Experiencing the Great American Eclipse of 2024 in Ozark, Arkansas

Our trips involve equal parts planning and impulse. Case in point — last year when Susan first heard about the 2024 eclipse, she booked an AirBnB in Austin. Then, a month before the big event, our reservation was abruptly cancelled without notice. We received a refund along with a note that said “this reservation is no longer available” which, to me, sounds like they got a more lucrative offer. I’ve been told they’ll take a hit on their rating and that there may be other consequences for then, but none of that matters to us. With less than a month before the big event, we had to make new plans… fast.

Sometimes things happen for a reason, and as it turned out the area of Texas we had originally planned to visit was now predicting cloudy weather. Coincidentally I was contacted by an old acquaintance who was going to be visiting Arkansas the weekend of the eclipse, and a new plan was formed.

SUNDAY, APRIL 7

Susan and I left home on Sunday around 8 a.m. and around noon I met my friends Kevin and Earl at the Arkadia Retrocade, the retro arcade in Fayetteville, Arkansas owned by Shea Mathis. The Arkadia Retrocade is a happy place, a place that recharges my batteries by being bathed in the warm glow of arcade monitors. Arcades are not a place that recharges Susan’s batteries, but she was more than happy to drop me off and spend the day exploring Fayetteville on her own. Despite being around so many classic arcade games, the three of us spent most of our time sitting around a tabletop Warlords machine, chatting and catching up. Kevin and Earl left around 5 p.m. and Susan wasn’t scheduled to pick me up for another hour, which gave me plenty of time to enjoy the arcade and play some classic games. I didn’t take any pictures with my phone but I did stream some video to Facebook using my Meta glasses.

After the arcade closed, Susan found a local restaurant called Noodles. We were expecting more of a noodle-based restaurant but it was more of an Italian place, which was fine with us. The food was fantastic. I had chicken parmesan served on linguine with a cilantro and jalapeno lime cream sauce which was really good. Susan got the traditional spaghetti and meatballs, we got some bread served with vinegar and oil, and the cocktails made the meal absolutely perfect.

Fayetteville was just outside the path of totality, which meant hotel prices were still reasonable. We got a good night’s sleep and woke up rested and ready for an adventure.

MONDAY, APRIL 8

Our first stop of the morning was Doomsday Coffee, located in Fayetteville. The cafe’s name seemed to fit the theme of the weekend. The barista suggested we try the breakfast tacos, and we were so glad she did! They were so good, and the coffee was even better.

Doomsday was our last stop in Fayetteville. From there, we began driving toward… TOTALITY! (I can’t remember ever typing the word “totality” before this post.) We heard on the news that Russellville, Arkansas was having a large solar eclipse festival, but the closer we got the heavier the traffic became. On our way there, we stopped to top off our tank and found gas stations were beginning to run out of gas.

We ended up stopping at Ozark, Arkansas, a smaller town that was in the path of totality. Ozark was having their own festival, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We were able to park on Main Street for free, right next to the festival, and just a few feet away from a Daylight Donuts where we snagged a donut and a coffee. We also discovered that at 11 a.m., the donut shop would close and by taken over by a local group selling hamburgers and hotdogs for a fundraiser. We told them we would come back, and we did.

There were all kinds of vendors at the festival, selling all kinds of things. We bought Eclipse 2024 t-shirts, met the Sonic Slushie, had our pictures taken by a 360-degree rotating camera, and eventually made our way back across the street again for hotdogs and hamburgers.

After several hours of waiting, it was time for the big event. Around 1 p.m., the world started to look different. Things looked more yellow; it felt like there was a haze in the sky, or that our eyes were constantly out of focus. As the time of totality began to approach, more and more people began to stop what they were doing, put on their solar glasses, and claim their spots.

And then… Totality.

I heard a piece of advice on the radio this weekend: “watch your first eclipse, and photograph your second.” I thought pointing my iPhone toward the eclipse during its totality phase would capture at least s semblance of what we were seeing, but it wasn’t even close. In the sky we saw a black circle surrounded by a thin ring of fire. Every picture I took with my iPhone shows a blurry yellow circle with a tiny dot in the middle. A total eclipse is an amazing thing to see, and a difficult event to photograph without good equipment or better planning.

As the moon moved between us and the sun, all the dogs on leashes laid down in confusion. Birds that had been resting in trees suddenly began chirping before flying away. Everyone in Ozark, Arkansas stood still, staring at the sky.

And then, it was over. Light appeared faster than it had disappeared, it seemed. Susan and I wasted no time returning to our car and zipping back toward the interstate in hopes of beating the traffic rush. Traffic was indeed heavy for a few miles but before long it thinned out and it was smooth sailing for the rest of our trip back home.

They say we won’t have another total eclipse here in the United States for another 20 years, and who knows if we’ll ne able to see that one. I’m glad we were able to experience this at least once in our lives. It’s something I’ll never forget.

If you weren’t able to be in the path of totality, here’s a sped up version of the event I recorded with my GoPro. Watch it go from normal daylight to complete darkness and back in less than three minutes. Stay to the end and you’ll hear the festival attendees spontaneously applauding. Thank you, Sun and Moon, for your great performance.