‘Almost life-changing’: Historic solar eclipse awes crowds across New England

The partial eclipse in Boston began at 2:16 p.m. and reached its peak at 3:29 p.m. As the moon’s path moved across the sun, students from the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Dorchester gazed skyward through eclipse viewing glasses. Some students oohed and aahed, others blew plastic kazoos in celebration.

“The sun looks like the moon!” exclaimed third-grader Serenity Sanders.

Kaylin Dasilveira, a sixth grader, marveled as the sun got “smaller and smaller” each time she looked up.

“It looks like the sun is kind of half open,” she said. For the 11-year-old, the eclipse coincided with a growing interest in science, and now she wants to learn more.

“Someday I probably want to be someone who looks at the sky through a telescope,” she said.

The last time a solar eclipse’s path of totality crossed the contiguous United States was in 2017; the next one won’t be for another two decades, according to NASA. The darkness lasted up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds, almost twice as long as the 2017 eclipse, and it took just about an hour and 40 minutes for the moon’s shadow to cross North America, about 4,000 miles.

The path of totality, which was about 115 miles wide, encompassed several major US cities, including Dallas; Indianapolis; Cleveland; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Montreal. An estimated 44 million people live within the track, with a couple hundred million more within 200 miles.

In northern New England, crowds grew as the eclipse swept east. A minivan on the turnpike near Wells, Maine, carried the message “Eclipse or Bust!!!” on its rear window, and the waitstaff at Mike’s American Diner in Arundel said business was brisk as “eclipsers,” including busloads of high school students, headed to Houlton, Maine, to view the totality, when the moon entirely obscures the face of the sun.

In the normally sleepy town of Rangeley, Maine, traffic was at a standstill on the main road, as thousands made their way to town. Parking was a lost cause, but no one seemed too bothered by the crowds.

In Richford, Vt., along the Canadian border, groups from as far away as Kentucky gathered on the shore of the muddy Missisquoi River. With the eclipse to arrive at 2:15 p.m., visitors set up telescopes, enjoyed picnics, and made pinhole projects in preparation.

West Allen, 19, who studies astronomy at SUNY New Paltz, said he and his family woke up at 4 a.m. to drive from Albany. He said this eclipse was special because so many people live in the path of totality and the sun “is going through a very active phase.”

“The corona should be beautiful,” he said.

Around 2:18 p.m., the moon began to inch across the face of the sun, covering a small section in darkness.

After so much anticipation, “that first moment just feels magical,” said Christian Hietanen, 47, of Staatsburg, N.Y. “You hear stories about people who have been to total eclipses before, it’s almost life-changing, and we get to experience that. It’s a moment we won’t ever forget.”

Nazmus Nasir and Abby Southwell, of Boston, shared a communal moment with close to 200 people at Davis Park in Richford, Vt.

“It’s such an amazing experience bonding with all the humans,” Southwell said. “Everyone is having the same ‘Oh my gosh!’ moment together.”

Nasir was watching his third eclipse but said this one was the best. “It’s awe inspiring,” he said, “it’s mind-bending.”

David Dong, 65, of Branford, Conn., said he came to Richford, Vt., to watch the eclipse with a friend who saw an annular eclipse about 30 years ago. They were treated to a spectacular display.

“It was something I never felt before,” Dong said. “It was a sense of awe, a sense of surprise more than anything else. I had hair coming out of the back of my neck. Just seeing the light going off in the foreground then seeing the ring of fire around the moon was just amazing.”

Tri Astraatmadja, of Baltimore, who is a staff scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said his second eclipse experience gave him chills. ”I think it’s an out of body experience. . . . It’s sublime, ” said Astraatmadja, who works with the Hubble Space Telescope and Webb Space Telescope.

He wondered what people felt in ancient times, when there was little understanding of what a total eclipse meant. “They must have been scared to death,” he said.

A bit south in Burlington, Vt., Martin Grealish, who works in Weymouth, described the eclipse as “the experience of a lifetime.”

“To see the aura of the sun makes you humble, to see how powerful nature is,” he said. “It was such a moving experience.” He shared the experience with his grandchildren and hoped it was something they would always remember.

To the east in Carrabassett Valley, Maine, parking lots were filled since early morning, and an area outside the main lodge at Sugarloaf Mountain had crowds of people and a DJ blasting music.

Scott Alpert, 60, of Huntington, N.Y., couldn’t have been happier. After seeing a 2017 eclipse in Sun Valley, a resort town in Idaho, he wanted to make sure he saw this one, too, but this time with his daughters, Mackenzie, 24, and Stefanie, 27.

Maine was not their first choice. They had booked a trip to Dallas, but weather got in the way. A few days ago, they shifted gears and planned to go to upstate New York, but the clouds followed them. On Saturday, Alpert took up a colleague’s offer to come to his ski house at Sugarloaf. It paid off.

“It’s amazing,” he said. “Beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky.”

The Sandhu family from Greenwich, Conn., had a similar story. Rochester, N.Y., was their destination until the forecast called for clouds. Harvinder Sandhu, 62, booked a room in Bethel, Maine, and figured they would decide where to go from there. When they saw the fun planned at Sugarloaf on Maine’s tourism website, they headed out at 7 a.m.

“I think I parked a little illegally,” laughed Alexi Sandhu, 23, as she sat outside the lodge with her father and brother, Arjan, 18.

In Burlington, Vt., Jeremy Brotz and Will Thompson set up a table to sell “eclipse rocks,” black stones with streaks of white that Thompson found on the shore of Lake Champlain. Now they were potential souvenirs.

”I told a bunch of people ... all these different people are going to come up here and they’re going to want something to commemorate the moment,” Thompson said. “And everybody was like, that’s a terrible idea.”

But when he went to Brotz’s house for dinner, Brotz’ mother, Melanie, loved it. So the pair, who met at Middlebury College, went ahead with their plan. Rocks came in three sizes, priced at three, five and seven dollars.

“Haggling encouraged,” a sign on their table read. (Brotz and Thompson sold about $100 of the rocks).

Skygazers who travelled north Monday morning faced heavy traffic, and the drive home appeared to be even worse. “Horrible” was how at least one person described the post-eclipse gridlock, as thousands got stuck in stop-and-go traffic heading south from the path of totality.

Maine State Police shared a photo on social media that showed traffic on Route 1 in Houlton backed up for 7 miles Monday evening.

The Vermont Agency of Transportation also reported heavy traffic in the evening on I-89 between Exit 16 in Colchester and the New Hampshire border, about 90 miles southeast. I-91 was also backed up in Vermont between Exit 27 in Newport and Derby and Exit 15 in Fairlee, the agency said.

It wasn’t any better in New Hampshire, where State Police shared aerial footage that showed standstill traffic in parts of Berlin and Gorham, and drivers were slowly moving along down I-93 in Concord during the trek home.

In Boston, hundreds spread out across Boston Common ahead of the celestial event.

Mireya Zellner, Haley Balderson, and Stewart Garniss, seniors at Emerson College, spread out a blanket and savored the return of warm weather. It had been a long time coming.

“This is probably the first time Boston as a collective city has come out and hung out in the commons together this year,” Balderson said.

Caroline Statz and Curtiss Potter flew up from Washington, D.C., on Monday to experience the event, seven years after seeing their first eclipse in Wyoming.

”I just love astronomy and I think this is so cool,” said Statz, 49.

Sharing the experience with so many others made it more special, they said.

”It’s something that brings all these people together,” said Potter, 54.

Amanda McCluskey, a student at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, held up a digital camera protected by eclipse glasses while her classmate Sam Webb covered the frame with an iridescent film, adding some color to their photo experiment.

“The one in 2017 I vaguely remember seeing, and I didn’t have the eclipse glasses, so I did one of the DIY hacks,” McCluskey said. “Seeing it now is really awesome.”

Matt Norton, 41, sat with his 3-year-old chocolate lab Dixie as the eclipse reached half coverage. ”I recall partial eclipses growing up but this is my first real viewing,” the Rhode Island native said. “It happens once in a lifetime.”

As the eclipse reached its full 92 percent coverage in Boston, the masses of people gathered on the lawn erupted into cheer. Though the sun would soon be unblocked, most viewers continued to occupy the lawn to enjoy the rest of the warm spring day.

In Portsmouth, N.H., father and son Joshua Blanchfield, 45, and Elijah Rosenfield, 13, had driven from Hartford, Conn., in search of clearer skies.

”We decided to follow the sun,” Blanchfield said as they waited with about 100 others for a viewing party organized by the Portsmouth Public Library.

Elijah carried a metal colander and Blanchfield brought a homemade pinhole viewer made from a Cheerios box, aluminum foil, and white paper.

”It’s a safe way to view it, an old-school method,” said Blanchard, a middle school teacher.

Meanwhile, the parking lot overflowed at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, N.H., where hundreds of people gathered for an eclipse watch party. A countdown began as the moon inched along its path and overtook the sun.

Wallis Boram’s father had traveled from Seattle to see the eclipse. Boram, an education coordinator at the discovery center, said she’s been preparing for this moment for a year.”It feels like we have been doomsday prepping,” she said.

Her feeling now that the day had actually arrived? “Overwhelmed,” she said. ”I’ve never seen a solar eclipse before, so that’s really special.”

In Rhode Island, many people tried to find the best place to watch the eclipse, but Bill Samos and his colleagues found what was probably the worst place: 200 feet under Pawtucket in a tunnel they’re building to improve the sewage system.

”A bunch of disappointed guys down here,” Samos said a little after 2:30 p.m., just as the moon was moving across the sun.

The next chance to see a full eclipse in Rhode Island will be in 2079.

”I’m going to have to get back in the gym,” joked Samos, 51. “Change my eating habits. No more macaroni and meatballs.”

Brian Amaral, Steven Porter, Cynthia Needham, John Hilliard, Nick Stoico, Amanda Gokee, and Marianne Mizera of the Globe staff and Globe correspondents Maddie Khaw, and Dave Epstein contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press was also used.

Sabrina Shankman can be reached at sabrina.shankman@globe.com. Follow her @shankman. Carlos Muñoz can be reached at carlos.munoz@globe.com. Follow him @ReadCarlos and on Instagram @Carlosbrknews. Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com. Follow him @GlobeTechLab. Alexa Coultoff can be reached at alexa.coultoff@globe.com. Follow her @alexacoultoff.