Sunday 7 April 2024--Like every traveler, I have a bucket list of places and experiences I'd like to check off while I am able. A total solar eclipse may be the one item that has been on the list the longest--since, I believe, 20 July 1963, when an eclipse traced a narrow band of totality from northern Japan across Alaska and northern Canada, down through Québec, and across Maine. We had 91.14% obscuration at 5:47:05pm in Springfield, Massachusetts (thank you, timeanddate). But 91.14% isn't totality, and everyone knows totality is a different thing altogether. And so it has been in the back of my mind for sixty years to watch for an opportunity to witness this most peculiar phenomenon. The internet has made it much easier to track these things, and tomorrow's eclipse, perhaps my last best chance, has been on my radar for years. I booked a room in Magog months ago, as did Ron and his partner, Elaine.

There is still snow on the ground in the higher elevations in Vermont, and down the north slope into Canada. I follow route 141 into town and check in at my hotel. I've stayed here twice before, the first time on my Thanksgiving trip in 2022 [not documented here], a scouting mission to see if Magog would be a suitable spot from which to view the eclipse. Last year, I stopped here with Ron, to show him what I'd found. It's a nice enough small town, with everything a passing tourist might need; and it's very close to the center of the eclipse's path. Two brewpubs don't hurt, either, in my book.

I meet up with Ron and Elaine for dinner and pints at Des Cantons Microbrasserie, named for the Québec tourist region les Cantons de l'Est. This is a French translation of the Eastern Townships, a reference to the towns and countryside east of Montréal, at one time largely English-speaking and a popular summer retreat for wealthy anglophone Montrealers. Our biggest worry over the past months has been the weather. There is a statistically high probability of overcast skies in this part of the world, at this time of year. There's nothing we can do about it, of course, beyond crossing our fingers. Two weeks ago, the forecast looked iffy; in the past week, it has improved steadily, and it now appears that tomorrow will be entirely cloudless. I've hit a bullseye from sixty years away.