Planning is far too strong a word to describe what I have been doing since August 21, 2017, but I have certainly been looking forward to last Monday’s big event since that date. That date is, of course, when I experienced my first-ever total solar eclipse near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Near the end of my post on that experience, I mentioned a couple of future eclipses and noted that there was “a decent chance I’ll be around in 2024”. I made it.
This time there was no need to leave the state or deal with unfamiliar territory to see the eclipse. 99.822% obscuration was available just outside my door and nearly four minutes of 100% obscuration less than a hundred miles north in the county of my birth. There were plenty of events large and small planned along the entire path of the eclipse but the events planned for the only Darke County in the nation may have had the best and most natural name.
I would be viewing the eclipse from my friend Terry’s backyard just a few miles from Greenville, the county seat. I headed north pretty early in case the predicted heavy traffic actually materialized and started causing problems. I did not see much traffic but I did see evidence that it was expected. For days media of all sorts had been sharing precautions such as gassing up before heading into the anticipated congestion of the eclipse path.
With time to spare, Terry and I headed into town to see what we could see. Some organized events had taken place over the weekend and more were planned for Monday afternoon but it was way too early for those and there was not a carnival-like atmosphere such as I had seen in Hopkinsville in 2017. That doesn’t mean that eclipse chasers were not in town and beginning to stake out their spots. The biggest gathering of visitors was at the fairgrounds where rows of trailers and RVs belonging to members of the Wally Byam Caravan Club were parked beyond the view of my camera. Attendants guarded all the fairground entrances as well as some other open areas around town with PARKING $15 signs posted.
After cruising the town (which we did in abundance during our high school days) we returned to our viewing area to await the eclipse. A week ago, rain was predicted for the day. Then the prediction was mostly cloudy then partially cloudy. Eclipse day started out sunny but there were still clouds around and a partially obscured 100% obscuration remained a possibility. That did not happen and Terry, his wife Sue, and I were treated to an incredible show.
In 2017 I wrote that it was “kind of ridiculous for me to even try photographing the eclipse” because of the many experts who were capturing and sharing photographs. I did it anyway and I did it again this year. I watched a video and did some reading about photographing the eclipse yet managed to take even worse photos in 2024 than in 2017. But I did not let it interfere with enjoying the eclipse and I am very much enjoying the marvelous photos the pros and near-pros have been sharing.
The length of totality I experienced in 2024 was nearly 50% higher than that of 2017 (159.7 vs. 235.4 seconds). The awe I felt may have been slightly different because I now had somewhat of an idea of what to expect, but it was in no way diminished. I believe that’s Venus visible to the right of the sun but I’m not certain. I also took a picture of a planet visible during totality in 2017 but I did not post it. Here it is. There was also an unused photo of the horizon taken during totality in 2017 but it is not nearly as interesting as the light on the clouds in 2024.
I headed home after a couple of hours and some pizza and didn’t initially find it too crowded. However, a few miles south of Dayton traffic on I-75 began to back up and I slipped off onto OH-741. I don’t know if that was a brief or long-term backup or what the cause was in either case. Traffic was flowing normally on OH-741, I easily reached home, and have my dark glasses tucked away until August 12, 2045.
As implied by this headline from my days as a student, rooting for a winning team was once an impossible dream. The thirty-eight-game streak it refers to came to an end just a little over sixty years ago on September 13, 1963.
Cyndie’s done it again. As I began to write this review of Cyndie L. Gerken’s fourth book on the National Road in Ohio, I revisited my reviews of the previous three thinking I might come up with a better opening line but everything I saw just reinforced my initial thought. Cyndie has indeed done it again.
Although I certainly know better, I tend to instinctively think of big stone arches when I hear the phrase “National Road bridges”. One reason is that many of those stone bridges, some of them S-shaped, are still in existence. There were also many wooden bridges along the road but all were much shorter-lived. Building the Bridges… includes both. It identifies twenty-one covered wooden bridges built for the National Road in Ohio in addition to probably forty-some stone bridges. There were also well over a thousand stone culverts and one reason an accurate count of stone bridges is difficult to produce is that not everyone followed the same rules when distinguishing culverts and bridges. Span length was and is the distinguishing characteristic. Twelve feet, twenty feet, and no doubt some other numbers of feet were used to make the distinction and some reports did not distinguish the two at all.
After telling us about as many of the bridge builders as she could identify, Gerken touches on some of the iconic National Road bridges east of Ohio, including the Wheeling Suspension Bridge, before beginning a county-by-county trek across the state. Each county chapter begins with a thumbnail of the county and the National Road through it. A map locating the National Road bridges in the county appears very early in each chapter. Sections on each of the bridges and some of the culverts in the county appear also in east-to-west sequence. Just as some bridges east of Ohio were touched upon preceding the border-to-border coverage, a few in Indiana follow it. 
At a minimum, the location of each structure and what it crossed is given. The builder or builders are identified if known and, thanks to some pretty good sleuthing, many of them are. Beyond that, the information given for each bridge or culvert varies widely but it is a natural variation. For unnamed culverts over unnamed intermittent streams, location might be just about the only thing known. For major structures, lots of additional information might be included and usually supported by various graphics. Topographic maps are fairly common and there are lots of historic photographs and drawings. Plenty of modern photos also appear and if a structure is still standing there’s a good chance that the book contains a very modern picture of it taken by the author herself. Stories about events associated with happenings at or near a particular bridge can pop up anytime and are often fleshed out by reproducing contemporary reports.
