Tacos and Beer

Stacey and I traveled to Tennessee, a little ways north of Nashville, so we could see the 2017 North American total eclipse. Not to overhype the experience, but it was awesome. Life-changing, even. I’ve been fascinated by astronomy since I was a kid, and seeing the moon block out the sun for a couple of minutes is just mind-blowing for me. Also, it’s beautiful in a way that I’ve never seen captured in a photo. So I’ve been looking forward to the 2024 American eclipse pretty much since I saw the 2017 one. Stacey planned ahead and booked a couple of hotel rooms, so we could go to Texas or Arkansas depending on the weather. But as eclipse day got nearer, the forecast for both Texas and Arkansas was rainy or at least cloudy, and that sort of weather can ruin a good eclipse. So we, along with our friend Kelly , drove up to Clarksville, Tennessee the day before the eclipse. Then we woke up early on eclipse day (Monday April 8), checked the latest weather forecasts, and hit the ...

Stacey and I visited Iceland a few years ago and absolutely loved it. It’s a stunningly beautiful country (assuming you like mountains, waterfalls, and beaches). And it’s a relatively easy trip — it’s only six hours or so by plane from the States. The one thing we really wanted to see that we missed last time we visited was the northern lights. So when we visited Iceland a second time (this time bringing our friend Kelly along), that was our big bucket list item. We were not expecting to see a volcano. So seeing that like an hour after we landed was pretty amazing . The thing about the northern lights (and most other astronomical phenomena), is they’re hard to see from the city. Cities usually produce some amount of light pollution , and that makes it tough to see anything but the brightest objects in the night sky. To improve our chances of seeing the lights, we booked a tour with some local Icelandic guys who take you out of town in a van to good (i.e. very dark) viewing l...