Eclipse Trip 2024

The total eclipse was to occur on April 8, 2024. I decided that I was not going to miss this eclipse.

Yet, traveling by motorcycle in early April can be iffy. Remember April Showers...so as I went south on Hwy 5, I had to pass through one rain cell after another. I even got a little hail, which sounds a lot different on the helmet than rain. 

 

  

     By the time I went through Tehachapi, there had been a few flakes of snow. There was snow on the hills and some snow on the ground and on some cars. And it was cold.

My Triumph, a modern motorcycle, gives me all kinds of information that my Harley Sportster does not. I knew that the Triumph tells the temperature, but I had no idea that it would warn about possible ice on the roadway.

 I have good cold weather gear. I was wearing my First Gear jacket with the liner over my electrically heated jacket. I had insulated jeans under waterproof First Gear riding pants. My very old gauntlet gloves, with the heated grips turned up kept my hands warn and aside from my feet, which were a little cold, I was fairly warn and comfortable.

After a little over 600 miles and 10 or so hours, I got a room in Laughlin, Nevada. Next morning I rode to Apache Junction and stopped for a couple of hours at my brother's home. The weather was pretty cold barely getting into the low 60's and I was beginning to think that maybe seeing the full eclipse wasn't really such a great plan. My brother convinced me that in only fourteen or fifteen hours, I would be in San Antonio. A call to my wife further motivated me to get tougher, so I was off again. 

I passed Las Cruses in the dark and pushed on to El Paso, where, exhausted, I got a room. A 650 mile day.

 

On the morning of the third day, I headed to San Antonio, Texas, only 550 miles away. San Antonio is just outside the area of total eclipse. I had a plan to leave early and head west about 60 miles to the center of the total eclipse.

There was a slight hitch, the San Antonio freeway system seemed to me to be a confusing maze and news reports speculated on massive congestion due to the normal commute mixed with eclipse watcher traffic. So I left my overpriced hotel before dawn and headed west. After about sixty miles on Highway 10, I saw and exit for the town of Comfort, Texas. That seemed like a natural, how could I resist. I stopped at the McDonald's and tried to stay awake over a cup of coffee.

On the map above, Comfort is located between San Antonio and Kerrville. I had intended to go closer to Kerrville but as I left the McDonald's, I saw that the roadside would be a good place to watch the eclipse. The roadside was grassy and the field beyond covered in wildflowers. I set up my camp chair and settled in to watch the show.

As time passed more people began to stop. The day was more overcast than I would have preferred. Still I could see the sun,

Then at about 12:15 it began, the total eclipse of April 8, 2024.

I knew it would get dark during the eclipse, but I was surprised just how dark it got.

Then almost suddenly the clockwork that caused the eclipse, moved on.