Eclipscapades

Years ago now, I got an invitation to Southernillinois to view the eclipse. It came from a guy I'd picked up at Touché who'd since moved away to live in the boonies with his husband. I filed it away, not at all sure what my situation would be like when 2024 rolled around again.

Flash forward to a couple months ago. The old invite was already on my mind when I saw an FB post giving details of the party and cautioning that crash space was "extremely limited". I told my pal I was still interested but that I wasn't sure I could convince my friend Clint to drive that far.

To my surprise, he raised the subject with me himself a little while later. "I want to go see the eclipse," he told me.

"Where are you planning to go?"

"I was thinking of driving to Cleveland."

"Do you know anyone in Cleveland?"

"No."

So I told him about the invite. He was hesitant at first, but when he learned it was exactly the same distance as Cleveland (about five-and-a-half hours under normal conditions), he came around.

Since we weren't sure exactly what the sleeping conditions would be like and we didn't want to impose more than we needed to, we decided we'd drive down to St Louis on Sunday, stay with my mom, drive over to Alto Pass (a small winery town near Carbondale) the morning of, crash there that night, and then drive back Tuesday.

Despite heavy rain leaving Chicago, the first leg went fine. The sun came out mid-state and was shining hatefully into Clint's eyes as we reached St Louis at dinnertime. We'd promised Mom dinner and she'd suggested a barbecue place in the Delmar Loop. Fortunately we had the sense to order ahead of time because it was completely jammed up; it was a beautiful day in town and the whole world was out.

Mom's "new" place is nice. It's awesome to finally be able to move through it without having to navigate around stacks of rubbish. She and Clint enjoy each other and we had a good lowkey evening. Unfortunately, Clint had a sleepless night. He was still okay to drive the next day, but I think it cut into his ability to people.

And there was a lot of peopling to be done. Chuck and Bill had the whole clan present, from Chuck's wheelchair-riding father to his trans masc nephew and his trans fem SO. Fortunately the property was huge--14 acres--and Clint was able to find a comfortable perch on the porch of a little shed next to the pond where he was only occasionally accosted.

If I'm honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by the eclipse itself. I've experienced a couple partials in the past, so I knew the drill. I was taken aback by the temperature drop as the shadow passed over us and seeing Baily's beads for the first time was pretty cool, but I was expecting, I dunno, a shudder of awe to pass through me and that never took place.

The weather was gorgeous, though, as was the locale, and I would happily have hung out for the rest of the day, but Clint was anxious to get back and sleep in his own bed. Amazingly, the massive traffic jams I was expecting based on my friends' experience 7 years ago never materialised; the return trip took only a half hour longer than usual and we were home before midnight (though we still took the next day off to recover from the travel).

All in all, it was a fun little trip. Despite all the togetherness, we never really rubbed each other the wrong way, which is something I can't say about many people who have travelled with me. I don't know that we'll drive down for the next total in 2045, but I think we'll find some excuse for another mini road trip soon.