Total Eclipse Vacation Day 6 (The Most Beautiful Experience I've Ever Had in My Life)

If you missed Day 5 of our Total Eclipse Vacation, you can catch up HERE

One of the things I told hubby early on in this vacation was that I didn't want to go insane about trying to photograph the Eclipse. I said that I'd be happy with what I got, and I wanted to enjoy the experience of seeing it just to see it.... 

Yeah, you all know me... 

We slept in again this morning; I think we got up around 9:30 or so. My first stop was to check the sky in the backyard, and I was greeted with some wispy clouds across most of the sky... Not cool, Arkansas! It looked almost rainy, too, though I knew that this type of cloud doesn't carry water. 

I started setting everything out on the dining room table (all the lenses, batteries, cameras, tripods, etc) and did lots of Googling to make sure that I knew what settings I needed for what. I felt myself going into Spaz Mode but couldn't get myself out of there. 

I set the camera up on the tripod to get a good spot, but I couldn't figure out how to focus it with the solar filter on, and I couldn't see the camera screen, because the lens was pointed up at the sky. I put it up on some chairs, but I couldn't see the screen and I was getting more irritated, until I remembered... this new camera has a flip-out screen! So, I put the tripod back on solid ground, flipped out the screen, and all was well. 

By lunch time, the sky was still slightly cloudy, but clearing up. The eclipse officially started at 12:37pm, and of course, I wasn't ready for it... I was still futzing around with settings and f-stops and apertures and all that technical stuff! I think I finally got the hang of all the technical jargon after about 20 minutes, so my early photos are just big fuzzy orange spots, but they seemed to get much clearer as the eclipse progressed. 

About halfway into the partial, the sky had completely cleared up, giving us a cloud-free view of the sun being devoured by the moon's shadow. I plugged in the little shutter remote so that I wouldn't have to continue to touch the camera (so, no shaking), and just watched the sun disappear (behind stylish solar glasses, of course), knocking out a photo every minute or so. 

Shout out to Nathan Pyle for his I Crave Star Damage tee-shirt

Also, before the partial started, I set out the vlog camera, but just pointed it at the back yard. I wanted to get footage of what was happening on the ground, and what we were saying (but I didn't want us to be on camera). Watching that footage, it didn't seem like it got "night time dark" but really just "Florida thunderstorm dark." 

With nothing else to do, Hubby spent a lot of the partial on Twitter, looking at other peoples'  posts about the eclipse, and what they were seeing and experiencing, while also watching our eclipse. 

When you need Solar Glasses *and* Reading Glasses

Around 1:40ish, the sky really started to darken, and the sun was really disappearing... it seemed to speed up. And here is my huge lesson learned... I should have spent more time setting up to shoot the FULL ECLIPSE part instead of trying to capture the very last sliver before the full eclipse, because the first 10 seconds of totality, I was just fucking around. 

As the sliver disappeared, I heard Hubby say he couldn't see it (meaning the eclipse), then he took off his glasses and exclaimed Oh my god, there it IS! in this out-of-character, awestruck voice. When the sliver disappears, you can't see anything through the glasses, which is so weird, so you can only see the totality without them. 

So I took off my glasses, and there it was...

What I saw in that two minutes is practically indescribable, but I'm going to try. You're going to read this and think I'm off my rocker, that it couldn't have possibly been that amazing, and you'd be WRONG. It was this amazing, it was MORE than amazing... But here goes...

During Totality, the sky became dark grey, like it's night. There is a glowing light in the sky, with a darker circle on top of it, like someone is blocking a flashlight. The light that is escaping the edges of that circle is the brightest, purest, whitest light I have ever - EVER - experienced in my life. Any light you have ever seen.... it's not that. That's not bright enough. That's not white enough. That's not pure enough. This light was the epitome of what Bright Light would be. It was ethereal. It was pure. It was perfectly spectacular, and I was in deep awe of what I was seeing in only the way that a human being can be humbled by the power of our solar system and the grace of God. 

Yes, God. 

I felt seen. 

It was more than just hey look at the pretty light in the sky. I can't explain why, but there was a beauty there than only felt divine. I was absolutely speechless and in tears for about 30-45 seconds, just unblinkingly staring at the light in the sky. I was within moments of having tears just running down my face, from the beauty of what I was looking at, and how perfect and peaceful I felt. I felt so privileged to be able to experience this. 

Yes, I know that I sound so over the top but I promise... I'm not bloviating for the blog. It was, without a doubt, the most amazingly beautiful experience I have ever had in my life. 

I missed seeing Bailey's Beads, but I was able to see The Diamond Ring. At that moment, I didn't care how much time I'd spent setting up my camera and all of my expensive gear. I didn't care if the photos came out like trash. Frankly, there is absolutely no way that a camera could capture what I saw anyway... Over the following few days, I saw some professional, amazingly shot photos, and they are still only 1/100th of the glory and awesomeness that I saw with my own eyes. I'll link to some gorgeous shots from other photographers, but remember that they edited the hell out of those things, so even though they're cool photos, they don't do the actual eclipse any justice at all. 

Straight Out of the Camera, No Editing (still working on that...)

If you ever get the chance to view a Total Solar Eclipse (Total, not just Annular, there's a difference), DO IT. 

Don't even think about it. Get in the car and drive. Get on a plane and fly. Just see one. You can see in the table below that there will be a Total Solar Eclipse in 2026, but mostly in Europe (what I would give to view it from Iceland!) There will be another one in 2045 that crosses across the United States again, so I have a chance to see it again... when I'm 68! 

The next Total Solar Eclipse is August 2026

While it's cool that it's in Florida,
we'll probably be RV'ing somewhere out west by then!

Anyway, Totality only lasted for about two minutes, and then it was time for the shadow to move away from the sun. I stayed outside to shoot as much as possible, but finally went back inside when it was about 75% uncovered. Hubby and I both just kind of sat there and talked about it and how amazing it was and how (again) photos will never do it justice... we just existed in the moment of what we experienced. I've lived 46 years on this earth without ever seeing that, and I may live another 46 and never see it again. My life is now Before Eclipse and After Eclipse, and again, I'm so thankful that I was able to have this experience, and share it with the man I love more than anything. 

I repacked all of my camera gear, recharged some batteries, while we hung out on the couch, trying to decide on what to do for dinner. We headed to Andy's Custard because we thought that they had cheeseburgers (could have sworn that we'd seen one with a big neon sign advertising a deal on cheeseburgers). The Andy's by the house was out of hot fudge, and had nothing other than desserts, so we left to go find the other one that had cheeseburgers. 

When we got there, we discovered that the big neon sign was actually for Hardee's, not Andy's. We picked up two cheeseburgers from Hardee's, then swung through the drive-thru at Andy's; I got a Reese's Pieces Concrete (like a Blizzard), and hubby got a James Brownie Funky Jackhammer (a custard blended with peanut butter and brownies, then filled with hot fudge in the center). 

The cheeseburgers were about what you'd expect, and the custard would probably have been better if we'd eaten it there (instead of driving it home for 10 minutes), but I'd eat another treat from Andy's. 

Full and sufficiently awed, I took a hot bath and chilled for the night. 

We Have a VRBO - Annual Eclipse Planning 2024

We did it, we've finally decided where we want to watch the 2024 Total Eclipse...

Drum roll, please!

Jonesboro, Arkansas!

Yay... uh... huh... okay...

Okay, I hear you... Why the hell did you choose Jonesboro, Arkansas? It's not metropolitan. It's not hustling and bustling... It's just... Arkansas. (No shade to Arkansanians... Arkansavites... Arkansans!)  

And I get that. Let me explain how we settled on Jonesboro.

We kicked around the idea of west Texas, but we've already been to Texas and we wanted something different. We thought about Poplar Bluff, Missouri, simply because of the fact that I follow YouTubers who live in PB, and it was in the path (shoutout to The Endless Adventure!) I even kicked around the idea of going way northeast to New York or Vermont.

But after looking at locations, and what was nearby, cost of flights and travel, and what average weather looked like in early April, I thought that Poplar Bluff was the best option. 

But we waited way too long to decide on a VRBO and options were disappearing quickly. We narrowed it down to a few locations, including a gorgeous cabin and an over-the-top disco ball of a house. I pushed hard for the cabin, but Hubby wanted the other one; he thought that there was "too much new stuff" happening (flying AND going to a new state AND being out in the woods all secluded); he was more comfortable with a "normal" house within city limits. Plus the quirkiness of the Disco Ball House was too fun to pass up. So I went ahead and booked it.   

Sadly, I got an email from the property owner pretty quickly, telling me that the property was not available - she'd forgotten to block off the date after the same days were booked via AirBnB. Luckily, the refund process was pretty quick and easy. 

So now, I needed to find a different city location, within the path of totality. I pushed again for the cabin, but he talked me into skipping it in favor of a city location by sweet talking me into a winter vacation in the mountains next year, maybe something near Branson. 

I went back to my spreadsheet (of course) and reviewed the choices that were left, and we decided on Jonesboro Retreat Near Arkansas State University, a mid-century home right in the middle of Jonesboro. A big selling point is that it had a great big backyard from which we could watch the eclipse without having to go find an open area. No snafus with the reservation; it was through a company called Evolve, which took a certain amount due as a down payment, and the remainder will be due about a month before we travel. 

So I'm happy to say that I have two of three big parts of our vacation taken care of. VRBO is reserved, and rental car is reserved. We still need to book flights, which can't really be done until January or February of next year. Until then, it's time to make plans for what other things to do while we're up there, and where to eat! 

(Future Lazy here... about a week before we left, I was telling my boss about my plans and she wistfully said, "You always take the vacations the rest of us dream about taking! They're so thought out and detailed!" Well, yeah... I'm crazy like that, with the planning and the spreadsheets and the reservations... and the balls to go and do it! Life's too short to simply dream about doing something!)