If I were on 1/48/50 right now, going by the course I've mapped out as it corresponds to the May-October timetable I've decided on, I guess I'd be somewhere in New England...Maine probably. And I'm not going to lie: I'd bet Maine is a nice, nice place to be in September.
But I'm not on 1/48/50...not now...not yet. Here in west-central Wisconsin, autumn is always a busy time. I like autumn, and don't dread winter like I used to, but as this summer has wound down, and people have gotten themselves back into the daily grooves that propel them forward, it's occurred to me that time's flying past at breakneck speed, and I have to start thinking about this road trip more seriously.
I really need to start making plans. I'm two and a half years into this blog, and now have less than eight to take the trip before I turn fifty. And truth be told, fifty is just the final deadline. The earlier the better.
2017 would be an ideal summer to make it happen, seeing as a monumental solar event is expected to take place that year, and seeing as I have a specific childhood memory related to it.
There was a solar eclipse on February 26, 1979, my kindergarten year. It was not a total eclipse where I was, but it was visible enough for our class to be called to the south-facing windows of the school to view with those cardboard box contraptions, called sunscopes, which 'project' an image of the eclipse through a pinhole. I can recall being amazed and excited by the concept of darkness during the day (I still am...), and even more so by the teacher informing us, as we each took a turn putting our head inside that box, that we would all be forty-four years old the next time something like this occurred.
She actually told us this, and her words have stayed with me all these years. They were my introduction to the concept of myself as something other than what I saw in the mirror. I can recall - quite vividly - being able to picture myself a grown-up, viewing an eclipse in an otherwise completely unimaginable future. And sure enough, her prediction was right on the money. A total solar eclipse will indeed take place on August 21, 2017, and I will be, as Mrs. Lojewski said, forty-four years old.
And who knows...with any luck, on the road somewhere.
Whereas the 1979 event was just a glancing visual blow in northern Wisconsin (the path of totality - that relatively narrow track of the eclipse that gets plunged into total darkness for a few minutes - swept through Washington State, Idaho and Montana, but then swung northward toward the arctic), this time it will stretch straight through the middle of the country. According to Wikipedia, the longest duration of totality, weather permitting, will occur in Shawnee National Forest, south of Carbondale, Illinois.
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| February 26, 1979 - A total solar eclipse's path of totality (in blue) delivered a glancing blow only to the extreme northwestern states, but the event was partially visible through the south-facing windows of little ol' Beaser Elementary School in Ashland, Wisconsin....on the shore of Lake Superior. ;-) |
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| Animation Courtesy of Andrew Sinclair http://web.archive.org/web/20080121012947/http://members.aol.com/eclsat3 |
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August 21, 2017 - A total solar eclipse will shoot straight through the center of the U.S., with the path of totality being visible in a number of states, from west coast to east coast.
Images courtesy of Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA's GSFC - http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/.
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How splendid would it be if I were on the road somewhere, living nebulously, when this occurs?
But honestly, how splendid would it be to view even if I'm not on 1/48/50, even if August 21, 2017 turns out to be just any old Monday? I might very well take a mini-road trip to the path of totality, if I can. I'm only nine hours from Carbondale. I can drive that in my sleep. ;-)
It just would be so nice to keep on driving afterwards, once the moon has passed, and daylight returns...
