This is the story of my journey, in an old rusty van outfitted to a camper, to see the Great American Eclipse of 2017. It has been broken up into 4 parts. It was a very important trip for me, and I believe it will be just as entertaining to read about. I hope you enjoy.

Being that one of my interests is celestial objects, I can't believe the Great American Eclipse almost snuck me by. A few months before the eclipse I was listening to a podcast of photographers discussing their plans to photograph the eclipse when it hit me. The seed of van life had already been planted, and I had plenty of vacation time at work not allocated to anything else so why the hell not? I was going somewhere to take pictures of the eclipse!

This story falls into the category of it's about the journey, not the destination. The eclipse was absolutely incredible. The silence, eerie darkness, and the temperature drop that fell over the entire crowd of thousands of people was a unique moment in my life. So even though the eclipse was the cherry, it’s not the cherry on top without an ice cream sundae. So let’s eat.

I spent months researching where to watch the eclipse. A mix of looking at the eclipse path map and looking up landmarks along that path. I went back and forth more times than I care to try to remember. I would pick a spot, research it, rule it out and a week later find myself looking into it once again. One location I kept coming back to was Hopkinsville, KY. It was the point of longest totality. Totality is the point when the moon is perfectly blocking out the sun and it is safe to look at with naked eyes. Going from memory I think it ranged from 40 seconds in some locations, and up to 2 minutes and 40 seconds around Hopkinsville. Hopkinsville was calling itself Eclipseville. Many of my searches circled around landmarks, or unique interesting locations. Some of my candidates were places such as Shawnee National Forest and Land Between The Lakes Rec. Area. (Both places that I included on the trip after researching them.) I was looking for somewhere isolated in nature to view it. Where I landed was far from that, but in hindsight, I think far better.

I kept finding myself drawn to the Kelly Little Green Men Days (KLGM Days). It's a festival every August that celebrates an encounter a family had in Kelly, a small town just north of Hopkinsville. I’ll graze the surface here for you, but much more bettererly written articles can be found on the web.

On the evening of August 21st 1955 a man fetching water from a well saw a streak of light in the sky. He returned to the house and reported the sighting. Then things got interesting. The house and its 11 occupants came under attack of 12-15 goblins surrounding the house and peering in the windows. A gun battle ensued with many shots being fired through the windows and doors.

Here’s a link to a great podcast on the subject for inquiring minds.

Long story short, this sounded too good to miss. Especially since the eclipse fell on the anniversary of the sighting and encounter What are the odds?. The festival was even giving away a used Mitsubishi Eclipse. This thing checked a lot the boxes for a fun time.

Serpent Mound from the Observation Tower

I am not one to waste time, and during my tenure on third shift, always leveraged the odd schedule in my favor. So I finished up work for the week at 6AM Friday morning, packed up the van, and hit the road by ten. I had stops along the route planned and number one was the serpent mound in southern Ohio. I had heard of this site from the television show 'Ancient Aliens'. While I'm pretty sure it's not an alien structure, it is a very intriguing and stunning landscape. It's one of those spots that pictures don't do justice. Sure a picture can encapsulate the entire mound, but being there to walk the perimeter helps with understanding the size and magnitude of this place. The body of the snake also has several astrological alignments. The curves of the body align with the sunrise on both of the solstices and equinoxes, and the mouth of the snake is aligned with the sunset of the summer solstice.

In the photo from the observation tower, the first big swoop seen on the left is the winter solstice sunrise. Next, on the right bottom of the picture is the equinox sunrise alignment. (Both spring and fall.) Just above that is the summer solstice sunrise. Lastly, disappearing into the trees on the right is the head of the snake and the egg shape it appears to be eating.

I left the mounds before sunset with the sleeplessness of an entire night of work and day of driving catching up with me. I stopped at a southern Ohio gas station, plopped into the back of my van, and gifted my tired brain a quick power nap before it was time to drive on. In my rush to hit the road, I subconsciously opted out of a shower at home. I did a quick planet fitness search and found one in La Grange, KY. I caught a shower before they closed up for the night. Even though it was already late, my plan was to push through Louisville and then shoot up into Indiana to find a place to park and sleep in the Hoosier National Forest.

Louisville at midnight was a traffic jam, which is normally no fun, but in Louisville it affords you an extra long look at two beautifully illuminated bridges.

My Campsite in the Hoosier National Forest on Patoka Lake.

When I arrived in the Hoosier National Forest, being dark, I didn’t get a good of a view of anything, but glassy Patoka Lake was more than welcoming. She offered me an amazing place to park on a tiny peninsula off the main road. Still to this day one of my favorite campsites. I don't even need to say much more about it as the picture says it all.

I woke up twice the next morning, once with the sun and quickly realized the previous day was far too long for that. The second time I woke up I made a cup of coffee and found a nearby horse trail to stretch my legs on. The trail circled a small lake and followed an old buffalo trace for a bit. Of the 10 miles I did that day, the first 4 were amazing. After that I came up behind a trio of horseback riders. I announced myself and they found a good spot for me to pass. One of the ladies even offered me a branch she was holding in front of her face to catch the spiderwebs. What a crazy lady I thought, a woman who definitely doesn't belong in the woods I thought. I mean, I hadn't ran into a single web the entire run.

I'm sure everyone reading has figured out already what I was very slow to learn. Adam, you haven't had any spiderwebs because the horses had already cleared them. Well I returned the favor to those poor horses over the course of the next 6 miles. I ran into more webs in those 6 miles than all other trail miles combined I think. It was unbelievable, I am talking like a thousand webs. As much as I tried to clean myself up, I spent the next 3 hours removing webs as I drove almost directly south towards my eclipse destination.

Hopkinsville

Experiences

The Great American Eclipse Part One

This is the story of my journey, in an old rusty van outfitted to a camper, to see the Great American Eclipse of 2017. It has been broken up into 4 parts. It was a very important trip for me, and I believe it will be just as entertaining to read about. I hope you enjoy.