Posted April 12, 2024
Modified slightly on April 13, 2024
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Our friends, Julie and Craig, stayed with us for a few days. The plan for tomorrow’s total solar eclipse was for me to take Craig with me and leave Julie here with Wendi.
Craig and I said our goodbyes, then left at 1:43 pm for southern Illinois to see the eclipse. Using my phone’s GPS, I chose the route that avoided tolls, so we drove down Alpine Road in Rockford, which was slow. The weather was off-and-on light rain, though it was partly sunny in central Illinois. ~ During the middle part of the trip, we listened to all 48 of the Kharlie M songs I had loaded into the media databank. ~ When we got further into Illinois, we saw water standing in the fields from the heavy rain that fell there earlier today. ~ We did encounter one cloudburst; the rain got so heavy that I could barely see to drive and nearly pulled off the road, but it was of very short duration. Soon after that, at 5:59 pm, we arrived at the Super 8 motel in Mattoon, IL, where we stayed the night.
We checked into room 122, which was on the main floor near the lobby. There was a Steak ’n Shake and a Wendy’s both within easy walking distance of the motel; we chose the Steak ’n Shake (6:26 pm). I got the double cheeseburger with fries; Craig opted for the double bacon cheeseburger. The food was great. There was a rain shower during our dinner; then the sun came out, and there was a rare double rainbow! People were outside with their phones, taking pictures of the spectacle; we were no exception. When the rainbow faded, the clouds in the west took on a blue and pink appearance, which was lovely.
Wendi paid for Domino’s delivery at home. Wendi had Chicken Carbonara pasta but could only eat a few bites of it, as she had an allergic reaction. Julie got a 16-piece order of boneless chicken wings. They shared an order of Cheddar Bacon Loaded Tots.
Back at the motel, Craig and I video chatted with Julie and Wendi (separately; I was on with Wendi from 7:39 until 8:04). I asked the attendant at the front desk if this motel has an exercise room; they don’t, “but they’ve been talking about it.” I took a shower after that; then we tried the TV but couldn’t find anything interesting to watch.
Craig and I turned in early, at 9:45 pm. It took a while to get to sleep though, due to the noise: people were filling ice buckets only a few steps from our door, and there were loud footsteps from the floor above us.
Up 7:02 am. ~ The continental breakfast was skimpy: no pastries or waffle machine. There were muffins, granola bars, and cereal; in a refrigerator case was milk, orange juice, frozen cheese omelettes, and a few other things. Craig had a muffin, some cereal, and orange juice. I had a cup of coffee, one of the omelettes (which I had to microwave with no instructions), and a granola bar.
I had been watching weather reports online to help me decide where to go for the total solar eclipse. This morning, there was a dense fog advisory that would expire at 9 am; it covered every city we were considering. After that, it would be mostly sunny pretty much everywhere. I decided to go to Olney, Illinois, as the city was fairly close and had advertised a number of places to view the eclipse as well as a good selection of food; we would go to Alvin Musgrove Park, where there was a lot of open space.
Several people at the motel were headed further south to see the eclipse. One elderly couple said they were headed for Fairfield, IL, a small town not far southwest of Olney.
Craig talked to Julie on the phone while I talked to Wendi; our calls ended seconds apart, at 8:46. We laughed, then went up front to turn in our room keys and check out (8:57). We had very little luggage (two bags for Craig, a gym bag and tripod for me), so even loading the van went very quickly.
We stopped at Jack Flash Broadway, which was a Phillips 66 gas station and mini-mart; I bought gas, and Craig bought himself some beverages. We left at 9:15 to head to Olney for the eclipse.
Craig took a call while we were on the road. Buddy, our cat, was wheezing badly. They asked me where the prednisone pills and pill pockets were, and I told them so they could give some to him.
The drive to Olney went well, though there were two brief traffic slowdowns in small towns; there appeared to be construction in one of them. Fields were still wet from yesterday’s rains. ~ In the tiny town of Dieterich, there was a sign for “Free Eclipse Parking” at a Subway, but on the next street corner was a lady holding a sign asking $20 for parking! In the next little town, someone else was charging $40. We were told that somewhere in Olney, they were charging $100, but there was no fee to park where we went.
We arrived safely at the park at 10:44 am. Surprisingly, the traffic in Olney wasn’t bad at all. The park was huge, with at least eight baseball diamonds and lots of open space. There were plenty of people, but still the place wasn’t crowded. Everyone seemed friendly, and there was a festive air about the place. Not far from us was a machine making foam, and children were playing in the foam. A variety of music was playing too. ~ The festivities in Olney actually started on Saturday, with numerous activities; they called it the “White Squirrel Blackout.”
Olney, Illinois (population 8,487) is known as the Home of the White Squirrel, as there is a small population of white squirrels that live there. The concession stand at the park, called White Squirrel Snack Shack, sells a variety of sandwiches, fries, snacks, candy, ice cream, and even breakfast. Craig paid for our lunch (11:20 am): pulled pork sandwiches and French fries. Both were excellent!
I didn’t plan to be an attraction myself, but I wore my green T-shirt bearing the words “Never Forget” with drawings of a floppy disk, a VHS tape, and an audio cassette tape. Several people commented on it; one even took a picture of it.
Both Julie and Wendi had asked for souvenirs from the eclipse. Many people were wearing T-shirts of various designs from the eclipse; most had “Olney, IL” on them, though some were from the 2017 eclipse in other areas, or weren’t eclipse shirts at all. We asked about the shirts; Walmart had them but may be sold out, and I didn’t really want to leave the park, fearing that I may not find a place to park upon return (the lot was filling up). I was told that they were charging $30 for the T-shirts at the park, which was too much; then I remembered seeing ads online for Amazon, even with the city of Olney on them! So I went to my Amazon app and ordered shirts for Wendi and myself (I asked Craig if I should get some for him and Julie, but he said no). The shirts arrived at our house on Wednesday. ~ Sometime around noon, they turned off the foam and the music.
Before the partial phase of the eclipse began, Craig and I took time to walk around a bit. Someone was selling bottles of water for 50 cents; Craig bought us each a bottle. As the eclipse drew closer, we found a spot under a pine tree where we could quickly get out into the open to see the spectacle for ourselves.
I was asked by several different people—some local and some from elsewhere—how we found Olney. I had seen the city on some of the eclipse websites, and then I found the city’s own website with information about all of the food and festivities.
C1, or first contact, marking the start of the partial phase, was at 12:46 pm. Wearing our eclipse glasses, we could see a tiny bite missing from the sun by about three minutes in.
Back in Janesville, Wendi and Julie watched the live TV coverage of the eclipse beginning at 1 pm; ABC partnered with National Geographic for this.
A strong gust of wind came up at 1:16 pm but quickly subsided.
They launched a weather balloon at 1:23 pm; I took pictures.
Craig and I watched, along with everyone else, as the moon’s shadow slowly took a bigger and bigger bite off of the sun. The sky color deepened; nearer to totality, the sunlight dappling through the pine tree left odd crescent-shaped shadows on the ground. Then the air grew chilly; it had been warm, almost hot (upper 70s), but now Craig and I had to put our hoodies back on. A bird overhead made several long trilling calls, then stopped. Just before totality, the ground appeared to shimmer, and colors changed: reds were muted while greens appeared bright.
I had brought my Canon Rebel T5 digital camera and three lenses, plus a tripod… but when I went to set up the camera, I realized that I had brought the wrong tripod! This one was designed for my telescope, and my camera won’t fit on it, so I would have to shoot handheld.
C2, marking the start of totality, was at 2:02:13. I counted down, Ten, nine, eight, all the way to one…
Then the last rays of sun disappeared, and the sun’s corona became clearly visible. “Whoooo!” several people shouted; there were whistles, cheers, and then a round of applause from the crowd. Venus and Jupiter were visible near the sun. An eerie twilight, like sunrise or sunset, ran the full 360° of the horizon. “I wish Wendi could see this,” I remarked.
I managed to squeeze off three photos of the eclipsed sun with the long end of my 75-300 mm zoom lens. Then I switched to the 18-55 mm regular zoom and got some of the Sun with Venus.
C3, marking the end of totality, was at 2:06:03. We had 3 minutes and 50 seconds of near darkness in the middle of a beautiful spring day.
Craig was particularly enthralled by the spectacle. It was his first ever solar eclipse; he hadn’t seen even a partial one before. I felt that the journey was worth it, even if only for him to have this experience.
Some people left right after totality; we decided to stay until C4, when the second partial phase would end and the entire eclipse would be over. Quite a few stayed for a while, but by C4, the park was largely empty. Two other people stayed near us; they were an elderly man and woman from near Champaign, Illinois, but they weren’t husband and wife; they were neighbors. They said they had never seen a total solar eclipse before. The lady kept her glasses on and patiently waited with us as the sky got lighter and warmer. C4 came at 3:16 pm; the eclipse was now over, and we all left the area.
We left the park at 3:38. My plan was to stop for dinner south of Champaign, Illinois sometime before 6 pm… this didn’t happen.
Oddly, my phone’s GPS led us west of Olney, down some old roads that were in terrible condition! One road, called Bible Grove Lane, had side streets with Bible names: Lot, Acts, Proverbs, even Ararat. But the road we were on was so bumpy that you could actually see how up-and-down it was. Though the speed limit was 55 mph, I couldn’t drive faster than 38 to 40 mph for fear that we would shake to pieces! Then a black Ford F-150 zoomed around us on the narrow road, probably doing at least 65 mph!
The only blessing was almost zero traffic, until we finally came out on US 45, then I-57; traffic was very heavy on both and slowed at times to a standstill. I believe that the GPS had us avoiding the main thoroughfares to keep us out of the worst traffic, but even that failed. Our speed varied from a few mph to just over 50 for the next hour or so but averaged around 28 to 30 for much of it.
To our dismay, after driving for two hours, we found ourselves near Mattoon, where we stayed last night! We listened to the radio to keep calm; Craig found 92.1 “The Axe,” a classic rock station from Charleston (near Mattoon); they played John Mellencamp, Journey, Queen, even the Beatles.
Having Craig along for the ride really helped me. He talked and kept me from panicking; he would notice things that I missed while driving. “There’s an old Camaro,” he said at one point. “It looks like it’s seen better days!” At another point, he spotted an old farm tractor that looked to date from the 1950s.
We decided to keep going until Champaign; we followed a sign for McDonald’s at exit 240 and got off there. There was a Road Ranger gas station connected to it. We arrived at 7:08. We both ordered McCrispy (chicken) sandwiches with fries. ~ After dinner, I filled up with gas at the Road Ranger (8:01 pm).
Earlier, Wendi had asked me to bring her take-out food when we arrived home, but by now it appeared that we wouldn’t be home until midnight or later, so Wendi called a friend and had her bring McDonald’s (8:55); Wendi would pay her back later. Wendi had McNuggets; Julie had a Big Mac.
Traffic moved right along until we got near Bloomington, Illinois, when it slowed down to a crawl again. Once we got onto I-39 and headed north, it cleared up. ~ After that, the radio kept us company: a classic rock station in Bloomington, then something called BOB-FM (“We play everything because we can”), then WZOE-FM 98.1, then WZOK Rockford, then WSJY Fort Atkinson. ~ At Janesville, I planned to use exit 175 for Racine Street but took exit 177 instead; I figured I could take Hwy 11 to Hwy 51 and go right home, forgetting the construction on 51. Oops. I went as far as Joliet Street, then took that west to Willard Avenue, then over the Bellrichard Bridge, then darned if I could find a way through, as every road was closed near 51! I finally was able to drive over the construction zone (it was the middle of the night!) at Holmes Street, just one block south of our house. Finally we arrived home, at 12:18 am.