Eclipse Diary, Part 2 – A Community of Sun-Gazers

Mt. Lassen from Lake Almador

This is the second part of my solar eclipse adventures, accompanied by my intrepid neighbor and walking buddy, Chris.

Today’s lesson, young grasshopper, is that things turn out the way they do, no matter how different that is from how you expect them to be. All the information we had been given was that the best place to view the annular solar eclipse was from Lassen Volcanic National Park, plus there would be an educational presentation at the Information Center auditorium. Life, however, does not always follow what is given out in magazine articles and websites. When, after a morning of hiking around Lake Almador, we arrived at the park entrance, a long line of cars awaited us. The time for the presentation approached, with almost no forward progress. At last, when the entrance kiosk came into view, a Park Ranger informed us that not only was the parking lot full, or about to become so, but that we would not be able to view the entire eclipse from the park. She advised driving to Redding, about 90 miles away. She mentioned the Mineral Vista Point, considerably closer, but thought that the parking area might already be full.

In the tiny town of Mineral, we stopped to chat with the proprietors of the all-purpose lodge/market/general store. A number of people who’d turned back at Lassen had clearly decided that the way to view the eclipse was from the café patio, a cold beer in hand. They didn’t seem to mind that there were some rather large hills to the west. We, on the other hand, decided to try the Vista Point, reserving the lodge parking lot as a backup plan.

Eclipse Tailgate Party

When we arrived at the Vista Point, some 10 miles down the road, the formal parking areas were full, but we nabbed a shady spot off the road. I suspected that we would be only the first of many to park there, and I was right. We found an astronomer setting up a telescope and camera with special solar lenses. Before long, we’d struck up conversations not only with him, but his physicist friend and wife, and a family from San Jose. (I confess, I broke the ice here when I noticed the teen wearing a shirt saying, “Bow Ties Are Cool,” and began a Whovian conversation, during which Chris – who is an ardent Trekkie – entered into a spirited debate with the young man on the relative merits of DS9 and TNG, therefore imbuing the viewing with the flavor of a gathering of fans.) That family had brought a welding visor, and father and son busily figured out how to take photos of the eclipse through the visor glass plus the eclipse glasses.