Complex Numbers

Dark Side of the Moon

Well, at least I have some experience with this one.

PROMPT November 15^th

You and your two best friends are going on a month-long road trip. Where are you going? What three items must be in your luggage for this trip to be a great experience for you.

While I normally road-trip alone, in August of 2017, two of my closest friends and I traveled halfway across the country to see the solar eclipse. It's something I'd always wanted to see, and Missouri is a bit more accessible than Svalbard, which was where the previous eclipse had been visible from. And we could have gone someplace closer, but I wanted to reduce the risk of cloud cover.

That trip wasn't a month, though; it was more like four days. My limit for being in close quarters with someone, in order for us to remain friends, is something like two weeks. But okay, according to the prompt, I'm going on a month-long road trip. Let's set the trip in 2024, because that's when the next solar eclipse crosses parts of the US. Since an eclipse takes about two minutes, and we need the day before to get there and the day after to get back (solar eclipses tend to not be visible at night), that leaves four weeks to do other stuff.

You know what would be fun? To roughly trace the path of that eclipse as a road trip. Obviously, you wouldn't be able to chase the shadow. Even jets have a hard time chasing the shadow. But just taking the time to do it for the hell of it. Pick the spot where you want to actually see the eclipse, and plan accordingly, but also trace the path as best you can while the sun's actually shining. And visit breweries along the way, of course, because that's what I do.

The path of totality across the US can be seen here.   As you can see, the center of the shadow crosses the border from Mexico just southwest of San Antonio (and no wall is going to keep it out). It kisses Oklahoma (ew), darkens Arkansas, then swings through southeast Misery, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, before skipping across the Great Lakes, western New York, a bit of Vermont (saying hi to Canada too) and thence across Maine.

Just for comparison, there's also a map that shows both the 2017 and 2024 eclipses here.  

So... "What three items must be in your luggage for this trip to be a great experience for you?"

Well, clearly there will need to be more than three items. Hell, I'll need at least three pairs of underpants alone.

But okay, fine, apart from the obvious.

1. Eclipse Glasses. I still have a crapton of these from the 2017 eclipse. Seriously, folks, don't be an utter idiot and look at the sun before or after an eclipse. Or anytime, really. No, the reason I need eye surgery now isn't because I didn't take that advice.

2. Camera. The last time I saw an eclipse, I wanted to simply experience it, not fuck around with camera settings or have anything between my eyeballs and the conjunction (except for Item #1 above). Next time, I want to try to get pictures. No, the camera on a mobile phone won't cut it.

3. GPS. Unbelievably, there are still people who freak out about GPS. Is it perfect? No. Neither are paper maps. But it's freakin' sorcery, and yes, it will even work during a solar eclipse (if the sun spits out a flare, though, all bets are off, which is why I also always carry a road atlas as backup).

Like I said, though, I'll need way more than just those three things, like earplugs so I don't have to listen to my travel companions snoring (I'll bring spares so they don't have to listen to me snoring). And money. And maybe a change of underwear.

...and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon...