Preamble

This is what a solar eclipse looks like, before totality:

Courtesy of Nicole C

Four billion years ago, this whopping big cloud of gas was swirling about the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy and eventually coalesced into our solar system. At the centre, our sun and the third planet out, our Earth, with our moon. Through an absolutely phenomenal coincidence, the angular size ("apparent size", in other words, how big it looks in the sky) of the sun happens to be the same as the angular size of the moon. So a minimum of four times in a year and up to a maximum of seven times, the sun and the moon happen to occupy either the same place in our sky or direct opposite sides of the earth). This is not to be confused with the same place in the solar system: it is definitely not that. It is just a matter of looking up and seeing those two objects in the same line of sight.

Lunar eclipse from home 17 Nov 15

There are different types of eclipses. A lunar eclipse is where the moon passes through the shadow of the earth however, the moon remains visible to us because sunlight is refracted through the earth's atmosphere (just like through a lens) and that light falls on the moon. What is interesting in this case is that because the sunlight is refracted, only the red end of the light spectrum passes through our atmosphere to the moon, and the moon appears red, brown or something in between (sometimes called a "blood moon").

An annular eclipse is when the moon passes between earth and the sun, so the shadow of the moon falls on the earth. However, notwithstanding the aforementioned coincidence, the coincidence is not good enough to be perfect and in fact, the angular size of the moon and the sun are not quite equal. Thus, the sun appears larger than the moon with the result being that during the eclipse, a thick ring of sun appears around the moon. BORING!

A total eclipse of the heart is a schmarmy 1983 song by Bonnie Tyler. Also BORING.

Then, there is a TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE and this is where the coincidence pays off in spades. The sun and moon DO have the same apparent diameter, the moon passes between the earth and the sun, and for the fortunate number who are in the shadow, a mere 100 kilometres wide, they will see the moon engulf the sun. At the moment of totality, where the moon is blocking the entirety of the sun, watchers will see the corona (no, not a Mexican beer) of the sun, which is basically its atmosphere. The corona extends millions of kilometres out from the sun and viewers will immediately understand why ancient people thought their civilisations were about to end.

Lastly, there is a special type of total solar eclipse: the squiggle total solar eclipse and for our family, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and random interlopers, we are going to post our journal of the greatest type of total solar eclipse to ever exist strictly for your enjoyment... or to ignore, as you see fit.

In my youth, I didn't understand the significance of the squiggles on a total solar eclipse. So, when the last total solar eclipse in North America occurred, which was February 26, 1979, my astronomy buddy Lori and some others from university and I drove to Manitoba to witness the event, it never occurred to us that we should ride motorcycles. The fact that it was February, notwithstanding. In fact, it was so cold that the film in my camera froze and broke as I tried to advance it. No pictures, but I got to see the event.

Nicole, nowadays.

I was telling this story to my friend Nicole when I was at her place for dinner a couple of months ago. Nicole goes "I REMEMBER THAT!" and jumped out of her chair, ran downstairs and came back with a KINDERGARTEN book in which she had created the above eclipse rendition, and had also included a type-set note (advanced technology, for its day) prepared by her teacher, describing their experience.

Ed note: Nicole was actually in Kindergarten when she did the rendition. 

Nicole, I apologize that everybody in the world can now figure out your age. You look great, BTW!

Four years ago, Nan and I were on a motorcycle trip that involved taking a ferry from Sidney, B.C. through the San Juan Islands to Anacortes, Washington and while in line waiting, I met a guy from Salt Spring Island riding a big BMer who introduced me to the squiggles of Big Horn National Forest in Wyoming. I was so intrigued with this that when Nan visited Salt Spring on a house-sitting gig in early 2016, I tracked this guy down and we had dinner with him. As it turns out, he was pretty odd and the dinner wasn't all that I thought it would be. In fact, it was kind of depressing.

Anyway, as a result of meeting this guy, I have spent a number of hours on Google Maps pouring over the routes in the Big Horn and, by extension, over into the Black Hills in South Dakota and it looks glorious!

This is what squiggles look like on Google Maps:

The Black Hills, South Dakota

I KNEW I had to get there. Then, when planning for the up coming Total Eclipse Squiggle Tour commenced in earnest, my opportunity laid before me at my feet, just waiting for the tires of the motorcycle to leave their impression. And it was born. 

So here it is: we are combining one of the most awesome spectacles in nature with one of the most awesome experiences of humanity and you can be with us every step of the way. 

Two years ago, in early November 2015, I took my first concrete steps to planning for the eclipse. I knew then that it would be a particularly popular event because it was the first eclipse in continental North America in over 38 years and because it was accessible to upwards of 100 million people, based on how far people lived from the eclipse line. I scouted locations, searching for an area that was far enough east that it would not be subject to clouds forming over the coast where cool, moisture laden air would hit the warm shores of Oregon but not so far east that we would be in the thick of forest fires or smoke from forest fires. Regular readers may recall that a few years ago when we did the aforementioned motorcycle trip that took us through Anacortes, we were diverted due to forest fires, just like the recent Tofino trip through central B.C. I settled on a small Oregon state park virtually dead on the centre line of the eclipse called Mann Creek State Park, the nearest reasonably sized town being Ontario, Oregon. 

Ontario is not exactly a bustling metropolis; it boasts a whopping 12 motels in total and when they are full, the town's population is doubled in size. This suits the town well because the primary pastime there is sleeping.  I looked over all the opportunities and settled on one in particular, whose regular summer room rate was posted at U.S. $114. I phoned them directly because it is not possible to book online two years in advance. My first question was "how are the eclipse bookings coming?" and I was told "we are filling up". TWO YEARS IN ADVANCE. Also, they had a "special rate" for eclipse viewers: U.S. $200. It includes breakfast. 

A quick Hotels.com search four weeks before the eclipse shows NO ROOM in Ontario, but Idaho Falls, another popular (and much larger) destination for eclipse chasers, bears this result:

I knew there was no point in arguing the price or the fact that they were gouging mostly nerds with limited income, people who live in their parents' basements watching re-runs of Star Trek (present company excepted - we DO NOT live in my parents' basement [Ed. note: for the record, I still have the entire catalogue of Star Trek: The Original Series {"ST:TOS" to us nerds}] on VHS.)

With that monumental task complete, route planning began. This is how we anticipate the route to unfold; the Google Maps route is linked in the sidebar so that you can zoom in on the details, though we fully expect this to evolve over the course of the trip:

As it currently stands, the route is about 6,200 km spread over 18 days. This includes stops at my sister's place in Calgary and two day stops in Ontario, Oregon (for the eclipse), Sheridan, Wyoming and potentially, Comanche Park in South Dakota. Further, we are planning to motel it for about half the trip and the other half camping, now that Nan is an expert motorcycle camper.

Her is a map of the Great American Total Solar Squiggle Eclipse of 2017's track; click on it and get the real thing:

The X-Man's finest work.

This is an amazing Google map, created by Professor Xavier (I'm not kidding) in France. I emailed him and he didn't respond but I donated money to him anyway, though I only gave him 15 Euros. (I would have given him 20 if he had responded to me. Maybe I should have tried to use (the) five words of French (I know), which is the solution, I've heard, when trying to communicate with people who are primarily French speakers, though a friend recently told me that, while in Paris, he was told [in English] "I'm too busy for you to practice your high school French; speak to me in English!") What is really cool about this map is that you can click on it anywhere and get the times (in Universal Coordinated Time) of the eclipse start, finish, time of totality, what percentage of the sun will be covered at that location (68.998% from my deck at home) and The Colonel's Secret Recipe.

Some housekeeping:

The Spotwalla map, which is linked in the sidebar at right and further up the page, is configured to display our pinged location every five minutes and for every day we are on the road. If you are seeing something different, such as only one or a few days worth of travel, or location "pings" at intervals other than five minutes, this can be changed in your own settings on the map.

Click the drop down box on the map title at the top of the page, and click on Adjustments. This will give you the option to select how many days of travel are displayed. To see all of our travel from home, select History ALL. And to see every ping including location, time, speed etc., select % Fill ALL. This will also show a flag indicating when we have stopped for the day.

Feel free to post comments (which will be moderated). Given that there will be days where we will not have cell or internet service, do not be alarmed if your post does not appear right away since it comes to me through my email first.

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If you've made it this far, that's great because you are obviously still awake. Thanks for following.