Journey to the Total Solar Eclipse 2017

The planning for this trip is very different from any other trips as it was the first time that the focus of the trip is one particular event at a particular time and nothing else. The trip was formed rather quickly as I found one of my physics friend who is also interested in going to see the solar eclipse. We looked up the map and decided where in this solar eclipse path that we can potential go with rather cheap flight tickets and no driving involved. After few hours, we decided that we will fly to Atlanta and will take a bus to a nearby (4 hours drive) town, called Columbia, SC without knowing anything about the town or anyone there. I later learned once I got to the city that it is actually the capitol city of South Carolina. You would not have guess that if you did not visit the state museum there. 

We flew Spirit to Atlanta on Saturday afternoon before catching a late evening bus to Columbia. We had to wait for the bus in the middle of the night for an hour. I thought that the station should be indoor with restrooms and restaurants. I was completely wrong. We in fact had to wait on the sidewalk. The bus took about 4 hours to get to Columbia and 3 AM. I was tired (from traveling and probably jetlag from my previous trip). We managed to get to the hotel with a plan that we will visit the state museum the next day for the eclipse glasses. 

SC State Museum with the telescope dome at the top pointing to the sun

 After waking up early, we quickly finished our breakfast before walking to Walmart to look for eclipse glasses. There was none. My friends already looked for them in multiple places in Boston with no luck. Fortunately, the SC State Museum gave out a pair of glasses for every visitor with just a entrance ticket. We initially planned to have a whole Sunday free for exploring the city, but because of the weather and a rather quiet town, we decided to just explore the museum instead. The museum was large enough to accommodate us for the whole day. The highlight of the museum is a planetarium which told a story about this coming solar eclipse. Another thing that I found fascinating about the museum is the civil war history. Learning about the civil war from the Confederate side was not something I was expected from this trip. The exhibition is well-done with artifacts and stories about the war, but the story is a little different from what I was told about this war.

"You always learn something different about the war if you learn it from the losing side."

We went straight back to the hotel after the museum. We didn't really get to explore the city because of the weather and the fact that we were pretty tired by that time. Well, that was not really the point of this trip anyway.

Before going to bed, we decided to go to Historic Columbia Speedway since they had a event called "Soda City Eclipse" (still not really sure why they called it that). We learned nothing about the place since we were there just for an empty land with some tents and chairs for the solar eclipse. Thinking that there might be tons of people coming to the event, we got to the event at 10am while the total eclipse will occur at 2.41pm. We basically had to wait for 4 hours to see the solar eclipse. I spent the first 30 mins walking around the place and spent the rest of 3.3 hours just sitting around and reading books. At least I almost finished one book during this trip.

Finally, 2.40pm arrived and people stopped their activities and stared into the sun with their glasses. I was one of them. The whole place was quiet and once people took off their glasses, they started to cheer as if someone just win a competition. But no, the moon just covered the sun completely. The sky went darker, the temperature dropped, but we all kept staring into now a dark sun with our naked eyes silently.

The exact spot that I was watching the total solar eclipse. 

Now, I will quote what I wrote right after I saw the total eclipse at that spot in Columbia, South Carolina.

     "You have to wear this special glasses for most of the time so that you can actually see the sun. I used mine until I saw the last part of the bright sun with my glasses before I took it off. But what I saw after I took off my glasses was unexplainable. The sun is totally blocked off. You can see the whole sun without any protection and the surrounding area was dark like a twilight right before the sunset, but it was dark on all sides. I don't really have any more explanation to explain this feeling. But if I have a chance to see another one, I will definitely do it again a million times even though I have to wait for more than 3 hours in the middle of the town that I knew nobody and had to take a midnight bus to go to a rather random town in a not-so well-known state." - 08/21/2017 - 2.54pm - Columbia, SC

The sky turned dark and everything stopped during the total solar eclipse

The trip back to Boston is simply reversed what we did before. We had to spend one more night at a hotel near the airport. We also didn't explore Atlanta because we wouldn't have enough time to get back to the airport. But it doesn't matter. What mattered was that I did see the total solar eclipse for the first time, and hopefully not the last time.