The April 8 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

After years of waiting, the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse has finally happened. I’m super happy that I got to experience this once in a lifetime event. Especially after missing the 2017 Eclipse due to the US government deciding that I needed to go to jury duty on that day. While jury duty was certainly an interesting experience, I just wish it could have literally been on any other day. Let’s get back on topic though. We took a short road trip to Indiana so that we could be in the area that would experience Totality. We settled on this small town called Spencer, Indiana. In a parking lot nestled between a mexican restaurant, a dairy queen, and some railroad tracks (I’m extremely glad no trains came by during the eclipse, especially during totality).

I’m also super glad that we traveled the short-ish distance to experience totality. Everything that I had read prior to the eclipse had mentioned that if you are in an area that would experience >90% that it is worth it to make the short jaunt to the path of totality. Totality itself was pretty cool (no pun intended, due to the noticeable drop in temperature). It a pretty wild experience to look into the sky and there is just this black orb with a light rim around it, where the Sun should be. Not to mention, everything going dark and being able to see Venus at 3 in the afternoon is obviously unusual. While the “sunset” around the horizon was a very neat experience, I think the thing that will really stick with me is how it got dark leading up to totality. You could notice that it was getting darker, but it’s a different type of “dark” than what you experience when the Sun sets every night. It’s difficult to describe other than being very surreal. It’s one of those things that you definitely have to experience in person. I’m glad I got to experience it this year, and I hope that I get to experience the next North America/United States total solar eclipse in, I believe, 2045. That one’s path goes straight over Orlando, so I can imagine those being the most expensive Walt Disney World tickets ever!