Corona, corona, Corona…

Sometimes, you get weird inspiration while you’re tossing and turning in bed trying to go to sleep. This is the story of one such inspiration.

In 2018, a total solar eclipse passed directly over my wife’s family farm in Nebraska. We had thought about going there to view it, but making the trip became somewhat complicated. We (mostly my wife) later regretted not making the 12+ hour drive to get to Cozad to view it.

So this year, when we learned there would be an annular eclipse right in our own state in mid-October, we concluded were not going to miss this opportunity. I started thinking about it during one of my not-so-restful nights.

The path of the eclipse went directly over Albuquerque and down further south in the state close to Roswell. We thought about going those places, but decided they were either too far away or would be too crowded. Then I looked at map projecting the path of the eclipse and found the perfect spot for viewing — Corona, NM, where we could see the sun’s corona in a really rural location. And then, on another restless night of sleep, I decided to make things even more interesting — adding add Corona beer to the equation and toasting the event with a bottle of the Mexican lager as the sky darkened to reveal the sun’s corona. I guess we could have added a fourth Corona — infecting ourselves with the Corona virus in Corona, but we thought better of that.

I began designing a t-shirt to fit the occasion. Here’s the design, printed on a black T-shirt:

I casually mentioned my plan to a good friend of ours, thinking he would blow it off as a really goofy idea. To my surprise, he texted me the next day saying he and his wife were interested in joining me and my wife on our adventure.

So the plan was set in motion. I ordered t-shirts, double checked the weather and planned our route so we would be there at the peak of the eclipse. We left early Saturday morning.

If you’ve ever been to (or more likely sped through) Corona, you know there’s not much “there” there. (I used to pass through there frequently when I was in college on my way back and forth from Ruidoso to Albuquerque. I even played high school football there on an all-dirt field that still remains, complete with goat-head stickers and other weeds instead of grass.)

I had surmised that we might be the only people strange enough to have ventured to such an out-of-the-way location to view the celestial spectacle.

I was wrong. When we got close to the central New Mexico village, we started seeing cars stopped along U.S. 54, the main route through that part of the state and the main drag in Corona (population about 250). Some of the vehicles had set up elaborate viewing stations with bazooka-sized telescopes and cameras with lenses as large as the Stanley Cup trophy.

We rolled into town and found a spot near the local Marathon gas station, where several other vehicles had gathered and figured it was as good a spot as we would find with a clear view toward the southeast sky. Even more vehicles rolled in. It became almost comical. The Marathon gas station became the most popular (and maybe only) retail spot in town that day, especially when people needed a restroom. At one point, the line to the unisex bathroom snaked out the front door.

Of course by that time, we were wearing our obnoxious black and orange/yellow t-shirts.

A woman named Angie who said she had lived in Corona for 28 years spotted us and came over to look at the shirts. She said she loved them so much that she wanted to buy one. I have her contact information and I’ll just send it to her for free. I’ll bet if we had worked on it, we could have sold 100 of them at a roadside stand.

When the eclipse finally happened, we were surprised by two things. First, how cold it got when the sun was mostly blocked out. And even though the center of the sun was perfectly and symmetrically aligned behind the moon, the visible corona provided so much light that it was never anywhere near being dark. The available light was like you’d expect on a heavily overcast day.

We also met up with a really nice guy from El Paso, a former soldier at Fort Bliss named Ed, who cheerfully took pictures of us. I have his e-mail address and am going to try to send him a T-shirt as well.

Overall, it was a really fun experience, with lots of laughs, a spectacular view of the skies and driving through some really beautiful areas of the state that most of us don’t get to see often enough.

The next really big eclipse is supposed to happen next year and will pass right over our daughter’s home town of Austin, TX. We’re planning to go and it will be fun, but I doubt as weird as the experiences we had in Corona.