Eclipse blocks sun, brings out smiles from Michigan to Ohio

• Total solar eclipse just clips Michigan, but draws thousands to Luna Pier
• Thousands of others clog I-75 and U.S. 23 trying to catch glimpse of rare event in Ohio
• Next total eclipse for the contiguous U.S. comes in 20 years

Monday's total eclipse left onlookers breathless, including an astrophysicist major at the University of Michigan, a middle schooler from Midland and a nurse from Southfield.

“It’s kind of a life-changing experience,” said Reina Prior, 13, a student at St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic School in Midland, just after watching the eclipse at the University of Toledo.

A smile was plastered over her face as she spoke, her eyes still lit up in the minutes after the sun reappeared about 3:15 p.m. “It makes you feel small.”

So too was Sophia Davis transfixed. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Davis, 20, an astrophysics major at the University of Michigan who brought a disco ball to catch slivers of the eclipse’s reflection. She joined over 50 fellow U-M astronomy club members who came to U-T to soak in the eclipse.

Related:

• When is the next total solar eclipse in Michigan? Hint: Don’t wait up
• Solar eclipse Michigan 2024: Traffic jams, early crowds in Luna Pier
• U-M student on mission as NASA 'eclipse ambassador' to educate communities

“I’m so geeked right now.”

It was a rare event indeed: It brought together Michigan and Ohio in peace and harmony as tens of thousands drove to Ohio, though many did stop in Luna Pier, Michigan’s only city in the path of totality.

It was in Luna Pier, a tiny town besieged with sky watchers Monday, that Wayne Woods, 59, a Stellantis employee, offered that this eclipse topped the 2017 one. In fact, they didn’t even compare.

“The best part was when a smidget of the sun popped out from behind the moon,” Woods said. “I looked around and saw the twilight and it just got dark. I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life. … It was amazing.” 

“I’ve never seen it this dark in the middle of the day like that before. It was fantastic,” Woods said. 

Although there were no “issues” in Ohio regarding the invasion of shade-seeking Michiganders, Ben Eysselinck, 49, of East Lansing chose to stick in Michigan out of Wolverine State allegiance.

He, too, witnessed the 2017 eclipse but said it was “way better” this time around. 

“The full experience of seeing it go all the way dark and it getting super cold and the shadows change … was really cool,” he said. 

Eysselinck brought his family, including his dog Cooper, to Luna Pier. While Cooper slept through most of the eclipse, he did become frazzled like experts predicted most animals would. 

“He actually started acting a little bit like it was bedtime, and he didn’t know what was going on,” Eysselinck said. “He was getting a little nervous.”

In Toledo, Prior and Davis joined thousands on the U-T campus, and many others drove all across Ohio looking for the best spot. Retailers were offering eclipse specials for ice cream, beer and T-shirts — anything to signify the rare event; the next total eclipse visible from the contiguous U.S. is in 2044.

Wherever they went, they enjoyed a festive afternoon of warm temperatures and light clouds — not enough to ruin the eclipse in which the moon falls completely inside the path of the sun.

Dark, quiet, awe-inspiring

In Toledo, which had just over one minute of totality, the temperature began cooling 15 minutes before totality and then, just minutes before, it became dark enough that the street lights lit up all around the university football stadium.

A hush preceded the seconds before totality. When the sun reemerged, there were cheers.

A couple hours before the eclipse, Mireya Arora, 21, explained that for astronomy fans and astrophysics majors like her, it was equally unique. There was the science — getting to see the sun’s corona, the outer layer of the sun. Telescopes are great, and simulators can help people understand celestial events, but Arora said an in-person eclipse is a big deal.

“You don’t get to recreate this in the university’s labs,” she said.

Many had to battle waves of traffic to get the full experience. As eclipse gawkers filled the southbound roads, travel got slow and slower. The trip from Detroit to Toledo, usually an hour, was two hours by 1 p.m.; the trip from Ann Arbor was 90 minutes when it’s usually less than an hour.

Amer and Julie Mall left their Saginaw home just before 9 a.m., destined for Toledo more than 140 miles away. By Ann Arbor, "it was obvious everybody was heading the same place we were," Julie Mall said.

They got off U.S. 23 at Dundee, more than 20 miles away, joining countless other vehicles fanning out on local roads and heading east.

The Malls snaked their way across Monroe County to get just barely into the path of totality. 

As the sun slid into a narrower crescent, and the horizon grew dark, a hush fell on those who gathered, looking in unison through eclipse glasses, leaving the only sound the clatter of blackbirds and killdeer and a single drone.

The long drive was, apparently, totally worth it.

"That is amazing," daughter Jane Mall, 15, said, as she perched on the family's Town & Country minivan with her sister, Erin, 13.

Doug Sparks, 63, and a friend, Kristen Lindsay, 53, a nurse, left Southfield at 11 a.m. and three hours later were still stuck in southbound traffic on their way to Toledo.

They, too, made the decision to take back roads. It paid off getting to southern Erie Township in time to settle into lawn chairs as the sun became a diminishing crescent. 

"It's spectacular," Lindsay said, peering through the cardboard glasses they purchased at Meijer.

Sparks said neither are “astronomy nerds,” but, like millions across Michigan, Ohio and the U.S., that didn’t matter. 

"But you just have to be part of it," Sparks said. "You can't miss this."