2024 Total Eclipse with family and a little chaos

[Shelby]

This report is a little late, but better late than never, right.

My family and me took a road trip from my home in Louisiana to travel and go see the total solar eclipse. It was not something I originally thought we would be able to afford because of other recent expenses, but we managed to pull our finances together and make the trip to see this once in a lifetime event.

It was me, my sister, my mom, and my step-dad who went on the trip. We couldn't find a place to stay along the path of the eclipse since we waited too long to get a place and everything was expensive, so we settled for a place just off the path and we were going to back track to get to the eclipse path. At least that was our original plan.

Things were going well at first, we had finished the first 7 hours of our trip with no issue, but that soon changed, we heard a horrible noise coming from the back of our minivan, and looked behind us to see the back wheel was about to fall off, so we quickly pulled over and stopped. We got it towed to the local autozone where we fixed it the next morning, which was eclipse morning.

The morning of the eclipse, after we got back on the road, now the van was running really rough and dying on us constantly, we were not sure if we would make it to see the eclipse or not, but we eventually made it to a park in a small town called Paris, Arkansas, about an hour from where we were when we fixed the wheel issue, where we watched the eclipse.

Now, on to more bad luck, when I went to setup my telescope for observing the eclipse, I grabbed the box that my solar filter was supposed to be in, but it was not there. Turns out that I had grabbed the wrong box at home, and did not bring it with us. So, we all watched the partial eclipse with eclipse glasses instead, which was still enjoyable, and I had a phone filter to still be able to take pictures as well. We all watched as the sun slowly disappeared more and more as totality approached. The anticipation was growing.

Now, the best part of it all, totality. We watched in amazement as the sky suddenly grew dark and the sun was now completely blocked. People all over the park were cheering in amazement. It was truly a wonderful experience that I will never forget. We all took short turns at the telescope to get a close look at totality and I managed to get a few pictures as well. I could see Jupiter and Venus as well as a few stars in the darkened sky as well, but that was definitely not the main focus at this time.
There was a couple who had setup right next to us who asked me if they could have a look through my telescope at totality, and of course I said yes, you only get one shot at seeing something like this after all. They thanked me greatly for allowing them to look at it like that. I really made their day. After this, totality ended and the sky got bright again as things were returning to normal.

We left shortly after that because we had seen the partial phases already at the beginning and wanted to get to our resting place after everything that happened to us, but that did not go as planned because things went terribly wrong as soon as we left the park. Our van was now running worse than ever before, so we pulled off in a parking lot and opened the hood to find that a hose was blown off the engine. We then got that fixed and decided to not continue on to our original resting place and instead get a place closer to home in case anything else happened.

After that last issue, the rest of the trip home went well without any major issues, but that was a very stressful trip to say the least. At least we did still get to see the eclipse in totality like we originally planned to though. That experience is something that nothing else can replace. It is an out of this world experience that I am glad I was able to be part of, and I got to share it with my family and even a couple of random people as well.

That concludes my eclipse story, not your typical eclipse road trip by far, but I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed seeing the eclipse. Hopefully the trip mishaps were not too boring of details, but I felt that everyone should know my full experience. Happy reading, everyone. I did attach pictures too for everyone to enjoy.

[StarHugger]

Nice report and images,

Cool you all got to see it, was a bit of an adventure for my daughter and I too...

Hope the Van is doing better now !

[Shelby]

Thanks.

I read your report as well, sounds like you had a good time with the eclipse as well.

Haven't had any bad problems with our van since the trip. Hoping that we got all the kinks worked out of it now. We only got it a little over a month ago, and it wasn't fully tested for long trips yet. It is now, but that could have went much better. Nevertheless, we still had a good time during the eclipse.

[StarHugger]

Thanks.

I read your report as well, sounds like you had a good time with the eclipse as well.

Haven't had any bad problems with our van since the trip. Hoping that we got all the kinks worked out of it now. We only got it a little over a month ago, and it wasn't fully tested for long trips yet. It is now, but that could have went much better. Nevertheless, we still had a good time during the eclipse.

Good to hear, all ready for the next adventure then.

Best of luck indeed...

[Bigzmey]

Glad that you have managed to experience the totality despite some car trouble Shelby. At least the weather cooperated.

[Shelby]

Glad that you have managed to experience the totality despite some car trouble Shelby. At least the weather cooperated.

I am also glad I got to see it too despite everything happening. Weather was pretty nice on eclipse day in Paris, AR, where we stopped for it. Only a few thin clouds, but nothing that was thick.