Texas - Part 4

Eclipse Day

The primary goal of our Texas trip was to view the total solar eclipse on April 8th. By 6 am on eclipse day we had picked up our boxed breakfast, boarded our bus, and started driving toward the selected viewing site within the totality path. The site was west of San Antonio near the town of Bandera. Tour organizers had wisely chosen to leave quite early to avoid expected heavy eclipse traffic out of San Antonio. Sadly, the sky was almost completely cloudy during the drive, but there were hopes of temporary cloud breaks.

Our site was a rural aging RV site with a large covered building which I will call a music hall. It opened onto a large unobstructed field.

The following panorama shows the area on the other side of the music hall opposite the field side.

Next is a view of the music hall from the courtyard pictured above.

Inside the music hall were lots of tables and a stage for performers at one end.

Since we arrived early we had nothing to do but stroll around the grounds for a while. On our walk we saw some nice yellow flowers growing very close to the ground and a spiky caterpillar on a dry branch.

Tour members began to spread out over the viewing field. Notice the discouraging cloudy sky.

You can see some of the little yellow flowers in the previous picture. I eventually set up my Seestar automated telescope next to some folding chairs I brought from the music hall.

About two hours before the Moon first began covering the Sun there were a few decent breaks in the clouds. So there was a lingering hope to see at least a small portion of the eclipse. I unwisely waited to set up my Seestar until about 30 minutes before partial eclipse phases began. I was afraid Seestar's battery wouldn't last through the entire eclipse. As a result of my delay, I missed the opportunity to align on the Sun while the Sun was still temporarily visible. When I eventually unpacked the Seestar and attempted to align on the Sun, there were too many clouds. The Sun would peek out for 5 seconds then disappear for several minutes before peeking out for a few seconds again. There wasn't enough time for the Seestar to lock on to the Sun. I struggled for quite a while before giving up. To help with alignment I put my jacket on the ground behind the Seestar to better see any shadow the fleeting Sun might cast. Unfortunately, this didn't help. You can see some binoculars on one chair and the tablet that controls the Seestar on another chair.

As totality neared clouds increased to the point where the Sun was completely invisible, so even if I had somehow managed to get the Seestar going, I wouldn't have been able to image totality. If I had aligned early enough instead of waiting, I might have captured some images of the partial phases, however. This really bugs me. A few people were curious about the Seestar. If I had been able to get it working, I would have been able to show real time images on my tablet that would have been as good or better than the few other guys who brought imaging equipment. It would have been fun demonstrating the Seestar to other astrophotography geeks like myself. But none of that happened.

We saw a few very brief glimpses of partial phases with the naked eye through thick clouds, and it did get dark and quiet during actual totality, but that was all we could observe. Here are some scenes in darkness during totality.

After totality there was nothing to see but thick clouds. Nearly everyone migrated into the covered music hall where a country music band began playing. As often happens with live music, the sound level was too high. I can tolerate country music better than hip hop or the kind of music blasted at some recent weddings I've attended. When I stood far from the speakers, or just outside the music hall, the sound level wasn't too bad. I could say it was almost enjoyable at times depending on the song. C hated it, however.

Soon tour guides were encouraging line dancing. Some of our tour group participated, but dancing is not for me. Lots of others were like me. Someone suggested we could leave early and return to San Antonio instead of staying at the music hall for several more hours and having the catered dinner provided there. To their credit, tour organizers offered to send two buses back to San Antonio for those who wished to go. We quickly signed up for the early trip back.

Tour organizers planned extended time at the music hall to avoid anticipated traffic jams back to San Antonio after the eclipse. Turns out they were right. We spent about three hours on a bus stuck in enormous traffic backups on small rural roads because hordes of people had driven to see the eclipse nearby. But we did eventually make it back to San Antonio where we had some gloriously free hours to get dinner somewhere on the Riverwalk.

By luck we came upon an empty table right on the river.

This was our view down the river.

It was a lovely spot, but what you can't understand from the pictures alone is the sound level and disappointing food. A jazz band playing at a nearby restaurant featured a shrieking, blaring, amplified trumpet whose sound echoed down the canal. It was, frankly, awful. A strolling guitar player came to our table and started strumming, but we couldn't hear the guitar right next to us because the amplified trumpet was so loud! I searched the menu looking for something without burning spices. I chose stuffed flounder with an orzo side which the waiter assured me had no hot spices. The fish was not bad, but two bites of the orzo had my mouth on fire. I really don't enjoy any kind of hot spice. It was pretty hard to avoid hot spicy food in Texas with all the TexMex stuff on menus.

While cooling my mouth fire I noticed an interesting play of evening light on a distant high building across the way.

After dinner we made a last attempt to stroll past attractions on busier parts of the Riverwalk. It wasn't long before we gave up battling the crowds. C was particularly worried about getting bumped off the narrow path into the river by careless walkers. So we returned to our hotel and ended our day.

It was a major disappointment to miss seeing the solar eclipse! There's no one to blame. It was just simple bad luck. Tour organizers had chosen the best possible site based on cloud cover statistics. We were in the best USA statistical location, but there was always a chance for clouds. Satellite images of cloud cover during the eclipse showed several partially clear areas south and north of our location, but, unfortunately, we were stuck under a region of continuous cloud.

Next morning we would drive to Austin.