April 2024 Texas Total Solar Eclipse Trip
This content was automatically generated by gpt-4o-mini (No human review). The original post is in Chinese.
It took me a whole month to write the blog about the total solar eclipse in early April.
On October 14, 2023, we watched a partial solar eclipse in Orange County, and at that time, we decided to go to Texas in April 2024 to see the total solar eclipse.
Itinerary
So, we planned our general itinerary back in early January this year and booked our round-trip tickets. For this trip, we plan to fly to El Paso, then visit three nearby national parks on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and watch the eclipse on Monday (specific location to be determined based on the weather), flying back home from Houston on Tuesday. The detailed itinerary is as follows:
Fri, April 5
- Arrive at 2pm ELP airport.
- White Sands NP (closes after sunset, about 7:20PM)
Sat, April 6
- Guadalupe Mountains NP
- Stay at Carlsbad, NM
Sun, April 7
- Carlsbad Caverns NP
Mon, April 8
- Solar Eclipse
This way, even if the weather is really bad and we can’t see the eclipse, we won’t have gone in vain; we still got to visit several national parks, which is just wonderful to think about.
The Weather is Terrible
I was very stressed before this trip because of work pressure and waiting for the H1B results (luckily I got it this year), and then there were issues with commuting and accommodation for work, which led to me getting sick a few days before the eclipse trip. I only took one day of sick leave because I was thinking about how I would soon be taking time off to travel and there was still a lot of work left unfinished, making it hard to let go. So, the day before the trip, I was working hard while having a stomachache, my mind filled with various work-related matters, and I really didn’t want to pack my bags at all. To make matters worse, the weather forecast for Texas was terrible; on the day of the eclipse in Dallas, the forecast predicted a lot of cloud cover, making it very likely that we wouldn’t see the sun.
Even the weather forecast three days before the eclipse was bad, with strong winds. On Friday afternoon at White Sands, the wind speed was 16-21 mph, with gusts up to 29 mph, raising concerns about blowing sands. On Saturday at Guadalupe/Carlsbad Caverns, the wind speed was 50-55 mph, with gusts of 90-95 mph, and on Sunday at Guadalupe/Carlsbad Caverns, the wind speed was 15-30 mph, with gusts of 40 mph. I had never seen such a terrifying wind speed forecast, and dragging my sick body along, I really didn’t want to go.
So I encouraged everyone to see if we could change our flight to go to a place with a clear weather forecast to see the eclipse, like flying to Chicago or St. Louis, driving to Indianapolis, or flying to the Northeast Maine, and spending the weekend exploring a city. Cuihao and the other two friends were not interested, mainly because changing flights, hotels, and itineraries would be a hassle and would cost a lot more money. In the end, I was just too tired, so on Friday morning, I canceled my round-trip ticket. After all, I had already seen a total solar eclipse in the U.S. in 2017 (《Experiencing the Total Solar Eclipse in the U.S. 2017.08.21》), so I might as well stay home this time! Cuihao and the two friends continued with their original travel plans.
If that were the case, this blog would end here.
Rebooking the Flight
Due to the above decision, I hardly participated in packing on Thursday night. I worked from home on Friday, and since I had originally planned to take a day off, there weren’t many meetings, making it quite relaxed. On Saturday morning, I went kayaking at the beach with a friend because I knew I would feel very sad staying at home while they were out having fun, so I arranged an activity. However, I wasn’t fully recovered, and I didn’t sleep well on Friday night. While kayaking on Saturday, I felt extremely weak and, unsurprisingly, got seasick and vomited. I couldn’t wait to get back to land, and after kayaking, I felt even worse…
However, spending these two days at home made me realize that I absolutely must see the total solar eclipse. What work-related stress could possibly lead me to decide to give up a long-awaited trip? Years from now, I would definitely regret it. After all, traveling has been the most wonderful part of my life over the past four years, and I have never given up traveling despite various circumstances. So I became even more determined to buy a ticket again, flying directly to Dallas to see the solar eclipse, regardless of whether I actually get to see it. After making this decision, I felt very happy.
On Saturday afternoon, after kayaking, I immediately bought a ticket for a flight from SNA to DFW on Sunday afternoon. At the airport on Sunday, I also bought a ticket for a flight from DFW to LAX on Monday night. The round-trip tickets totaled $650, which is actually acceptable (for comparison, the originally planned round-trip ticket was $250). The three of them were staying in Fort Worth on Sunday night, so it was convenient for them to pick me up from the airport, allowing me to join their eclipse trip.
The weather forecast for the day before the eclipse was as follows:
On the Day of the Total Solar Eclipse
On the morning of the solar eclipse, around 8 o’clock, there was a layer of thin clouds in the sky, with more clouds in the southeast and a bluer sky in the northwest.
After some discussion around 9 o’clock, we drove east for 8 minutes to a nearby park. By this time, the clouds in the sky had thickened significantly, and we could no longer see the sun.
After some discussion, we decided to refuel and then drive to Paris (Paris, TX) to see the eclipse, as the weather might be better there. So we drove for over two hours, during which everyone kept checking the weather forecasts and real-time satellite cloud maps on their phones, comparing the three weather models on Windy. Everyone wished they could become weather experts, using the historical cloud maps to predict where there might be the least clouds next. For most of the journey, we couldn’t see the sun, occasionally spotting a small patch of blue sky, but we decided to continue driving to Paris.
However, when we arrived in Paris, the sky was still completely covered with clouds (as shown below). After waiting for 15 minutes, as the eclipse began, we still couldn’t see the sun. Everyone was anxious; we had driven for two and a half hours with no improvement.
After some discussion, we decided to head west towards Sherman, planning to stop if we saw blue skies along the way. This meant we would miss over four minutes of totality, but it was better than seeing nothing at all. After about 20 minutes, we finally saw the sun through a large hole in the clouds. We pulled over on the side of the highway to take a look; by this time, the partial eclipse had been going on for a while, and about a quarter of the sun was obscured. We then continued driving for another 5-10 minutes but decided not to go any further and found a place to park on the side of the highway (as shown below), hoping this patch of blue sky would hold and that the clouds nearby wouldn’t drift over. At this point, there were only 35 minutes left until totality.
We then took out the telescope, and Cuihao set up the equipment to start photographing the eclipse.
Fortunately, the clouds in the sky began to thin out, and the area of blue sky increased, allowing us to finally see the total solar eclipse!
Here are photos taken 3-6 minutes before the eclipse, where you can clearly feel the environment darkening around us, and even hear the sounds of insects.
Total Solar Eclipse 3 Minutes 30 Seconds
First, here are a few photos of the surrounding environment during the total eclipse; the clouds above disappeared during the total solar eclipse!
Next, here are some photos of the eclipse taken with our phone mounted on a telescope.
Let me share my feelings about the total solar eclipse! It was so shocking, a truly wonderful experience. Watching the total eclipse for 3 minutes and 30 seconds felt like time flew by; it was not enough. Although I saw a solar eclipse in 2017, which lasted about 2 minutes, experiencing a total solar eclipse again was just too magical. A 99% partial eclipse cannot compare to a 100% total eclipse because only during totality can you see solar prominences and the corona, and only at the moments when totality begins and ends can you see Baily’s beads.
During the eclipse, the surrounding environment darkened, resembling the scene 30 minutes before sunrise or after sunset. The clouds on the horizon looked like evening glow, and you could see one or two stars in the sky. However, the sky was not black; it was blue, with only the part of the sun that was covered being completely dark, while the white corona looked like a long, bright crown, very sacred. The total solar eclipse seen with the naked eye is not exactly the same as what the camera captures; in our photos, the corona appears very small, and the background is black, which is not the case in reality. The naked eye can also see the red prominences, but they are not as clear as in the camera photos.
Conclusion
In short, this trip for the total solar eclipse was full of twists and turns and incredibly exciting. No one expected that we would still be unsure if we could see the sun on the day of the eclipse. The tense atmosphere didn’t completely disappear until about 30 minutes before the eclipse. After witnessing the total solar eclipse, everyone was very excited and felt that the trip was worth it. We all agreed that we want to see another total solar eclipse in the future. It was truly a stroke of luck to witness a total solar eclipse!
PS: Later, I flew back home from Dallas, while Cuihao and two other friends drove to Houston, taking an astonishing five and a half hours. The weather was terrible along the way, with heavy rain and lightning, and the road was so blurry that it was hard to see. I was lucky to have splurged on a flight that night, skipping that part of the journey.
