Wonder of solar eclipse outshines taxing traffic delays

Last Monday, many thousands of people — including Yours Truly — drove from all over to watch the day turn into night in the middle of the afternoon as the moon blocked the sun for four minutes. Then we hopped back in our cars to head home.

At least, we tried to head home. Moments after my friend and I entered Interstate 55 to leave the Missouri town of Cape Girardeau, we found ourselves stuck in the worst traffic we had ever experienced in our lives.

Almost a week later, I still know to be true what I knew at the time: I would do it all over again. Call me crazy, but the whole experience was a blast.

I never considered myself to be an eclipse enthusiast. The only event I ever attended to celebrate a solar eclipse was a midday Kernels game in August 2017. It was cloudy. The eclipse never achieved total coverage. I couldn’t tell the difference between it and the weather.

This time, a friend had asked me to go with her to somewhere in the zone of totality, the area where the moon was to completely cover the sun for four exciting minutes. Feeling like I was past due for a road trip, I agreed. Cape Girardeau was the natural choice because it was the closest sizable city in the zone of totality at just over a six-hour drive away.

We nixed our original plan to leave early on the day of the eclipse after learning about likely traffic delays. Due to demand from eager tourists, hotel rates for the night before the eclipse had skyrocketed. A local news affiliate reported that in Cairo, Illinois, a town at the fork of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers about 30 miles from Cape Girardeau, travelers could book a room at the Quality Inn the night before the eclipse for around $666. In Jackson, Missouri, about five miles northwest of Cape Girardeau, a room at the Comfort Suites that same night would set you back over $1,000, almost 10 times the normal Sunday night rate. I felt like I had struck gold when I was able to book a room for Sunday night in St. Louis, two hours away from our destination and outside the zone of totality, for only double its normal rate.

Traffic and pit stops added only about an hour to our Monday morning drive from St. Louis to Cape Girardeau, but they provided the first glimpse into what had been predicted — people were indeed moving en masse to the zone of totality. Great American Eclipse, a website that informs and educates about solar eclipses, estimated that between 931,000 and 3.7 million people would travel to an area of the U.S. within the zone of totality. In Missouri, it was estimated that between 43,000 and 173,000 would join the 474,000 Missourians already living in the zone of totality to witness the eclipse.

Multiple jurisdictions including two states, had declared a state of emergency to prepare for the influx of visitors and potential logistical challenges such as cell service disruptions and fuel shortages. With memories of gas station closures after the 2020 derecho still fresh in our minds, my friend and I made multiple stops to keep the gas tank optimally full. Staff at the Rhodes Convenience Store we visited off Interstate 55 were wide-eyed at the number of visitors four hours before totality. “We planned for a big crowd in 2017 and they didn’t come,” one attendant told me. “So we didn’t plan on extra staff for this one and now we’re slammed.”

The crowds only got bigger once we reached Cape Girardeau. My friend and I had another stroke of luck and managed to find a great parking spot on the Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO) campus. SEMO had canceled classes for several hours and invited the community in for a campuswide celebration.

The weather was beautiful — sunny and 80 degrees with a light breeze. We’d brought coolers full of cold cuts and fruit — and my homemade deviled eggs — that could have fed us lunch for days. I’d also brought my work computer and did my regular weekly Zoom with my editor from the steps of the university library overlooking the central campus, where students and community members had begun putting down blankets and lawn chairs. I had forgotten how much earlier the foliage begins to bloom in Southern Missouri compared to Iowa. It was a beautiful spring scene, cherry blossoms and all.

I don’t know how many people were gathered in total on the SEMO campus to witness the rare event that is a total solar eclipse, but I know that it was a lot — enough for a roar of cheers and applause to sweep across central campus as the sunlight began to dim and the day met the night in spectacular fashion. My friend and I were settled with a few others on a terrace with a perfect view of both the sky above us and the earth around us. It was more magnificent than I could ever have imagined.

By the time the eclipse achieved totality, we’d made some new friends. We became acquainted with Don, a retired chemist from Philadelphia, when I offered him a sandwich and some deviled eggs. Don had brought some fancy camera equipment with him and kept his promise to email his images to my friend and me.

We also got acquainted with a family from Georgia when I offered them all fresh deviled eggs. “You’re definitely from the Midwest,” one of them said. “I can tell by your accent.” Apparently the fact that I was handing out deviled eggs hadn’t already tipped him off.

One might think it’s a folly to drive more than six hours for a scene that lasted only minutes. But that’s what we did — we gave Don and his camera equipment a ride back to his vehicle and hit the road. Almost immediately after we entered I-55 going northbound, traffic slowed to a crawl. Local media said that according to the Missouri Department of Transportation, or MoDOT, traffic was stop-and-go from Cape Girardeau to a town called Pevely, making for over 80 miles of bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-55 and Highway 61.

It seemed like we stopped at every third gas station along the way — by the time we’d actually progressed that far, my friend and I would be ready for another pit stop. Every gas station parking lot was a swarm. Every gas station bathroom had a line. The rest stop in Bloomsdale was packed with people whose dogs were desperate to find a patch of lawn. But nobody seemed angry about any of it.

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Don’t get me wrong — we were all desperate to get home. By nightfall, it had taken us over four hours to travel a distance that ordinarily would have taken less than one. The one time I tried to jump the line of traffic was when I took our car down a side road that appeared on the map to connect to the same highway at the other end. I was wrong — the road took us straight onto the gravel driveway of a secluded private home. My friend came face-to-face with a big dog who left pawprints on the passenger door when he came to investigate the strangers in his domain. My comeuppance was to turn around and reenter traffic from further back than where we’d started. I only needed to learn that lesson once.

Still, there were no grudges to project, only chuckles. We travelers faced the pickle we’d gotten ourselves into with humor. Perhaps it was because most of us were Midwesterners, and those who weren’t were still enamored with our Midwest Nice ethos. Or perhaps we were all still in really good moods because we’d just seen something rare — and spectacular — together.

My friend and I couldn’t hang for the whole drive. We were exhausted. I was motion sick from five hours of stop-and-go traffic. Our last stroke of luck was to secure the last available room at a Comfort Inn south of St. Louis for the bargain price of 250% of the usual rate. When we reembarked the next morning, traffic was still a bit thick with travelers headed back to Iowa and Minnesota. At our last stop on Tuesday — the A&W in Mount Pleasant — workers confirmed they had been furiously busy with eclipse traffic, 24 hours after totality.

It was tedious and tiring, but it was also amazing to witness that beautifully dark sky in the afternoon. Crickets chirped in the background. The sun formed a stunning ring of light around the moon. The planet Venus popped out to say hi, looking like a giant star.

The online version of this article features a picture of the “diamond ring” effect of the eclipse, taken by our new friend Don. There are countless more that are identical to it, but Don’s photo will always be my favorite because it was taken from the same ground on which so many of us stood that day, mesmerized by the raw awesomeness of our solar system.

I’ll never be a global chaser of solar eclipses, but when the next one in the U.S. nears in 2044, I’ll be making some travel plans.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com