Today was the big day. The day that has been in planning for over a year. The day that I just barely even asked to attend. I didn’t realize how big of a deal the eclipse was until late in the game, probably much like many others around the country that found themselves making the migration at the last minute.

I managed to get my GoPro up on the camper to record a timelapse of us running around on the ground. Next time, I’d like to have a drone to get a higher vantage point, but this worked surprisingly well. Dad had a camera taking pictures, and I managed to get a few through the telescope. Unfortunately it was extremely difficult to get pictures of totality with the equipment we had in the arrangement we had set up. Lessons for next time.

Leading up to totality, you could feel the air getting cooler and the sunlight getting darker. Eventually the birds and other wildlife got quiet. Except the cicadas. They wound up in a hurry as they do in the evenings. Until they stopped, and the crickets came out. The darkness came swiftly in the final moments before totality, causing automatic lights to come on all around us. And then it hit us.

Total eclipse.

I’ve never seen anything so incredible in my entire life. The other sensations of cooler air and evening sounds were amazing to take in by themselves, but then the entire horizon went to twilight, and the sky above us went to a deep violet color. Suddenly you could see planets in the sky. Jets that would normally be too high to be seen in the daylight suddenly came into view in a criss-cross pattern surrounding the sun and moon. But it was no longer a display of the sun and moon. It was a black hole in the sky surrounded by a ring of fire, and three ethereal, spectral arms of the corona reaching out into space as if to cradle our solar system in its warm embrace.

Looking through the telescope, you could see the fire of the solar flares peeking around the moon, but the real sight to behold was with the naked eye. The way the rest of space came to light around the dance of these two celestial bodies was impossible to capture with any equipment we could have possibly packed. It was as though the universe had come to witness the first dance of this newly married couple on stage, and it was glorious. The human eye is capable of such dynamic focus in this mixture of light and dark that this type of event simply must be viewed in person.

Totality lasted barely over two minutes and the diamond ring returned. The sun’s dazzling light spilled out from behind the moon and hastily flooded the whole world around us, as though she scooped us up out of the cold dark and wrapped us up again in her warm blanket.

Anticlimactic.

It was over, and nothing could ever compare to those two minutes of totality.

It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed, yet I frustratingly feel unchanged in the end. I didn’t have any profound thoughts or feelings. If anything, I just felt a little alone in my usual ways. My problems didn’t feel smaller. My worries didn’t go away. I still have to go back to work on Wednesday.

Life goes on.

But I won Catan.

Today was a bit of a mixed bag. We were all up super late last night, particularly for them. I woke up earlier than I wanted to because apparently the trailer absorbs all visible light. We had pancakes for breakfast before eventually getting out into town. We first went to the McGregor Park Riverwalk, where the Queen of the Mississippi happened to be docked. It wasn’t open for tours or anything, since it’s actually a riverboat cruise ship, so we ended up leaving that park relatively quickly.
 
The next few stops were a couple of thrift stores without anything of significance, but then we went to Fort Defiance. They had an American Civil War museum/walkthrough that had a couple pretty neat models and dioramas. Outside, they had a couple cannons set up along a winding walking path that we chose not to travel. I encountered a Cookie Monster rock. That’s when shit got weird.

They decided they wanted to go eat at the Tilted Kilt, which is more of a bar than a restaurant, and more known for the short skirts and low tops than the beer or sports. I don’t know if it was by mistake or just awkward circumstance, but this visit actually happened. Shae (Shay? Shea?), our waitress, introduced herself to me as a 19-year-old that didn’t drink, and then spent the rest of the visit regaling with us about last night’s party that left her hungover for today’s work shift. I guess I should count myself lucky that Dad only made one awkward comment to her, but the whole ordeal was just a little too surreal for me. I would have been fine with friends, or even by myself, but it was mostly Dad that just made it feel weird. Her story really did make me miss my early friendship with Brandon though.

We finally got out of there after some mediocre bar food and stopped by Electronic Express with my hope that they could pick up a part for one of their radios. This store was a weird amalgam of a Best Buy and a furniture store. They not only had computers, TVs, and appliances, but also mattresses, couches and chairs, and outdoor cooking equipment. It wasn’t a bad store, but it felt like stepping back into the 90s with a modern twist on that decade’s technology.

When we finally got back to camp, we went for a quick swim and then headed back to the motorhome to each sit on our own laptops in silence for several hours. I cracked open one of my BlackHorse Brewery Vanilla Cream Ales and shared a splash with both of them, but had the lion’s share to myself. It didn’t help a great deal.

Tomorrow’s agenda should eclipse anything we’ve done so far. Teehee.

Today started slow for me. I slept later than anyone else and only got up close to breakfast time. Dad made bacon and eggs outside. After breakfast, they stayed outside to play with the ham radio, and I came inside to catch up on email and listen to some mad chunes.

We eventually decided to leave camp to find some beer to take home for my cousin Ernie. He wanted some Vanilla Cream Ale from Blackhorse Brewery. I went ahead and picked up a case myself in spite of the price because it sounded delicious and came in overly large bottles. While there, we walked around downtown and I was reminded of my hatred for traveling with family with an affinity for photography.

When we finally herded out of there, we traveled to Fort Campbell to visit the army museum there. The actual museum was closed, but they had an outdoor display of several aircraft and other machines of war that was pretty neat.

We left there and ended up at a Baskin Robbins, where the girl surprised me with some peach and cherry ice cream in a banana royale that was just spectacular. Uncle Rick wanted to go to another civil war park that ended up being closed for the day, so we went to the Dunbar Cave park and met a couple ladies that were literally locked inside of the cave and couldn’t get out. They were there with a child’s birthday party tour and decided to turn back when one of them was feeling claustrophobic. I waited with them for several minutes until the group finally returned from the tour and let them out.
 
After the cave, we came back to camp and went for a swim before cooking dinner. I made some penne pasta with meat and tomato sauce that turned out okay. We had some more red leaf lettuce that I decided to turn into a salad with some carrots we picked up on the way back to camp. I also burned some garlic toast after trying to juggle everything in the tiniest kitchen ever. Everything turned out surprisingly well, and I ate way too much.

When we finished eating, I got them to play Settlers of Catan with me. I’d never played before, so it was a pretty steep learning curve for all of us. Now that I’ve played, I think future games can be explained much more easily. Uncle Rick ended up winning without realizing it. I really liked the game. Overall, this went pretty okay as far as days go.

I hate making these beds though.

Today is the day we’ve been waiting for. I got up after too little sleep, and started packing the best I could for our eclipse trip. Dad came and picked me up around 10, we went and took Mom some breakfast/lunch, and we headed to Cabot to my Uncle Rick’s.

It was a pretty comfortable ride being able to get up and move around. No telling whether that’s really allowed while the vehicle is in motion, but I live my life a quarter mile at a time. We stopped at Sonic on the way out of town so we could load another vehicle on a tow hitch. When we finished, everyone was hungry, so we stopped to eat in the parking lot. We finally got moving out of town around 1:30.

We had to stop at a Walmart in Dickson because Dad forgot to pack all of the dinner type meats, and we weren’t satisfied with lunch meat for four days. Uncle Rick also thought there might be something wrong with the RV, but ultimately decided we were in the clear, and we finished our journey.

We made it to the campsite next-to-last, with our envelope taped to the front office door. It took us a little bit to get settled into our spot, but we got all the utilities hooked up and the awning pulled out the side. The stall showers here aren’t too bad, though I’m not certain there’s an abundance of hot water. I’m waiting until morning to find out.

HOW ARE A DOZEN EGGS ONLY 30 CENTS?!?