  It was a strange twilight where the whole periphery was sill pretty light, but right above was dark.  It felt like it should be raining – storming.

The crowd chattered.  The man from the Weather Channel called out to the crowd and asked if we were ready.   People started cheering.

And then, totality.  The darkness went most of the way down the sky.  The streetlight next to the flagpole at the top of the park came on.  Someone said we could take off our eclipse glasses and look.  There were all forms of non-standard verbal communication – gasps and aaahhs.  I remember Trisha yelling “Oh, my God!”  multiple times, but I missed getting a video of it.  I went to hug Jen and possibly ruined the picture she was trying to take.

The lights on the footbridge went on.  The Oohs and Aaahs continued, and the crowd whispered reverently.  There was stirring at the same time as silence, somehow.

Eventually, I thought to look up myself.  It took some effort to look up, actually.  My brain and body are conditioned to not look up at the Sun.

What I saw was pretty much like the pictures we’ve studied over the past several weeks:  dark disk surrounded by pale streaks in all directions.  It was larger than I expected it to be, or maybe it appeared larger the way the moon does when it’s near the horizon.  My attempts to photograph it were mostly a failure, but in one of my pictures you can clearly see the pinprick in the sky that we later learned was Venus.  Just off screen was another pinprick that was Jupiter.

My phone and Trisha’s were propped up taking automatic pictures for the Citizen Science project.

We took all of this in, the stillness and the murmurs.  And then, even though it seemed like much less than 3 minutes and 30 seconds had passed, someone told us to get ready for the “Diamon Ring effect”.

There was a quick burst of light on the bottom right of the circle and we were quickly warned to put our eclipse glasses back on.

Totality was over.

The Weather Channel man asked what we thought, and the crowd cheered.

Our little clan recovered. We regrouped.  We revisited the portapotties (still not an unbearable line).  And then we started to break camp.

On our way up the path to the parking lot Chris asked a photographer how their shots came out.  The man said he got great pictures of the partial eclipse, and then forgot to take his filer off for totality.  Another photographer next to him did the same thing.

Traffic, which had been a concern for us, turned out to be a non-issue.  It would have been less of an issue of we’d listened to the (seemingly drunk) man on his front porch urging us to take a left off of Route 1 and bypass the already accumulated backup.  We eventually got the message and turned off after another block of gridlock.

The trip to Bangor took only about an hour longer than we would have expected.  We rearranged bags between cars back at the hotel and made the fateful decision to dine at the adjacent Olive Garden (the Orono Brewing Company was unfortunately closed).  It was a drawn-out affair, and we didn’t get headed back home until almost 9.   Those of us headed to Durham made it into town around midnight.  It was a pretty smooth drive, unlike the stories we heard from other parts.

We will be talking about this trip for years — any and all traffic encountered will soon be forgotten.

Meanwhile, there’s already talk of traveling to the next accessible eclipse.  Anyone else up for a trip to Spain?

If we can skip the Big Bang and the planets forming and black holes and stuff, then our big eclipse adventure started a year ago minus a day when Jen booked a hotel suite for us in Bangor.  Actually, it started a little earlier, sometime between when Jen read the Wendy Mass book Every Soul a Star and when she heard there would be a solar eclipse whose zone of totality would be within driving distance of home.

Jen perceived the astrological signs and realized we could stay in Bangor near Zoe on the night before the eclipse, and then we (minus Nadia) could all drive the hour or so north to totality. The plan was outlined. In the year following the hotel room booking a few relevant detail emerged:

1. We talked the Halls (minus Emma) into joining us for the trip.
2. Interest in the eclipse gradually rose – but we all managed to get our requests for personal days approved before the school system ran out of substitutes.
3. We discovered that the timing of our trip allowed us to see Zoe’s last UMO Orchestra concert, and, with a little ride sharing, Jen could stick around an extra day to watch Zoe’s honors thesis defense.

You can see how the stars were aligning.

We drove to Maine on Sunday morning.  Two quick stops in Bangor awaited us.

First, we swung by Stephen King’s house.  As usual, had a few other cars worth of tourists lingering around the spider-strewn front gate.  It was a predictable, yet satisfying eight-minute detour.

Second, we motored across town to Bangor Police Department HQ.  This was likely the place we wanted.  Confusingly, though, they don’t have a sign on the building for the Duck of Justice, so Jen had to somewhat awkwardly press the call button out front and ask the attendant if the famous taxidermized bird was actually inside.  We got buzzed in and then had to wait for an officer to meet us in the lobby to unlock the special Bangor Police Museum.  Here we found the Duck, which Krissy has been urging us to visit since forever.  We took our selfie wearing eclipse glasses (hopefully soon to be displayed on the BPD website) and enjoyed a few minutes browsing the small, but not un-interesting museum.

Even with those two stops, and lunch at the Family Dog in Orono, we made it to campus in plenty of time to walk through campus before Zoe’s concert.  The performance itself was moving and well attended.  Highlights included the New World Symphony and Copland’s Hoedown.  Zoe was one of only four cellos in this year’s orchestra.

Parents’ and kids’ paths diverged for a while at this point.  One group took a more in-depth campus tour that solidly featured bouldering action in the Maine Bound Adventure Center.  Eliza is interested in a college experience that includes lots of outdoor exploration and Zoe tried to give her an idea of the kinds of opportunities that would be available at U Maine.  They also saw a very large plant through the window of a greenhouse.

Meanwhile, those of us who already hold at least one college degree moved off campus to watch the NCAA Division 1 Women’s Basketball Championships. The staff at the Orono Brewing Company was happy to put the game on all of their TVs, even though we only needed to watch one.  While we were watching South Carolina defeat Iowa, we got to have some popcorn and pretzels, and we also had a beer or two.

It should be noted that some of us had more than a passing interest in the game. South Carolina’s win netted Trisha $75 and Iowa’s loss prevented Chris from winning any money whatsoever.

After the game, we regrouped and headed into Bangor for dinner.  It was a Sunday night, and the post-Covid restaurant scene can be difficult to predict.  Our first stop, Bangor’s Market Square, had a good concentration of restaurants, but only one was open, and it had an hour-and-a-half wait.  A two-block drive revealed an open Thai restaurant that ended up serving our purposes quite well.

Throughout the day, there was speculation, anticipation, and last-minute preparation.  With none of us having experienced a total eclipse before, it was difficult to know for certain what was in store for us.  Some clues had presented themselves:

• A week or so before the event, Maine State Police started suggesting that we bring paper maps because there was fear that the cellular network would not be able to accommodate the masses of people traveling north and east for the spectacle.
• Many road signs along Rt. 95 urged us to be patient in traffic and avoid parking in snowy or muddy fields (apparently, there are not very many tow trucks in Aroostook County).
• The predicted weather for the area seemed perfect.
• The main event in the area, Houlton’s Maine Eclipse Festival was expecting as many as 40,000 visitors.
• There was general speculation that some places might not have enough sanitation facilities to accommodate the crowds.
• Other towns in the area were advertising eclipse watching events, but they did not seem as coordinated as Houlton’s, though Houlton was farther away from Bangor (and home) than most of the other towns.

Based on this intelligence, we made tentative plans.  Then we were hit one more piece of information:  Zoe had to take an exam tomorrow!  She could take it remotely, but she needed to be logged in for the exam around 9 am.  How would it all come together?  Keep reading to find out.