Some pictures and musings from my adventure to experience the Solar Eclipse of 2024…

The total eclipse of the Sun as seen from Minerva, NY. 2:25 PM. April 8th, 2024.

We spent Sunday night in Lenox, Massachusetts and our plan was to drive to Saratoga Springs where we would be able to see 98% totality of the solar eclipse. Fifteen minutes out from our destination, I browsed the Eclipse app I had downloaded on my phone and compared the list of phenomena visible during a partial eclipse to the phenomena visible during a total eclipse - it became clear that the extra 2% would result in a completely different experience. If we drove an additional ninety minutes, we could find a town on the edge of the path of totality. We had come all this way - why stop now? I frantically searched the app for the closest town - Olstedville. Schroon Lake. Minerva. I knew none of these places, but decided we were headed to one of them. Joel and I drove past the exit for Saratoga Springs. We were doing it. One hundred percent or bust!

We turned off the exit to Minerva. I navigated us towards a public park, but as we turned past some small farmhouses and a country store we came upon the small bank of a river where a handful of people were set up to view the eclipse. It was about 1:30pm, and we had less than 45 minutes before things would start. Joel pulled into the last parking spot and we set our blanket down.

The light was changing. We fidgeted with our eclipse glasses and filter. For the next hour we watched the bright midday light slowly turn muted and warm.

The moon was a flat disc sliding over the sun. It was about 3:24. Someone behind me to my right started counting down. The sky became a deep indigo, but it was not quite dark. The wind picked up. Stars appeared. The temperature dropped. The light, the light, the light. Only our edges were illuminated by the edges of the sun. The edges of the sun. I looked at Joel and the others around me one last time, before they faded into the dim.

There was silence. There were gasps. There were cheers. There were yelps. Someone behind me to my left shouted “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!”

They say that during a total eclipse that animals begin to behave strangely. Nocturnal animals wake. Diurnal animals begin to nest. They become unsettled. They begin to act crazy. But the only animal I noticed acting crazy was me. I was laughing and I was crying. I didn’t know if I should sit or if I should stand. I emitted yelps and “ooohs” and gasps. I didn’t know where to look because I wanted to look everywhere all at once, but the only thing I could see was the glowing white ring in the sky. For one minute, nothing else existed. It was, indeed, one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

The black disc of the moon slid past the sun. The sky began to brighten as quickly as it went dim. It was so fleeting that I was already forgetting what it all looked like. I looked around at the people sitting on our little river bank in this little town, some of their eyes also glassy with tears. What now? I hugged the older couple, Kim and Joe, who were sitting next to us during totality. We would leave this little sliver of land in upstate New York and head back to Lenox.