It was a little bit spur of the moment, but Heather and I decided to take a road trip to Tennessee with the boys to see the eclipse last week. It was kind of a wild ride; we left on Sunday right after church for what should have been a nine hour drive. It ended up taking twelve hours on the way down, we spent the night in Pigeon Ford, then traveled over to the Foothills Parkway to watch the eclipse … then hit the road back home not realizing between eclipse traffic, road construction, and college traffic we were starting an 18 hour drive home.

So, in case you missed it, we spent 30 hours driving round trip in about 48 hours so we could see less than two minutes of eclipse totality. And it was totally worth it.

What an amazing thing to see. I thought I knew what it would be like, but words really don’t do it justice. It is no mystery why ancient civilizations were shaken by them. Without the knowledge we have today, how could it be interpreted any way other than the gods bringing judgement or warning of doom?

I took a ton of photos; a few turned out pretty good – certainly better than my camera should have been able to do. I essentially held my eclipse glasses against the lens and snapped away. I used a Nikon Coolpix L340.

And yes, we’re already planning our 2024 solar eclipse trip.