Keith had been planning this day, in one way or another, since the last eclipse on August 21, 2017. On that day, Christine and the kids were at the Bradley Beach in New Jersey, and Keith was working from home while still employed with St Joe’s. Everyone had a chance to see the eclipse, but not together and Keith was committed to experiencing the eclipse together as a family when the next opportunity presented. This was going to be our year.
Keith arranged for the day off last summer, before anyone was talking about the eclipse or even knew that is was happening. He took off both Monday and Tuesday, and he insisted that Christine do the same. He was willing to drive up to 12 hours if necessary. The plan? To look at the forecast and drive away from the clouds. That was last summer.
Things over the last month had changed significantly, though. Christine had no days off after her unexpected surgery in November. Austin needed to be home to captain his esports team on Tuesday. And then there was the media coverage that resulted in everyone becoming acutely aware of and interested in this once in a lifetime experience. There were 1 million visitors expected in Niagara County, which declared a state of emergency 2 weeks before the eclipse. Hotels within a 2 hour drive of the path of totality were sold out and price gouging (even Syracuse had rooms near $1,000. Over the course of the last 4 weeks leading up to the eclipse, it had become clear: we were going to see the eclipse locally or we wouldn’t see it at all.
Keith had his eyes on the meteorology models early. 14 day out, the forecast was for clear skies and would remain that way for the next 9-10 days, while the confidence of the forecast was consistently 50%, which doesn’t sound great, but isn’t terrible by weather standards. 3-4 days prior, clouds started sneaking into the forecast, initally high, thin, and only partial, but by the eve of the eclipse, the forecast was for mostly couldy skies by 3:00 pm.
The forecast was changing, but Keith’s plans remained unchanged. Once the decision had been made to remain local, Keith had begun to look at the map and figure out where to have the best experience within an hour’s drive. Christine had favored Oswego or the Sterling Nature Center, but Keith suspected that the Nature Center would be packed and that Oswego (being a city with a main artery to Syracuse and the Thruway via Route 481) would be a zoo. To his mind, the best plan was to drive north on local roads and find a rural community with parks/cemetaries that had a view of the southwest sky.
Totality at 103 Charlies Place was supposed to be 99.999% … so, not totality. If we drove 5 mins away to the little league fields, the totality was supposed to last 20+ seconds. If we drove to Sylvan Beach, it was supposed to be nearly 90 seconds. The same was true for Chapman Park. Redfield? 3 minutes and 20 seconds! Keith doesn’t know much about Redfield, though, and there is really only just one small park in the town. But Camden? Keith knows Camden well, can get there via backroads to avoid any traffic, and it was expecting more than 270 minutes of totality. That would be the place.
As the date drew closer, there were a couple of very pleasant surprises along the way. Mid-week before, Kevin and Peggy decided to forego a drive to Rome and join us in Camden. Then Grandma learned on Sunday that Carey wouldn’t be traveling to visit, so she accepted our invitation to join us in our adventure to Camden. Grandpa would be at camp in Bath, but the rest of the family would cross their collective fingers and meet together in Camden.
Where in Camden? Keith wasn’t exactly sure. He preferred a community field next to a cemetary he once used to rest in when he was working in the area for home care, but perhaps the town would use that field for a more formal event and it would be crowded? If it was, there were little league fields to the west of town and 2 different school campuses that he was hoping that he could park at, but no one knew what to expect.
Would it be busy everywhere? Would the traffic be a barrier? How crowded would it be? Keith was hoping that with interstate within 45 minutes of Camden and most travelers focusing the attention on Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and the Adirondacks, the hope was that people wouldn’t be drawn Camden, especially with Sylvan Beach and the northern shore of Oneida Lake so close nearby.
The family departed Chittenango in Grandma’s CRV at 1130 and would later arrive to the field in Camden an hour later. We were the 5th vehicle to park in field.
We proceeded to get out our chairs and eat lunch before the Waterville Waldrons would arrive 30 minutes later at 1:00 pm. The clouds were high and thin, leaving the sunshine still strong enough to cast a shadow, but the clouds rolling in were not looking promising. After Kevin, Peggy, and Lia arrived, we hung out for a short while before playing some games. We had packed board games, cards, and outdoor games, but we were able to entertain ourselves playing catch with a softball …
… and later with a foxtail …
… and we just hung out and enjoyed each other’s company.
Approximately 15 minutes into the eclipse, we could begin to faintly see soft shadows in the field as the lower and thicker clouds began to give way. Keith would tell the family to enjoy this while they could see it, because the forecast was not favorable and this might be the best viewing of the day.
Fortunately, the lower and thicker clouds stayed out of the way for 90+% of the event, leaving a consistent filter of high clouds between us and the sun, but rarely something that fully obscured our view. On most occasions, we could look up if/when we wanted to and appreciate the eclipse through the light clouds. As the skies darkened, the air was palpably colder, prompting some us to get jackets and remark how cold our hands felt. The mosquitos started to come out. The sky became darker and darker until it felt like blue hour, but without the blue.
As totality drew near, a break in the high clouds appeared and moved toward the sun. We were facing the sun in the southwest sky and the break slowly moved in from a little west of the sun and serendipitously moved over the sun just before totality, providing us with a tremendous spectacle. We saw the ring, the diamond, the colors … we saw it all!
Keith tried to capture a couple quick images with his cell phone, but they didn’t do the experience any justice.
But before we knew it, the 150-ish seconds had passed and so too had the moon over the sun. It was done, and not soon after the clouds returned in force and fully covered the sky so that remaining second half of the eclipse would be unviewable. This is a picture that Keith captured of the opening in the clouds after totality had passed.
We were lucky. Friends throughout the region from Geneva to Syracuse to Bridgeport only experienced the sky grow dark, and while that too is a neat experience, to actually see the eclipse itself was something more special than we could have anticipated. It was well worth the hype.