Hello…I’m writing this from home…we drove from Longview to Austin for our flight. It was delayed but made good time home. The drive to Austin was wet, but not as wet as Ann and Rich’s drive, as they decided to spend most of the journey within a mass of thunderstorms.
As we lined up for take-off at Austin, a supercell glowered to the north-west…looked pretty cool.
So that’s it! We achieved our goal of viewing one of nature’s most impressive spectacles…roll on Spain, 2026!
Wow, again! What an incredible spectacle a total solar eclipse is…for a full description of how I feel about it, I refer you to what I wrote in 2017 here… http://ukstormchaser.blogspot.com/2017/08/august-21st-eclipse.html
We drove from Jonesboro to Ash Flat, Arkansas. We’d noted a Walmart with a large car park and grassy areas, and the eclipse duration was just 1 second under the max in this area.
We got set-up and saw first contact, and then the majesty of the rest of the spectacle slowly unfolded. We managed to call Mum and Dad on the iPad so they could get some idea of the experience too. After getting some pics, I joined the others in just laying on the grass and looking at it. It was quiet, calm, and mind-blowing. And experiencing this with Alana there was just…well, let’s say my eyes were pretty wet as totality concluded.
We then drove to Longview, Texas, arriving late evening…we had to drive through heavy rain and thunderstorms for the final 2 hours of the journey, which was fun!
An amazing day! Tomorrow, we drive to Austin and then fly home.
A few pics below…not full resolution as I don’t have the laptop here so used the iPad to get them off the camera.
Spent the day in Jonesboro. After a lazy morning, we got lunch from Subway and ate it in our room. Saw some big cumulus.
In the afternoon we went to a local lake and park, to allow Alana some time to have a play on the swings and slides, etc. It was in the Craighead Forest Park, and was called the Rotary Park Playground.
Ann and Rich arrived at the hotel this evening after a long drive from Houston. We all went out to have dinner at IHOP.
Tomorrow is the big day! Cloud cover still looks a bit iffy, but it will be high level cloud…which hopefully will be thin and not affect it too much. We will work out a plan in the morning to try to target the best chance of clear skies. Fingers crossed!
We’ve banked on northern Arkansas…let’s see how this pans out! Today is one where we can have a day off long drives! We’ll just chill around Jonesboro, and who knows…perhaps we’ll get a thunderstorm this afternoon!
I’ve managed to source a new coffee maker for the room, after the one we had decided to fill the entire thing up with coffee grounds!
Drove to Jonesboro from Marshall…had dinner. Had dinner in IHOP. Saw some nice crepuscular rays, likely from storms over 300 miles to our west.
Hello…today’s plan is to drive from Marshall, TX, to Jonesboro, AR…we’ve concluded that the likely cloud cover in Texas on Monday is too iffy to chance viewing the eclipse from there. It’s far from plain sailing in Arkansas, either - but on the current model output, this seems the better bet from a percentages point of view.
Not much to report other than that we drove over 400 miles from Corpus Christi to Marshall, TX. Houston was fun to drive through! At dinner at Applebee’s. I enjoyed the word search on Alana’s menu…evidently, the search was for ‘jobs’.
Hello…today we’re planning to drive to Marshall, NE TX, in order to keep our options open for the eclipse. We’re leaning more towards Arkansas for the eclipse, due to an influx of moisture from the south which is expected over Texas…but it’s still not clear where and if it will be clear!
We spent until near mid-afternoon at the hotel, as Alana was somewhat off-colour. Had a chat with Mum and Dad on a video call. We then headed to the aquarium in Corpus, and met Ann and Rich there.
Watched some fish swimming around. Saw a turtle. And some flamingos. Alana enjoyed it too.
Headed back to the hotel, and Ann and Rich came over, as they are at a different hotel. We all headed down the beach for a while. Had a paddle, made some sandcastles with Alana.
Ann and Rich then headed off, and we went to Applebee’s again for dinner.
We will need to start making some eclipse-based decisions tomorrow, as we have 4 hotel options booked, and we need to determine which we will cancel. Shame the eclipse wasn’t today, as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but they can’t change the date, apparently.
Got up earlier than might have been expected. Took Ann and Rich to the airport to pick up their car, as their rental company is lazier than ours and had the cheek to not wait for us to get to the airport late last night.
We then sorted our car hire out for the rest of the holiday and drove down to North Padre Island. Managed to get a quick paddle in before heading off for dinner. I had made the mistake of mentioning the beach to Alana at the start of the journey, which meant she asked about the beach every 6 minutes on the way down.
Ate dinner at Applebee’s, Alana’s first visit to one!
Tried not to think about the various weather model outputs showing rather cloudy skies quite widely next Monday. We’ll worry about that in a couple of days’ time.
Some pics below…Ann and Rich’s blog is here: http://annandrichardsamericanadventure.blogspot.com/
Quick post..but we’re back in the USA! This time, for the total solar eclipse which will take place on Monday, April 8. As well as Helen and me, our daughter Alana has made her first international trip! My brother, Richard, and his partner, Ann, are on the trip too.
In short, we had to fly to Austin via LAX, as our direct flight was cancelled. This meant Monday was a very long day!
