Many people are well aware of the hype that preceded this year’s Solar Eclipse. I watched the news months before and heard everyone talk up the experience using phrases such as, “the corona, and path of totality, Baily’s Beads” etc. I always thought eclipses were cool, and growing up I had seen a few lunar eclipses, but this was the first time a solar eclipse would be casting its shadow from coast to coast across the United States since the year 1918.

As everyone made plans and prepared for the eclipse viewing over the summer, I spent my time writing and backpacking in Colorado. Once home, however, Gustavo and I once again felt ourselves becoming restless. We needed just one more trip to round out an amazing year of travel. The upcoming eclipse kept appearing on our social media feeds and finally two days before we decided we wanted to do this viewing right. We planned to drive to Lake Santeetlah in Western North Carolina, just over the Tennessee border. The original plan was to see it just outside of Nashville, but we wanted to avoid as much of the eclipse crowds as we could so we picked a spot on the map as close to the path of totality as we could get and we hopped in the car and began driving.

Because this trip was so spontaneous and spur of the moment we didn’t have any of the equipment necessary for photographing or even viewing the eclipse. Ok, so you might be thinking, “well, that was stupid. Why drive all that way not to even look at this phenomenon?” We did this purely so we could experience the eclipse in 100% totality. This journey was never about getting the pictures to post anywhere it was solely to end our year of travel on a high note with one last killer trip.

Anyway, we packed as light as possible, picked up our good friend Melissa and drove the 15.5 hours through the night from Mass to North Carolina. It was exhausting, a bit stressful, but completely worth our while. The drive down was actually pretty uneventful. I think we all just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. We took turns driving, and sleeping when we weren't driving. We stopped at a subway around midnight and pigged out on foot-long steak and cheeses. We hit traffic crossing from New York to Pennsylvania and were at a standstill for about 30 minutes. I scratched my eye taking my contact out and had to resort to wearing my old prescription glasses for the majority of the trip. We listened to comedy at 4:30 AM as the sky began to brighten in order to stay awake. Turns out laughing can make anyone forget that they haven't slept or eaten a decent meal in almost 24 hours.

We reached the lake a half hour before the eclipse. We actually got a little lost and didn’t have cell service so instead of going to the Lake’s harbor/clubhouse we decided to watch from this bridge that people were jumping off of into the water. As I mentioned before we didn’t buy glasses for this event because we weren’t planning on staring at the sun, but when we got to the parking lot these nice people encouraged us to look through their own glasses. I have to admit it was pretty cool seeing the orange slit as the moon moved to cover the sun.

After giving the glasses back we sat for a while in the shade of some nearby trees. The humidity was insane and even with the sun beginning to grow dimmer it was still hot as hell. We people watched for the next half hour or so. There were maybe 50 others there to witness the eclipse. People brought lawn chairs, food, umbrellas, trailers if they came from far away, and even boats on the water anchored near the bridge to stare up at the sky. A few guys used wielding masks to stare at the sun, which is also a safe way to view it. We wandered down from our place on the hill to the bridge and Melissa started talking to these three people who drove all the way from Florida. There were also people from Texas and Wisconsin hanging out near us. It seemed we weren’t the only ones who made the drive. We talked as the sun began growing dimmer by degrees, changing the world’s color from a harsh white light to a brown/yellow hue. There were some really rad people.

Then it seemed like everything began happening all at once. With our anticipation rising people began to count down as the shadows shimmered before our eyes and the world became dark. I’ll be honest even though we knew it was coming it was still so surreal and completely eerie. I hadn’t thought to look up how people feel when they experience a solar eclipse so I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

My heart sped up and I honestly felt a little panicked. I was dizzy and my palms began to sweat, and I felt goosebumps rise on my skin and a shiver run up my spine. Suddenly all I wanted to do was run and hide. Josh, the guy from Florida that we met said that what we were feeling was our primal instincts kicking in and taking over from our ancestors dating back to the Stone Age. He studies eclipses so he knows these things.

The best way I can describe it is feeling an impending sense of doom. It was like I needed to take shelter from what was happening above me even though I knew we were completely safe. It put a lot into perspective for me. For example, there is so much that we know now and take for granted. I couldn’t imagine living in a world were natural occurring phenomenon both baffled and frightened me. It also made me realize on a personal level how many valuable survival skills I don’t know that my ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago would have known. It was a humbling experience. We also all felt a little light headed but that honestly might have been the lack of food for about 24 hours.

About a minute passed and those feelings were replaced with ones of awe at what we were witnessing before our own eyes. This is when I began to record on my phone. We looked up and saw “The Ring” and it took my breath away. I literally felt short of breath during the entire experience. While the world around us didn’t get pitch black like it would in the dead of night it became dark enough that it felt like late twilight. The birds stopped chirping, and bugs quieted, everything had a buzzing silence like the energy around us was a live wire waiting to explode. Then all of a sudden the light began to return and in a matter of seconds, it was back in the sky shining with a purer soft white light than before. It felt like the moon had cleansed the sun.

We had totality for 2 minutes and 15 seconds and right as the light returned to the sky Josh proposed to his girlfriend Jen. He got down on one knee and gave her a wonderful Amethyst ring which marked her birthstone, Friday, Feb. 13 during a full moon. She was for sure a lunar baby, and the total eclipse made everything more special for them. Josh had been planning the proposal since March and it was heartwarming to bear witness to, I had tears in my eyes as I watched the scene unfold. I had only met these people 15 minutes before but I felt such genuine happiness towards them and their future. I think if anything seeing this eclipse the way we did only makes me want to see more. I finally understand why there are groups of people who chase such events all over the world. The feeling alone is enough of an adrenaline rush to keep anyone addicted. I think that you have to see this to believe it. So please don’t take my word for it and say, "cool" and not do anything else. Research solar eclipses and find one. See it as close to totality as you can and grant yourself the gift of a truly life changing experience. This is something I will always remember and I’m glad that we enjoyed it for ourselves and didn’t take any photos. I will be uploading a video which doesn’t capture the feelings we felt but gives you and idea of what we saw on some level. I hope you check it out below.

Well thats all for now so as always, create adventure wherever you go and try your best to live in the moment, life’s too short not to.

This video is about the 2017 Solar Eclipse.

I had a longer video, but the file size wouldn't fit on here so I trimmed it down a bit. Enjoy!