Texas (Part 1): Eclipse April 2024 (eclipsed by clouds!)

After experiencing and photographing total solar eclipses in Jackson, Wyoming in 2017 and in Chile’s Elqui Valley in 2019, our plans for more eclipse chasing were dashed by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Our planned trip to the Lake District of Chile in December 2020 had to be postponed due to the international travel ban in effect then and plans to see another eclipse in Antarctica in December 2021 (in the Southern Ocean between South Georgia and the South Orkney Islands) dissolved when the company cancelled the trip due to Covid-related logistical issues.  Thus, I started obsessing about this eclipse, the last to cross North America for many years (the next will be in 2044), at least 4 years ago.

I know it was that long ago because I tried to book accommodations at a Relais et Chateaux property in Texas which seemed to be well situated near the path of totality.  They responded that they wouldn’t accept reservations more than 3 years in advance.  By the time 2021 rolled around and I again tried to book rooms there, the property had been sold and no longer was a hotel.

The hardest decision to make for any eclipse chaser is where to be on eclipse day.  The weather is the biggest variable to consider in deciding.  Statistically, Mexico and Texas were most likely to be cloud-free in early April, at least as predicted by 20 years of historical data.  I looked into Mexico and ultimately decided on the Texas Hill Country, centered around Fredericksburg.  This at least had the advantage of fulfilling one of my travel rules for avoiding disappointment; that is, don’t pin your hopes on fleeting and inconstant phenomena ( eclipses and the Northern Lights), which are better  regarded as icing at a destination you want to see anyway.

Thursday, April 6, 2024

Getting to San Antonio was easy via a non-stop flight on Southwest Airlines then offered from San Diego. Arriving early evening to the riverside Hotel Contessa, Greg had already procured ingredients for a welcome gin and tonic, complete with decorative, home dehydrated citrus wedges and slices.

After a stroll along the river and a brief foray to the Alamo, we dined at Ambler, the hotel’s restaurant, where our terrace seat was in view of a tiny, heart-shaped island formed by cypress roots that protruded into the river which meanders through the heart of the city. Barge after barge filled with tourists floated passed, so we heard over and over that 300 couples a year tie the knot on Marriage Island.

Friday, April 7, 2024

Steve misplaced his wallet in the morning.  We could hear Tile’s song deep in my purse.  When we finally located the singing, it was MY wallet responding which, deep in my black hole of a purse, was just where it should be.  Tile seemed to indicate Steve’s wallet was near the hotel, although not clearly in it, leading us to think he had dropped it while we were strolling the River Walk the prior day.

Out on the river, Tile changed its tune, indicating that the wallet was actually in the hotel.  It finally turned up in our big suitcase.

We spent the afternoon at Hamilton Pool Preserve, over an hour’s drive north of San Antonio, near Dripping Springs and west of Austin.  It is a cool watering hole formed by Hamilton Creek, near the confluence with the Pedernales River.

The waterfall was a trickle and walking underneath the grotto is no longer allowed (since a freeze some years ago, falling rocks are a hazard), but it is a beautiful spot to spend an afternoon.  After visiting the pool, we hiked alongside the river along a shaded and pleasant savannah of upland live oaks and ashe junipers.  The area has an interesting tie-in to the Civil War, in that a former Texas governor, brother of the former owner Hamilton for whom the Pool is named, once hid out there, evading Confederate officers sent to arrest him (he was a Union loyalist and tried to keep Texas in the Union).

We were so bloated after the previous night’s meal of fried green tomatoes, guacamole, crispy brussels sprouts and rotisserie chicken tortilla soup that we cancelled our reservation at Biga on the Banks (the menu looked similar) and lucked into a table on the terrace at Pharm Table. We all elected the 4-course Rasas (Sanskrit for tastes) menu  with wine pairings (priced at $60 and $35 for the wine pairing).  After a citrus-pickled ginger meal starter (“to kindle the digestive fire”), we shared and moaned over multiple delicious vegetable courses, beginning with black hummus, berbere carrots, beet tartare and charred radicchio served with dosa, followed by charred beets (with pomegranate, pistachio pecan dukkah and parsley cashew cream) and roasted cabbage wedge, enhanced with carrot cashew date puree, pecan crumble and Urfa chile oil.

Two of the 3 mains we shared were equally delicious.  We all loved masala mushroom (served with oyster mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, fennel, curry leaves and dosa, which reminded us of Ethiopian injera) and the braised wagyu short rib (with beet bordelaise, roasted roots and rutabega puree). Only the tandoori salmon disappointed, seeming a little fishy.  The wine pairings were quite international, from France (Vol Enchante Cremant d’Alsace) to Hungary (Furmint Kiralyudvar 2020 ‘Sec’ Tokaji Hu), back to France (‘Premier Pas’ 2 Anes Carignan Blend from Languedoc) and back again to the Willamette Valley of Oregon, a wine made with German grapes (Muller Thurgau Anne Amie Doux Naturel).

Of the two desserts we sampled, the avocado chocolate mousse completely overshadowed the panna cotta.  Overall, it was a terrific dining experience and memorable meal.

Saturday, April 6, 2024

The plans for this trip had many permutations.  Originally, Nancy and Gerry were coming with us, including afterwards to a ranch catering to photographers in south Texas, Santa Clara.  The siren call of pumas in Patagonia ultimately lured them away from the Ranch segment of the trip.  They found the greed of VRBO homeowners in the path of totality capitalizing on the eclipse off-putting, as did we, but they eventually decided to route themselves through Texas for the eclipse en route to Patagonia.  We had booked at the same property, on the west side of San Antonio, but staying put there would cut the potential length of totality down to 1 minute and 50 seconds.  That had to be balanced against the very real possibility of being caught in snarled traffic driving an hour or so west to maximize the length of the eclipse (up to 4 minutes, 25 seconds).  The three of us finally decided to splurge for a rental house charging 3X normal rate and stay in Fredericksburg, in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, a town settled by German immigrants and surrounded by wineries, which even in normal times, is a tourist destination for Texans.

The sunny forecast turned on us as the eclipse approached, with 3 days of clouds predicted, including on the big day.  We could only hope they wouldn’t be thick enough to completely obscure the phenomenon.

We routed our drive to Fredericksburg to check out Kerrville en route as a potential spot for eclipse day.  Although they call this region Hill Country, this term is all relative.  By our standards, it isn’t that hilly and there are virtually no tall structures or features protruding from the landscape to make an interesting foreground for a wide angle shot of the eclipse.  One exception was in Kerrville, a landscaped garden including a huge metal cross called the Empty Cross. Another issue for a wide angle shot during this eclipse is that totality would be begin midday, around 1:33 pm, with the sun very high in the sky (68 degrees).

Preparations were clearly underway for the Big Day at the Coming King Sculpture Prayer Garden, which was opening at 7 am on eclipse day and unlike many venues, would be free.  We walked the pleasant garden, modeled potential shots with Photopills but the religious aspect was firmly vetoed by my companions.

Downtown Fredericksburg is a picturesque enclave of boutiques, restaurants and bars.  The architecture reflects the town’s German heritage of settlement by immigrants in the 1840s.  An interesting confluence led to mass immigration by Germans.  At the time, Germany was a loose aggregation of kingdoms.  The hold of the royals was threatened by agitation in the streets and universities for representative government, leading them to devise schemes called  “ausbuergerung” to encourage immigration of troublemakers.  This coincided with Texas’ need for settlers to keep Mexican invaders in check.  Free town lots and land grants were offered as enticements.  Over 12,000 Germans (at least 45 shiploads) came between 1844-1850.  The initial wave included many highly educated, democratically motivated  Freidenkers or freethinkers (anticlerical atheists or agnostics openly hostile to organized religion).  Later waves of immigrants, including tradespeople and farmers, were more religious, and eventually outnumbered the non-believers. Most of this fascinating history I learned from this excellent PBS article.

The sidewalks of Fredericksburg were full of people.  Chatting with our waitress at our delicious late lunch at Vaudeville (recommended by our new friend Kellen, Steve’s snorkel partner from Misool), it seemed maybe this was not clearly an eclipse swollen crowd, but possibly normal weekend Fredericksburg traffic?   My power bowl lunch of brown rice, roasted vegetables and hummus was substantial and delicious.

Afterwards, we made a grocery store run to HEB for essentials, namely, wine, soda water, and tonic, of course.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

This morning, Steve somehow managed to secure a reservation for Enchanted Rock for 10:30 am.  We arrived on time, only to find out the reservation was for the following Wednesday, which completely explained why I hadn’t been able to make a reservation, trying weeks before.  They let us in anyway, as the parking lot still had spaces.

It was the perfect morning, cool , breezy and cloudy,  for a hike on a large pink granite outcropping, which reportedly exudes heat in the summer.  The climb would also be very exposed.

En route, I posted on Facebook that I was staring dubiously at the clouds overhead while thinking of eclipses past.  To my surprise, Stacy, a urologist in Austin and a diver we became friends with on a trip to Lembeh, Indonesia more than 10 years ago, responded with an invitation to meet them at their lake house or meet up for BBQ halfway.  After a few back and forths, we settled on meeting for lunch at Inman’s BBQ in Llano.  Stacy and her husband Richard had already nabbed a table on the patio.

After the satisfying brisket lunch, we didn’t have room for pie and I was sleepy driving back towards Fredericksburg in time for our 4 pm wine tasting at the Rhinory.

The Rhinory is home to Blake, a white rhinoceros and features wines from South Africa and Texas (made with grapes grown in other regions of Texas).  The wines were tasty enough that Steve ordered four bottles to take us through the rest of our trip.  We chatted with our server, a pretty blonde, and asked how large a crowd was expected.  Surprisingly, only a modest gathering of 100 or so was expected and yes, there were still tickets available.  We had passed on the VIP package for $250 which came with a souvenir Rhinory embossed camping chair and a blanket.  The lower priced $100 admission would enable us to camp out in the shade of an attractive grove of trees with picnic tables. She pointed out we were only a few bottles away from being members, thus qualifying us for the member admission price of $50.  Sold!

Greg and I walked to a late dinner at Alla Campagna, another spot on recommendation from Kellen, sharing focaccia, panzanella salad, grilled broccolini and buccatini.  Chatting with our waitress Haley, she mentioned the predictions of a client she had served earlier the same evening. Introducing herself, she said her name was Haley, like the comet. This led the client to mention he was an astronomer and in town for the eclipse and that he was known as “The Pope’s Astronomer”.  He assured her that despite the gloomy cloudy predictions, there would be an opening in the cloud cover during the eclipse.  We figured out later her client was Guy Consolmagno, astronomer to the Vatican, so we could only hope he was right, having a direct line to higher powers.

Monday, April 8, 2024

The best laid eclipse plans…may be foiled by clouds. The forecast predicted clouds, but so had the two preceding days and there had been abundant blue windows opening in the skies throughout those days.

We loaded up tripods, collapsible chairs, camera backpacks and a collapsible cooler we’d picked up earlier in the week for the short drive to the Rhinory.  On Main Street, we could see people camped out on picnic blankets at the local park, but it wasn’t as crazy busy as feared.  Nancy and Gerry were staying put in San Antonio, fearing massive traffic jams if they strayed.

At the Rhinory, we choose a shaded picnic table on which to put our gear and set up our tripods nearby.

The sun was in and out of the clouds all morning but there were enough cloud-less intervals to give us hope.

That hope dissolved over time as we followed the partial eclipse, disappearing and re-appearing in clouds.  As the sun moves its own diameter every 2 minutes, we were constantly reframing to keep the sun in view…when we could see it.  The sunfinder only works with the sun shining.

As totality approached, the dense overhead shield of clouds thickened more and more, completely hiding the sun. It was almost laughable how skunked we were.  A full 3 minutes into totality, the sun remained completely obscured.   Even starting from a cloudy gray baseline, the completely obscured eclipsed sun produced astounding darkness, dark enough for the winery’s automatic on nighttime lighting to illuminate. We thought we were going to completely miss totality, only to have it reveal itself for a precious few seconds, maybe 15 at the most.  Somehow, both Steve and Greg managed to capture a few images at totality, clouds and all. We never saw the sun again.  All we could do was laugh and enjoy the BBQ lunch (provided by a truck in from Austin).

In the evening, all three of us walked to dinner on the patio at Alla Campagna, Steve opting for an arugula and prosciutto pizza, me having the squid ink pasta with shrimp and  Greg again ordering bucatini.  We shared panzanella and house salads, as well as grilled broccolini and tiramisu.  Back at the house, we continued watching Peacemaker.

The following morning we would be off to south Texas to photograph birds and small mammals at a ranch catering to photographers, Santa Clara, where we hoped conditions would favor us more than our cloud-eclipsed total solar eclipse!

-Marie