I took a few days off work to drive to Cleveland, Ohio, to witness the 2024 total solar eclipse. Back in 2017, the family and I too a vacation to Charleston, South Carolina, to watch that year’s eclipse. NASA set up a presentation in a minor league baseball stadium with a casual atmosphere. Although it was overcast and we couldn’t see the eclipse directly, we experienced the darkness and eerie lightened horizon.
This year was different. I couldn’t convince my kids to skip school, and Berta couldn’t join me due to her recent time off. So, I went on the trip alone. I booked a hotel room in Cleveland and drove out there on Sunday, the day before the eclipse. The six-hour drive was surprisingly shorter than what it often takes to get to Columbus.
Day three in San Diego was designated Zoo Day, where we would spendthe bulk of the day at the San Diego Zoo. We started the morning at the usual “roll out of bed early for a Californian” time, and had first breakfast at the hotel.
The say was set to be one of travel challenges. While the Uber/Lyft situation hadn’t been terrible, the mass transit options were looking more and more appealing. We checked out the bus schedules, and found a route that got us close to our destination. At $2.50 per person, that was a steal! And the busses were clean, empty, and air conditioned – very nice.
Day two of our trip started way too early. The sun shone in our room at 6am, and you wouldn’t think the indirect light would be so bright. Still, Berta and I woke and headed down to the hotel’s breakfast hall. Lots of buffet-style breakfast food, much better than continental breakfast, but we refrained from eating much, since we knew the kids wanted to go out to a breakfast place.
We grabbed our coffee and bagels, ate them, then I took a second cup up to our room, with some tea and orange juice for the kids, who by this time, missed the breakfast window.
After much too long of a vacation from vacations due to the pandemic, we finally put all of the ducks together in a straight line and got ourselves out to San Diego for a few days of “rest” and vacation.
Vacation day one starts with getting to the airport. The kids decided it would be swell to stay up all night doing laundry before leaving to board our 9am flight, and so there wasn’t much good sleep. Both Berta and I wandered bleary-eyed to the family room where we found Riley using his computer, having thrown a load of landry in the washer. Why his laundry makes sounds like the machine is killing small animals, I can’t tell you. Anyway, this sets the stage for our first sleepy day of travel.
