About three seconds into the 2017 eclipse I began plotting, "where are we going for 2024?"
Virtually my entire family was in the path of totality (PoT) in upstate New York, but I immediately searched for historic cloud cover for April 8th - which from half a lifetime of living there told me would not be good. I have enough friends and former coworkers in Texas that Dallas or Austin were our obvious choices.
Then our close friends that live in Rochester decided they were going to join us in Texas too and made reservations at a small rustic resort in Palestine which they branded the Deadhead Ranch, as the husband and his professional chef wife as are lifelong fans of the Grateful Dead, as are we. Except Palestine was not in totality.
As the weather for the coming week began to take shape, Rochester was expected to be clear and all of central Texas was expected overcast the day of the show.
I briefly contemplated changing destinations but we were committed to our friends, and whatever Texas had to offer we'd experience it together.
I suggested Corsicana as a place to view the eclipse. The school district was hosting viewing in their stadium parking lot and it not far from the center line of the PoT. There was some grumbling by the adult children about driving over an hour "to see something we could see just as well at the ranch". (Uh, NO!)
The whole drive there was overcast with just a few flashes of blue sky. We arrived and found a spot in massive parking lots which were barely occupied. The expected crowds of locals didn't materialize likely due to the forecast and current conditions. But we befriended some other intrepid Totality chasers from Virgina and Boston and had a great time socializing with them.
Two different cloud layers stymied attempts to predict what the conditions might be during totality. My attempts to document C1 to C2 (the partial period before totality) were hit or miss. Nothing as good as 2017 in Oregon. And as late as 45 minutes before C2 (beginning of totality) the sun was totally obscured. Then each of those layers went their separate ways and the clouds parted leaving a nearly cloudless sky in the direction of the sun, as you could see in my earlier post.
Once totality arrived my insistence was vindicated as my friends drank in the experience. "We get it now!"
We returned to the ranch and shared our experience with our hosts. I asked, "did you get into totality?" "Yeah, we saw it (totality)." "Oh, where'd you go?" "We saw it from here." No you didn't, I thought but kept to myself.
Anyway, we're already plotting 2026 in Spain.