Eclipse 2024

I visited my friend Tim in the Northeast Kingdom in Vermont to see the eclipse. That morning I had an early breakfast at the Brown Cow in Newport, a great and busy restaurant, which saw a two hour wait time as I was leaving.

I stopped at a Girl Scout table where they charged me $3 for solar viewers. 

The city was incredibly busy with visitors. Newport PD said the lower part of the city would be in gridlock by 1 PM. It's estimated that Vermont saw 160,000 tourists for the event. 

Tim and I headed out to Holland Pond and parked at the fishing access. There were already three cars parked with folks tailgating by the water. Tim and I walked down a slight trail away from the access and setup on a picturesque rock face jutting into the water. The eclipse was about to start when a Game & Wildlife Warden came and kicked everyone out of the access as they were neither boating or fishing. He came over to us with a request to move the car but, after discovering that Tim was local and I was formally local, he simply said that he was on his way to Seymour Lake and would not be returning. We had the entire space to ourselves. 

There was cloud cover near Newport and we feared it would travel our way but the sky remained clear. The eclipse began around 3:25 PM and lasted for about 3 minutes and 26 seconds. It was surreal to watch the contrast of our world darken. Birds and animals grew silent. The air got chilly. Stars popped out and twinkled. 

Then, slowly the world came back to it's normal self. 

Special thanks to Tim for hosting me for this unique experience. 

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