It didn’t seem like four minutes.
When the last sliver of sun disappeared and darkness stretched across the fields of Burnt Prairie, Illinois, my friends and I stared up at the black circle ringed by the solar corona.
The temperature dropped rapidly from the mid-70s. Crickets started chirping as a few stars came out, but near the flat horizon the sky was still blue.
Then, soon, a red point of light at the bottom of the Sun turned into a curved line, then a yellowing crescent — and totality was over.
We folded our chairs and started the long drive back.
The April 8 eclipse fell on a Monday, just as in 2017. But totality for this one was supposed to last a whopping 4 minutes, 6 seconds in Burnt Prairie. The eclipse began at 12:42 p.m. Central time, reaching totality at 2:01 p.m.
I dressed for the occasion: a black T-shirt bearing the phrase “eppur si muove,” — “and yet it moves.” It was supposedly muttered by Galileo when forced by the Inquisition to recant his assertion that the Earth orbits the Sun.
I only had to drive 60 miles for a great view of the 2017 eclipse. At the time I worked for the Knoxville News Sentinel, so that Aug. 21 I tooled down I-40 and U.S. 27 for 90 minutes to a park in Spring City, Tennessee. I caught 2 minutes and 40 seconds of totality.
As the Sun disappeared I recall feeling awed by the spectacle of such immense forces, beyond human control. Blotting out the Sun! A primordial fear expressed in many ancient myths. Considered a powerful sign from the gods before its mechanics were understood.
Yet what an astounding sight, even with that knowledge. That impact is the theme of Isaac Asimov’s classic 1941 science-fiction story “Nightfall,” about a planet with multiple suns so that total eclipses happen only once every 2,000 years. Those events last not for minutes but for hours and coincide, the characters realize, with repeated collapses of civilization; and they’re unable to stop the next one.
Credit: Jim Gaines
Credit: Jim Gaines
Total eclipses occur somewhere on Earth about every 18 months, and partial eclipses from two to five times a year. Astronomers figure any given spot has a good chance of being in the path of a total eclipse once every 375 years or so. But in a modern mobile society, it’s quite possible to see several eclipses in one lifetime — if you’re willing to travel.
The 2017 event was the first total eclipse visible in the U.S. this century. Three upcoming total eclipses will actually be visible in Georgia: 2045, 2052 and 2078, according to NASA. A bit of the Northeast will get one in 2079, and a last total eclipse will cross the northern part of the country in 2099.
I hope to make a couple more of those, but there are no guarantees; so I arranged for time off to travel for this one. Along the way I picked up two old friends, Chad Watts and Mark Kinney.
Viewers in Atlanta should have seen the Moon cover about 80% of the Sun. The partial eclipse was visible throughout the Lower 48, according to NASA; but the path of totality arced northeast for 4,200 miles from Mexico across Texas and through the Old Northwest, all the way to Maine.
But I wanted to see it all, so I planned a 1,150-mile round trip.
Saturday I made the 5-hour trek from Sandy Springs to Bowling Green, Kentucky. I ran a gauntlet of highway patrol speed traps in Georgia and Tennessee, and a traffic jam on Monteagle turned the five-hour trip into six.
Chad and I went shopping for an insulated cooler bag, bottled water, snacks and just-in-case sunscreen. I reminded him to bring a chair and a hat, figuring if we arrived at the start of occlusion we’d be out there for about an hour and 20 minutes.
Repeated construction slowdowns lengthened our drive to Louisville. We passed one billboard advertising a small Indiana town as a great place to watch the eclipse.
Mark had put out a call on social media for anyone going to watch the eclipse. So we picked him up early on Monday, and struck west from Louisville on I-64 until the highway intersected with the centerline of totality.
That occurred, more or less, at Burnt Prairie — population 35 and shrinking, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
I have a previous slight connection to Burnt Prairie. Many years ago I owned a 1988 Ford Tempo that seemed to be on its last legs. A couple who lived next door offered to buy it — the guy was a mechanic, and thought he could get it running. I agreed.
He got it running, all right. Then he stole from his boss, left his girlfriend, and skipped town in my car. Weeks later I got a call from Illinois State Police, who said my car had been abandoned on the interstate near Burnt Prairie. The guy was nowhere to be found and we never saw him again.
I never got a cent for my car. And since I had no other transportation to go retrieve it, Illinois State Police sold it as an abandoned vehicle and kept the money. Maybe it’s still there. I planned to keep an eye out for it.
Reports warned of heavy traffic and exorbitant hotel charges but I found rooms for normal prices. Chad and I spent a pleasant afternoon poking around Louisville, where I lived for a couple of years.
Local TV news blared at the hotel’s breakfast Monday morning, warning people to have emergency supplies handy during the eclipse.
“They’ll be screamin’ in the streets tonight!” said a hotel employee, as the TV anchor went on to warn of afternoon traffic jams.
Credit: Jim Gaines
Credit: Jim Gaines
North of Evansville, Indiana, we hit heavy clouds and thick fog. We worried the eclipse would be invisible. But the sky cleared as we crossed the Illinois line.
Three hours before the eclipse we were just 20 miles from Burnt Prairie, so we stopped for omelets and pancakes at the Family Diner in Grayville, Illinois. All the other customers seemed to be locals. A family came in wearing local T-shirts commemorating the eclipse.
Grayville was not on the centerline but was well within the zone of totality. The local chamber of commerce had a grill set up in a church parking lot, and people were putting out lawn chairs along the streets. The Grayville Elementary School sign announced classes were canceled for “Eclipse Day.”
Still early, we hung out at the Road Ranger truck stop by the interstate until about half an hour before the eclipse was due to start. I grabbed the last copy of the Evansville Courier & Press, which included “a procrastinator’s guide to the solar eclipse” with tips on finding protective glasses, weather, viewing sites and warnings of overloaded roads and cell phone networks.
Shortly after noon we drove the last few miles and stopped on a gravel lane next to a stubbly cornfield, and waited. We set up our chairs one minute before it was supposed to start. Mark and I both bought eclipse glasses well in advance, so we were prepared.
A few other cars sat along the same road. The one nearest to us bore Minnesota plates. Its occupant had driven down from Minneapolis.
Chad used his phone to look up eclipse-related songs: Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” Etta James’ “I’d Rather go Blind.” We talked and listened to music for more than 40 minutes as the Moon slowly crawled across the Sun’s face. About 15 minutes before totality, with the Sun reduced to a crescent, we noticed the light beginning to dim.
And then, too quickly, it was over.
No eclipse conspiracy theories about great earthquakes, mass human sacrifice, martial law proclamations, collapse of infrastructure or Biblical “End Times” came true. Nor did it somehow prove the Earth is flat.
We stopped at a tiny local truck stop so I could file this story. The crowd outside was already dispersing.
“I just hope nobody pooped out in the parking lot and we have to clean it up,” the woman behind the counter said.
