Total Eclipsters

Last fall, Vicki read of the then-impending April 8th total solar eclipse. We immediately decided we wanted to see it and quickly wrote to Indianapolis family/friends Joey and Jodi to see whether their spare bedroom might be available around that time. Indeed it was, so we rented a car for the week, studied up on astronomical matters, solar and lunar periodicity, etc., and made our travel plans. 

Said plans included "dropping by" younger daughter Rachel's house in DC, to deliver several boxes of her childhood mementoes, a TV, and other items, and to pick up items we had left there on previous visits, as well as others she wanted to pass along, maybe even have eBay maven Vicki sell. Vicki has an expansive notion of "along the way," so along the way, after DC and the stop in Indianapolis, were also brief visits with Mead/Stephenson family genealogist cousin Ann in Salem, IN, and then with sister Marie in Knoxville. We were gone about a week all-told. See map below.

It was not our first total solar eclipse. That was on March 7, 1970, in Miami, FL. I had just graduated from Florida State University (BA, honors in both philosophy and religion) and was working as a bellboy (bellman then) at the Miami Springs Villas.* No philosophy jokes, please. (Ask me about Joe Namath, Arthur C. Clarke, Eddie Arcaro, et. al.; also where I got into graduate school a few months later). Vicki was doing her student teaching at Shenandoah Jr. HS, and, accordingly, has no memory of any of this. Teaching junior high will do that to you. At the Villas, somehow I had arranged to be outside during totality, as it is now called...I think my excuse was something about making sure all the golf carts were plugged in and charging. My chief memory is of standing there, in the bamboo grove where the golf carts were charging, observing the increasing darkness, listening to the increasingly weird behavior of the birds and other critters.... I doubt that I looked at the (eclipsed) sun...maybe briefly. There were no specialized glasses for the event. Mostly I was impressed by what was going on on the ground. But I digress.

Along the way

Our steed, a Hyundai Genesis; I did not like this car; next time
we will ask for a Leviticus or Deuteronomy

Crossing the Ohio River; not pictured: daughter Rachel; we had a
productive and good but short visit in DC, sufficiently short that I
neglected to get any pix; she is pictured elsewhere on this blog; amply

Late lunch Bahama Mamas at Schmidt's in Columbus, along the way;
a favorite place in a town where we spent 13 formative years...five graduate
degrees between us and my first actual full-time "permanent" employment

Next afternoon, we are with Joey and Jodi and our nephew, Joseph,
Joey's son, at a friend's house nearby, an eclipse party sponsored by
their church discussion group (I think Joey said it was the agnostic
Methodist discussion group; but, no matter, they were really nice
and interesting people and offered some wonderful eats); plus,
where better to view an eclipse than on a suburban landscaped lake....

Trying on my new shades

Group portrait

By 3PM, things were getting pretty dark

And then, totality, as seen by my Pixel 8 Pro

Ditto

And then by my old-fangled but still impressive Panasonic Lumix
ZS65 

Jodi notes the dip their solar panel system took for those three
minutes; temperatures dropped almost 6 degrees during the eclipse

Moving right along, after another great day and evening, and dinner,
with Joey and Jodi and Joseph, we are down the road a bit, in Salem,
having lunch with Vicki's cousin Ann, Mead/Stephenson family
genealogist, scanning new-found pix, etc; again, I failed to get any
more relevant pix...Vicki's mother is left-most on the bottom row...

Lastly, after a splendid day with Marie and Norm and Stacey, but no
pix of them--again, they are amply represented elsewhere on the blog--
we are on the way home, stopping at the Buccee's in Sevierville, TN;
Buccee's is, of course, one of the cultural gems of the American South...
aka the United Shit-Holes of Trumpistan--an humongous truck stop
that doesn't allow trucks...and this is currently the largest of all the
Buccee's...located, appropriately, on that longest stretch of tawdriness
in the world, the road from Gatlinburg through Pigeon Forge to
Sevierville; not a particularly fitting end to a great ecliptic road trip;
but it is what it is...

*which may account for the fact that The Cocoanuts is my favorite Marx brothers movie; not Horsefeathers, despite my long association with higher education, football, etc.

Cicadian Rhythms Begin

Pictured below is, according to Google Lens, a dead cicada I found in our parking lot this morning. Let the cicadian rhythms begin! You saw it first here...

Duke Gardens

Actually, the winter was pretty mild here in Cary, NC, but the blog needed a rest, and our routine provided a good opportunity for some downtime. 

Last week, with nearly everything in bud or blossom, daughter Rebecca took us to Duke Gardens, in nearby Durham. Though there's no lack of foliage where we live, it was very nice to see a large, mature botanical garden, with many specimens, very well presented. Memories of Keuckenhof last year and before and of so many great English gardens in previous years. Thank you, Rebecca!

Big place, right at the center of the old campus, next to the Duke
Chapel...memories also of SMU friends who came from Duke...
Andy Parker, Andy Bryant, and foremost Ken Pye, whom I was
privileged to work for before I became vice provost...

Moi, at the entrance

Sans moi

Ample water features and such

Interesting rock garden

Among the ponds

More rock features, waterfalls

Camellias going well

Many Japanese accents

Us, there

Excellent signage...seriously...hardly
a shrub, flower bed, nor tree was not
well identified

Now in what the Brits would call the "kitchen garden"

Worm farm...part of an educational exhibit

Ditto: the compost pile...note the tomato escaping over the fence

In the kitchen garden

More water features

Neo-Gothic cruciform arch?

Last seen at Keukenhof

Outside the gift shoppe

Also outside the gift shoppe, just as we were leaving,
I spotted a specimen of my favorite weird tree, a very young
Monkey Puzzle; my set was complete; well...except for
the rhodos...maybe later

In Hibernation

Fun Old-Fashioned Family Christmas, 2023; And Aftermath

Stockings stash

Now adorning our bistro set out on the porch

Miss Piggy artworks from the Kermitage

Scone condiments traveling set

Prof. Tolkien's intermittent fasting diet

Official Swiftie sweater

Christmas brunch

Vicki's traditional poteca

That evening we had a look at the downtown Christmas
decor and especially Cary's new downtown park, ice
rink, and so on; not pictured (!): the traditional chocolate
fondue (!)

Twelve days later, Epiphany, or Theophany (if you're of
the Eastern persuasion), at our apartment, we did the French
Galette des Rois thing, substituting cupcake for the galette;
P got the feve...