The Ecstasy & the Agony: 2017 Total Solar Eclipse Adventure

     Long before the hype reached its fevered pitch, I was rather obsessed America's Total Solar Eclipse of August 21, 2017. Thoughts of going on an adventure for the coveted experience of being where I could experience the event in totality were tempting and although my research began months ahead, I procrastinated planning the trip. It was only a 10 hour drive to the closest area on the Path of Totality; that narrow 71 mile band of earth from Oregon to South Carolina where it would go totally dark in the middle of the day for over two minutes. This eclipse was special for a lot of reasons and visibility would only be possible from the USA. It had been a very long time since that happened. 

     About 6 weeks before the celestial event, I decided to pull the trigger and find a room on the Path of Totality. My lack of decisiveness  earlier on cost me big time because there were only three hotel rooms left within a reasonable driving distance and the prices were jacked up sky high. Money could be replaced, but lost opportunities being lost forever was my rationale for this first of several similar preparatory decisions. The room I snagged was in a no-name budget hotel but the prices were closer to the Hilton.

     In order to make this worthwhile, some investments needed to be made in photography equipment. If I was going, I was damn well going to photograph it and the right stuff was required to do so. My first purchase was a new tripod because my old one was barely usable as it didn't lock into position properly anymore. I justified this because I like to go birding and having a tripod is more than a bit helpful. I spent almost 10x more for the new one which is lightweight carbon fiber, than I did for my old clunky, heavy original 20 years prior. While I was at the store getting the tripod, I checked in to renting a lens. There were two I was interested in and I was able to test out both of them on a camera body model the same as my own. I played with them for some time before choosing which one to put on hold for rental. A week later I returned to the store and bought the 200 - 500mm f/5.6 Nikon lens so I could practice before the event. Unfortunately just the lens was not sufficient. Just like my eyes, I had to protect the sensor in my camera with at least 15 stops of light blockage. The filters to accomplish that were not cheap. Making all of these purchases significantly reduced my savings account.

      I started playing with my new lens immediately and got pretty comfortable with its weight and how it sat on the tripod. The results were spectacular! Check out the two photos below. The first is a "blood moon" lunar eclipse from several years ago with my 18 - 200 mm kit lens and the second is a waxing gibbous moon with the new lens at 500mm.

      Soon it became clear that sharing this experience would be better than going it alone, though I was more than prepared to fly solo. On a whim, I shot a text to my big brother, Chuck, who is an avid astronomy buff, "I just booked a room on the Path of Totality for the eclipse. Do you want to come along?" Within minutes he agreed and our very first adventure together was set. After that, he would regularly send me links to articles, simulations, recommended apps and safety information. 

      The day arrived and we were on the road by 6:15 AM hoping for a 4 PM arrival time. The drive took an hour longer than expected due to increased traffic: We weren't the only ones heading for totality! We also made an obligatory stop at the roadside attraction South of the Border, so we didn't arrive to the hotel until around 5:30 PM. It was called The Southern Lodge and it was small, old and dated. The women at the front desk were very warm, friendly and welcoming. They gave us a complimentary bottle of wine, and then suggested a restaurant for us to try after we got settled into the room.  

     Room 123 was ours and we drove to its door and unloaded the car. The instant the door was opened the stench of stale cigarettes wafted out. It was more than a little unpleasant and permeated the entire room. The furniture was old and worn, with a country style decor, left over from the early 1980s. There was a king sized bed and a sofa bed,  so my brother would have his own bed. The sink was outside the tiny bathroom and the tub had a line of amber burn marks along its edge where lit cigarettes were rested while smokers used the toilet. The only thing in the room that was modern was the flat screen TV. It was not a good impression, but there were no other rooms in the state that were on the path of totality so even though I paid Hilton prices, we had no choice but to stay in this hovel.

     Famished, we headed down the road to FATZ, a southern restaurant chain. We checked in with the host to learn that there was a 20 - 30 minute wait. There were no seats in the waiting area so I went around the corner to check out the bar. Two men were settling up their bill so they could move to a table with the rest of their families and I asked Chuck if he would be OK sitting at the bar to eat. He agreed, so I went to the host to take our name off the list while he went to claim the seats at the bar. I love to sit at a bar and eat, so this arrangement was more than fine with me. After we got settled in and placed our orders it didn't take long to start chatting with the people around us. 
     My brother was next to a couple from Texas who made the trip to SC just like us, to experience the totality of the eclipse. I was next to a family from U.K., a couple and their two young daughters. They lived about 70 miles north of London and were regular eclipse chasers. They had fascinating tales to tell of travel all over the world, including Australia and Turkey, to experience eclipse totality. It was their 7th total eclipse as a couple and the girls' first. The father's name was Paul and he insisted that once experienced, we would also be hooked, and find ourselves planning to see another total eclipse. We talked for quite awhile about the phenomena that occur leading up to and during totality and the awe that he felt at the process and the unexpected beauty. I didn't think it was possible, but that conversation made us even more excited for the next day's event.
     We had a lazy morning on eclipse day. We went to the free breakfast provided by the hotel and then packed up most everything. I readied my camera and tripod and we prepared to move out of the room and into the car until the long awaited celestial event. Check out time was 11 AM so we would have about 4 hours outside on a hot, sunny day. I took the key to the front desk to check out and told them that we were going to hang out in the parking lot until after the eclipse, then we'd clear out. To my utter surprise and delight the clerk told me that we could have the room until we were ready to leave. I was blown away and Chuck was very pleased about it too. Southern hospitality is a wonderful thing!
     As the time for the eclipse approached, temperatures outside  started to climb. By the time the astronomical event began, it was upwards of 90 ℉. From the moment that the disk of the moon began to overlay that of the sun, our heads were pointed skyward every few minutes, with eye protection in place, or for myself, through the protected lens of the camera. The sky remained bright and sunny throughout the moon's traverse. Even during the diamond ring phase, when there we only a bit of sunlight peering through from one side, it was full on daylight. Moments later and in an instant as the moon's perfectly aligned over the sun, it became dark. The sky turned a deep slate blue. We removed our protective eye wear and gazed in amazement as the sun's corona shone around its darkened orb. It was white and yellow and orange and red. Solar flares, like spewing volcanoes were visible.  Stars and planets that were obscured by the brightness of day appeared to our delight. Songbirds stopped singing, crickets began chirping, and streetlights came on. We looked all around us to take in the awe inspiring experience of a 360° sunset. My 65 year-old brother transformed into a gleeful child, filled with curiosity and amazement. I could not contain the joy I felt and found myself smiling widely and giggling. Even my body was responding with the energy of excitement. I wanted everyone to have this experience, and all the while I was clicking my remote shutter release, recording hundreds of images to mark my presence on the Path of Totality.
     The 3 minutes of totality sped by, and in an instant, it was once again daylight. The second diamond ring came and went. The streetlights turned off, the crickets were silenced, and the songbirds resumed their song. Still giddy from what we had just experienced, I packed up the camera gear, we gathered up the remainder of our belongings from the hotel room and shut the door behind us. We made a quick stop to the office to return our key and express our gratitude to the staff one last time. It was time to head back home. The eight hour drive took us 13 hours as the rest of the eclipse chasers took to the roads to return to their homes and lives. We were exhausted and happy as we recounted our experience several times. 
     Needless to say, I was more than a little bit eager to get home so that I could upload my images, begin the editing process, and share the fruits of my photographic labor with my friends, family, and the world. I slept soundly that night, and as soon as I awoke, I removed the SD card from my camera and popped it into the computer. I set up the upload and was utterly and completely disappointed that there was not a single shot, not one, that was good enough, or crisply focused enough. I spent hours pouring through the 400+ images in hope of finding one worthy of my time to edit. Filled with the agony of shame for my utter lack of skill, I chose a single image for my editing attempt and embarrassingly shared it on social media. Here it is:

     Hopefully there will be another chance for me. If all things go as planned, my brother and I plan to be on the Path of Totality for the next total eclipse visible from the United States. Hopefully by April 8, 2024 I will be ready. 


     
     

Thanksgiving 2014: Mentioning A Few of the Many Things for Which I Am Thankful

   For the past few Thanksgivings, I've been alone with my dog in my Chicagoland condo making a turkey breast and enjoying a day of sloth, followed by heading off to "The Ho" for a drink with other inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys. It was always a relaxing day. The truth is that it has been 15 years or so since I have spent a Thanksgiving with any of my family of origin, so it's an odd year. But it's been an odd year anyway having moved back to New Jersey in mid October, being jobless since Sept 1st and not knowing anything about what the future may hold. Being unsure of the direction of my life does not negate the overarching theme of gratitude with which I live daily, sometimes hourly or on a minute-by-minute basis. No.  There is so much to be grateful for from the grand to the minuscule that I wish all inhabitants of the earth felt it daily rather than perhaps thinking about it one day per year like here in the good old USA. 
   So here are some things for which I am grateful:

• I get to spend the day with my mom, my brother and his family.
• I was able to move from Chicagoland back to NJ last month in order to care for my mother.  The longer I am here, the more I realize that we probably left her alone too long.
• That I still have my mother in my life to love and learn from.  She's 86!
• There are people out there who I am unfathomably grateful to call my friends.  Without them, I would not have survived. Neither would I be the person I have become. Nor would I feel such love and devotion for them or their love for me (this give and take is perhaps my dearest treasure). I am tempted to name names here, but I will refrain.
• Hugs.  They make life grand! I love them and appreciate every single one; big, small, wimpy or strong. Give them and take them often. They'll keep you alive.
• With this huge transition back to NJ, that I have friends from my youth who remain so amazingly dear to me, who I have the great honor to get to know now as their evolved selves all the while cherishing who they were when we were so young so very long ago. It's amazing really.
• My little dog Ozzy who has also saved me in so many ways. He was always next to me when I had sunk into the abyss and he is here with me now on the brighter side.
• To have had work experiences that have allowed me to develop an eclectic set of skills and gain a certain amount of confidence.  My hope is that I will meet an employer who will find them useful and hire me.  Not working is not healthy for me, but hey, I'm alive!
• To be young at heart when so many choose to be weighed down by life.  I'm only weighed down by fat! ;)  I insist that I stopped aging at 27. My body sometimes forgets that, but my mind and my love of life are right there.
• Even though these qualities can get me in trouble, I am thankful for being a rational thinker, someone who seeks out the facts, separates irrational emotion from evidence and gives weight to that evidence when forming an opinion or making a decision.
• I am grateful to have been born ... and to be alive...  in America... and from parents who encouraged me to think for myself and taught that that I should never believe that anyone is better than me. Even though I never really took that last one in, it did give me a basic sense of value.  Life is the great adventure, is short, and the only one we get.  There is nothing afterward, just like there was nothing before. All we have is what happens between our first breath and our last.  Make it count to someone! 
• Then there's love. I've had three major love relationships in my life. The first one when I was young and chose to love someone who loved me because I believed beyond any doubt that it was my only chance.  This was a poor choice, but I am grateful I made it because it provided me with opportunities that I would not have had otherwise. I learned a lot about myself  throughout the 16 year relationship and the ending of it.  The second one was a flurry of passion and love which was made up of all of the things lacking in the first. Unfortunately there were some major compatibility issues and it did not last. Again, I learned so much from having been in that relationship and having gleaned a wonderful friendship from it. How could I not be grateful? The third time was the real deal with passion, compatibility, love, respect, trust and the unfortunate yet sure knowledge that it was going to be temporary. Those two years were the most amazing time in life emotionally;  when I finally understood that I can be lovable to someone just the way I am.  What a gift!  It was unexpected and we knew it was going to be short, but it was absolutely everything while it existed. That was over five years ago. It's been rather quiet since then.  Maybe three is the maximum because although I would very much welcome it in my life, I don't have much hope that love will be in my cards for a fourth time. On that, I would be very grateful to be wrong! 
• I am so thankful that I and an atheist and choose to live my life without superstition. Reality is more than enough for me. The awe of the expansiveness of the universe is very real. The childlike curiosity I have about almost everything which keeps my thirst for learning ever present. I am so fortunate to have this quality that is so compelling that it may even be written in my DNA. I would love to find out if it is!
• Being in NJ now I am closer to my family and I hope for the opportunity to spend more time with them, get to know them better, to watch the young ones grow and maybe provide some unique and enriching experiences for them.
• That I am thankful for the sake of being thankful, to not take anything for granted.  I do not need an imaginary sky god of any sort to live a life of gratitude.  My gratitude does not need a direction or a destination. It just needs to be... and it is!

That list is just the tip of my gratitude iceberg and I'm sure you get the drift of my love of the "Attitude of Gratitude"! So, what are you thankful for?

To all of my family, friends and random internet sojourner who may happen upon this post, I send you my love and thanks, and wish you a life of gratitude, appreciation and a very 

A Philosophical Question: Where is my father?

     Today, September 24th, is the 91st anniversary of my father's birth. He died six years ago and I still miss him like crazy. As I approach days that were important to him such as today, or my parents' wedding anniversary or the date on which he died, I think of him more regularly and find myself telling stories about him, using some of his sayings and of course those memorable times surface more readily. I experience these thoughts and memories so vividly that my consciousness once again feels a reality of Dad's presence although in an elusive or shall I say, ethereal way. I know full well that experiencing Dad in this state is a fabrication of the human brain, one for which I am immeasurably grateful. If I put myself into an hypnotic trance, I can remarkably enhance this experience and fancifully create new interactions and memories of my father, all inside my head. This year, along with all of these usual phenomena and the palpable longing to have even just one more real conversation with my dad,  I am also contemplating the stark reality of his death, and death itself.
     It is no secret that much of the world, especially those who participate in religion, spirituality or believe in the supernatural tend to hold that as human beings we contain a soul that lives on eternally, even though there is absolutely no evidence that this is so. Those believe that after corporeal death we may be relegated to Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Limbo, Nirvana, Valhalla, etc. But alas these are mythologies. Some believers extend this notion to animals as well, mostly mammals for which affection is felt and not so much for creatures for which people have little or no affinity.  I see people take great comfort in a belief that dead loved ones watch over them in some way (I find this unhealthily creepy) or that when they join them in death, they will join them in another realm of existence. It is however most capricious; childish wishful thinking.
    So where is my father?  He is where he was before he was born: non existent. This is the same place I was before I was born and where you were before you were born. My unique combination of DNA had never been created before...  It is the same place I will be when I die and where you will be when you die.  There is a huge difference though on the "after you die" side and that is this:  In between birth and death there is existence: There is LIFE!  Something wonderful happens during the short span of time that is life. We interact with others and we leave evidence as a physical footprint and in the experiences shared with others that we did indeed exist... and if we are lucky a few people may have good things to say about us, and if we do it right, we may leave behind a legacy, good or bad that marks time and place for us to be remembered after we die, not just by those with whom we interacted but by groups, towns or more... with people we never even met. That doesn't mean we were famous necessarily, just that we did something that reached beyond who we could actually touch.  
    My Uncle Chet did that with his music. My cousin Jim is doing that with his art. The friends who write stories, songs or poetry, those who create photographs of special occasions for others, those who teach, preach, entertain or doctor, those who care for children, the elderly, the disadvantaged or infirm, etc., all leave their mark far beyond what they see or know. Perhaps the words I write today or those I have written in the past or will write in the future will be deemed meaningful to someone and passed along and I may never know. It is OK that I may never know.  But these words and my photographs and hopefully some kindnesses and the love that I have expressed over the decades of my life will be the evidence of my existence after I die. 
    So where is my father?  He no longer exists in any reality.  The body of his former unique DNA and consciousness lies in a vault in the ground of a military cemetery in southern New Jersey.  But all of us still living who knew him know he existed and we carry the memories of our time with him inside us. We who knew him and also love him hold the greatest portion of the evidence of his having lived. My brother, sister and I have his DNA and embody ongoing lives forever connected to the man that was my father. We carry too, living proof of our mother, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on  We are their legacies and we will be each others' legacies. By telling stories of my father, Charles Michael Sullivan, to others we expand the scope of those he touched and through us continues to touch others. The memory of him resides in the love that we still hold for him and in the longing we have for him to be with us.  This knowledge is what gives me comfort and strength. Knowing that I am responsible for keeping the evidence of my father alive for as long as I am living keeps me from feeling the same depth of sadness I did when he first died.  In fact, the only sadness I carry now is that which comes from my own selfish yearning that I could have held on to him longer when he had no desire left to hold on for himself.  
      Some of my greatest faults come from my dad and so does most of my strength. (My mom gives me other qualities and I am so happy and grateful that I get to talk with her all the time and to see her a couple of times per year!) I guess what I want to say is that I will love my beautifully flawed father and continue to miss him until the day I cease to exist. 
     This is how one minuscule atheist comprehends, reconciles and experiences the death of the male who gave 23 of his own chromosomes to bring my unique self into existence. In the beginning and in the end, it is all about love. I hope I spread enough...