…said my friend David, at the La Jolla Sunrise Rotary meeting, as he handed me a copy of Discover magazine.

In it: Bob Berman’s “Night Watchman” column about the upcoming Great Eclipse of 1991.

“Rainbows, the Northern Lights, good sex—all nothing,” he wrote, quoting a traveler who had recently seen a total eclipse of the sun. “Nothing compares with totality.” I still have that article, one of the most accurate and beautifully written descriptions of what it feels like in the shadow of a total solar eclipse (TSE). There really is “a powerful presence that transcends the visual beauty.”

I hadn’t thought much about eclipses before or realized there was such a thing as “eclipse chasing”, but that morning at the Rotary meeting, within seconds, I knew I was in. And I subliminally grokked that I was already a member of an eccentric international family who would share the urge to sacrifice personal resources—cash, spare time, family obligations, sometimes even health—to stand in the umbra of totality.

Above: Totality by Fred Espenak, 1973

Below:

Chasers make headlines

50-year vacation planner

Presenting about eclipse travel at community clubs (and at Winter Star Fest in Washington, 1993)