MAKANDA, IL — It came toward this small southern Illinois town at more than 1,000 mph, a sweeping curtain of darkness that brought the hush of night as the sun disappeared from the sky.
But while the natural world died down as earth's nearest star slipped fully behind the moon, the crowd came alive. Hundreds of eclipse viewers gasped, cheered, clapped and howled loudly at the moon as they pulled solar-viewing glasses off and stared with their bare eyes at the otherworldly corona of plasma whipping outward from the sun — a sight only visible during total solar eclipses.
"It was just awe-inspiring," said a 45-year-old man from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who said his name was Bojangles. He rode more than 500 miles from Bentonville, Arkansas, to Makanda on a bicycle, his dog Black Jack along for the ride in a trailer. "It's just something you've got to see for yourself."
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He said he witnessed the 2017 cross-country total solar eclipse from a 16-foot canoe on the Ohio River that he shared with his bike, dog trailer and previous dog, Bear. The experience was transformative, he said, and he vowed to see the next eclipse. Although he doesn't always have a place to stay or a vehicle, he made sure to pedal himself and Black Jack to Makanda for this eclipse.
Makanda's 500 or so residents, many of whom are hippies, artists and free spirits who began moving to the valley-bound village in the 1960s, had the privilege of staying put not just for this eclipse, but for the 2017 event, too. The town is in the rarefied patch of the U.S. that is the intersection of both eclipse paths. The west-to-east 2017 eclipse path was marked on the pavement near the town's lone historic business block — also its only block — in orange paint. At a nearly 90-degree angle, this eclipse path was shown in yellow eclipse paint stencils.
Brenda King, 66, lives in Makanda and studies cannabis biology at Southern Illinois University in nearby Carbondale. She did face-painting in Makanda during the 2017 celebration. This year she posted up in a folding chair and just took it all in.
"They are awe-inspiring," she said, of total eclipses. "I wish I could be a chaser."
Morgan Schnurr, a college senior studying photography, drove four hours from Herscher, Illinois, with her parents, Tom and Rebecca, to see the eclipse in Makanda and photograph peoples' reactions with a 35-millimeter film camera. None of them had seen a total solar eclipse before.
"It was a lot more intense than we figured," Tom said. "The streetlights came on, quite a cheering crowd, and it got a lot darker than I think a lot of us figured."
Morgan said the eclipse itself was "really cool" and she saw a lot of excitement among the viewers she photographed. And she herself was excited.
"It was great to be there with everyone else," she said, "and sharing that experience with everyone is really beautiful."
Her mom had a similar take — "It’s just a great experience to share with family and the community" — but because of the temperature drop and loss of the sun's rays during totality, she was glad when its warmth returned.
Makanda's celebration included live music, artisan vendors and hundreds of visitors whose cars filled every field in the area. A local teen played a didgeridoo he made himself and had another for sale. Another person played a piano nearby, and down the road a girl played a violin for tips. People sold tapestries, walking sticks and new-age tchotchkes.
Older folks in khaki shorts and polo shirts milled about next to people sporting intricate full-body and face tattoos and dozens of piercings. Some people had crew-cuts, others had dreads. Police and fire officials maintained traffic safety through the crowd near people wearing shirts emblazoned with pro-marijuana slogans. Dogs and kids and young and old, eclipse veterans and newbies, on foot or motorcycle or bicycle or wheelchair, all gathered in the streets, fields and the historic block's boardwalk. A man blew into a conch as totality approached.
The town was practiced at hosting eclipse viewers, after all.
Towns prepare
But few other towns on this eclipse path — from Mexico and southern Texas, through the South and Midwest, over the Great Lakes and New England, then off to Newfoundland, Canada — had seen such a spectacle before. Many had never seen the crowd the sight was predicted to bring, either.
And, with forecasts of clouds across most of the usually sunny southern portion of the path, many towns wondered whether they would see crowds at all, or even the eclipse itself.
In southern Texas, weekend clouds threatened to stick around through Monday. But in Arkansas and toward southern Missouri and Illinois, clouds broke Sunday, driven by strong west winds that blew dust from dry fields into plumes that looked like a thousand wildfires.
Inside the Waco Welcome Center, flyers promoted "Eclipse Over Texas, Live From Waco," a slogan also found on a variety of shirts, hats, bandanas, Christmas tree ornaments and posters for sale in the small building next to the much larger Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum. Welcome center staff said the city forbid them from speaking with journalists and made them sign statements vowing not to speak to reporters. Without giving their names, they said city management expected 100,000 or more eclipse viewers to pour into the city of about 140,000.
A half-hour north in Hillsboro, Texas, on Saturday, 12-year-old Boy Scout Maximus Cerrone was at the Troop 345 Scout Hut selling street tacos to travelers coming through town. The troop was raising money for summer camping trips in the Rockies to escape the Texas heat. He said he was excited for the eclipse "even though it's going to be cloudy." But clouds could temper the troop's fundraising, he worried.
"I am very nervous and stressed out," he said, "because what if it’s not as busy?"
Just northeast in Navarro County, Texas, officials predicted about 100,000 people would flood into the 52,624-person county, spending money, filling lodging, overwhelming the cellular network and creating headaches for first responders.
Meredith Boyde has lived in Corsicana all of her 44 years. She's the vice president of Corsicana Booster Club and the digital learning coach for the roughly 1,000 teachers in the Corsicana Independent School District. Both her kids are in the district: one a senior, one in eighth grade. She said schools were canceled across the county Monday, including in Corsicana, population 25,106. At least one high school prom was rescheduled.
"We closed all of our schools in Navarro County ISD," she said. "They moved prom for the kids so they’re not out traveling. There’s been a lot of things rearranged because of the eclipse."
On Saturday, Boyde was downtown with other club members making and selling eclipse shirts and hats. All the money goes toward scholarships in memory of the former county district attorney Lowell Thompson, who was president of the booster club before he died suddenly at 48 years old in 2018. His son graduates this spring.
"We’ve been busy. It’s not as many people as everybody thought it would be, but still, we’ve made a lot today," Boyde said. "Tomorrow we’re going to be at Corsicana Tiger Stadium, our Corsicana Education Foundation is putting on an event from 6–9. I think there’s 50 vendors, food trucks, there’s going to be a live concert. And so we’re setting up the booster club trailer and we’re selling our solar eclipse (merchandise), but we’re also going to have Corsicana gear."
Although she hadn't yet seen the foretold crush of crowds, Boyde said things were still busy.
"Yesterday I noticed coming home it was a little bit more traffic on our main streets, and today it’s been a little bit more, you can see the RVs, trailers coming through," she said. "I can tell a difference just because we’re here everyday. And we’ve met several people from out of state."
Small towns go big
Nearly every little town on the more than 600-mile stretch of eclipse path from Waco, Texas, to Makanda had something planned.
Beebe, Arkansas, population 7,315, turned its third-annual spring fishing derby into "Fishin' in the Dark Derby," complete with an adjacent eclipse celebration and watch party.
In Searcy, Arkansas, population 23,009, the White County Citizen newspaper proclaimed on Thursday, "Eclipse expectations cloudy," but added, "'Good time' planned even if weather fails."
The forecast was "not exactly what we wanted at this point," Searcy Eclipse Coordinator Jenna Friday told the paper. Nonetheless, festivities would go ahead.
In Texas, the Tyler Morning Telegraph noted in its weekend edition that an incoming front of clouds would stretch from the southwest to northeast, almost exactly along the path of the eclipse, meaning people couldn't just drive a couple hours to pop out from under the gray shelf above if it pushed between them and the sun.
In Texarkana, which is technically two cities split evenly by the Texas-Arkansas border, the outlook for Monday improved slightly over the weekend and gave hope for a celestial show.
"We have been busier than usual," William Scurlock, 65, owner and brewer at Pecan Point Gastropub & Brewery on the Texas side said Saturday. "The last two days we have had so many travelers — people from out of town — and they may not be staying in Texarkana, but they’re going ... somewhere to watch the eclipse."
He said about 140,000 people were expected in Texarkana, roughly tripling the town's population in a weekend. The Arkansas side set up a food-truck court and concert stage with three days of festivities culminating Monday. Scurlock brewed a beer special for the event, Total Eclipse Imperial Stout.
A few blocks away, on the Arkansas side, Paul West was serving beers in the 1941 Pullman lounge car he converted to a coffee shop and tap house about two years ago. The former train car — Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway No. 1378 "Concho" — conveniently sat right next to the cities' "Solarbration" venue.
"It’s been busy with the food truck festival we got out there — busier than normal downtown," he said. "From what we’ve heard, most of the people I’ve talked to are locals."
However, he added: "I’ve heard that hotels are all booked up but a lot of people are camping here or staying at hotel here, but they’re planning on moving," because of the forecast. "They’ll be stuck on the highways on Monday."
Alley Cats is normally closed Sunday and Monday, but West planned to stay open because of the eclipse.
It was unclear whether the clear sky-bound migration materialized at scale.
The Benton, Arkansas, Waffle House was packed on Sunday morning. But greetings between guests and staff made it clear most everyone in the small diner along the interstate was a local. Kathy, a division manager who declined to give her last name, was busy seating guests, wiping tables and cleaning the bathroom. She also oversees nine Waffle House locations in the eclipse path in Arkansas. She said Sunday's rush was normal.
"As far as business-wise, honestly we’ve not seen a big increase from what we normally have," she said. "Tomorrow will be the telltale, we’ll see what tomorrow holds for us. We’re expecting it to be busy and we’ll see what it does."
Back in Waco and risking cloudy skies, eight people from a Polish astronomy group were hoping clouds would break and reveal the eclipse. On Saturday morning they were checking out the Waco Welcome Center.
"It will be my fifth eclipse," Artur Strzałkowski said. "I was on west Siberia first, second China, third Australia, fourth, last eclipse, Idaho, USA, and I hope that this eclipse will be very good and clear sky."
Szymon Huptyś, 34, met Artur on the Siberia trip in 2008. They traveled across the continent from their European homes to stare at clouds. No eclipse viewing.
If it's cloudy again this time, he said, it would be "very discouraging."
In Corsicana, Boyde was hopeful as she turned custom commemorative shirts into money for local students. Her hopes for Monday were all about the kids, too.
"Since we’re between Waco and Dallas, the high clouds, whatever," she said, pondering the forecast. "But Corsicana, I’ve heard that we’re going to be almost clear. I dunno, hopefully. Can’t we wish for it? I hope it’s clear so kids can enjoy it."
In a text message Monday afternoon, Huptyś shared an update. The message had no words, just a photo: The sun, perfectly blocked by the moon, brilliant corona all around. There wasn't a cloud in sight.