NOTE: This publishing was pre-mature! The complete post has now been published, found at http://wp.me/p37YEI-1t3 Hasty fingers on keyboard makes waste…er mistakes! M
The last total solar eclipse visible from the US East Coast was March 7th, 1970. My “wife to be” and I took the MGB-GT 800 miles round trip to see this awesone phenomena from the sands of Virgina Beach, Va.
Short on time, Just browse the photos below.
Our route followed the Jersey shore, across the Delaware Bay by ferry, down the sparsly populated Del-Mar-Va Peninsula. across the recently completed 17 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to Norfolk and then Virginia Beach.
great car!! I have a vague recollection of standing on our front sidewalk and using a piece of cardboard to witness it, I was 13 at the time. All I remember is being told not to look at the sun because I would go blind!
Yeah, with the partial phase, the pin-hole method you mentioned is the safest way to see a solar eclipses, as it “projects” the image on the ground, or a piece of suitable paper. Technically it is ok to directly view the totally eclipsed sun (if your lucky to be in that narrow path where it occurs) but care must be exercised to look away before the sun re-appears. I would suggest sunglasses even then. Otherewise, special neutral density filters can be obtained for all direct viewing. The MGB GT was a great car, – especially on road trips. Thanks for you’re comment. M 🙂
Peninsula.
I’ve read the complete post..it was worth waiting for.
Three friends and I drove all night from Lynchburg College to Va Beach to see the eclipse. Very impressive!! Then turned around and drove back. College dayz!!!
Notice I didn’t mention any names, but you know who you are!
I lived in Virginia Beach on March 7, 1970. It was a Saturday and a bunch of us kids gathered in the middle of a neighborhood street, faces upturned. We’d been told we’d go blind if we looked directly at it, but I was a twelve year old who didn’t like being told what to do, so didn’t use the recommended pin hole in cardboard technique. It was a memorable day, but the memory that eclipses the sun disappearing from the sky, is that our friends, the McDaniels, a Virginia Beach POW family like my own, received their first letter from their dad, Red McDaniel, that day. He’d been shot down on May 19, 1966 and the March 1970 letter was his family’s first assurance he was alive.
How interesting! And what a monumental and wonderful letter that must have been, four years after capture. I hope that he was eventually re-united with his family, and as you stated your family also were in similar circumstance, I hope that all ended well. I can’t help but think of John McCain. The war in SE Asia was difficult for us all, but no match for those who suffered the most.
I’d love to hear more. You can write direct at Mvschulze@yahoo.com 🙂 Marty
I lived In Norfolk and we jumped into the car and took the 1/2 hour drive to Sandbridge Beach just south of the resort area. I was not disappointed. I went to Asheville NC to see the 2017 eclipse but was clouded out and tried again in 2020 but Covid 19 prevented me doing so. I might go to Indiana next year to try again.
Was there at Sandbridge also. 23 years old and a Yankee to boot. Never forget it…
I lived in Va Beach and my girls were 5& 8…. We watched from the court in front of house….was amazed when it got so quiet birds stopped singing ,the temperature dropped & it got almost dark! Nice that my girls remember the experience also. Enjoy !
I was in 6th grade in Charlottesville VA when the whole family drove to the beach for the eclipse in 1970. My science professor father brought his telescope and had it project the image onto a piece of white cardboard for everyone. I remember how dark and cold it got at totality, and all the gulls settled down quietly. After the sun began to show again, the people on the beach near us clapped and yelled “encore!” It was fun.
Senior in high school. Drove with friends from Rumson NJ. Never forgot.
I remember the March 1970 eclipse very well. I was just 13, having had my birthday on February 21st. We lived in Newport News, up north on the Peninsula, in an area known as Denbigh, at the time.
We kids got pushed and pulled back and forth mostly between Newport News and Hampton with one sidetrip for a year to Chesapeake, most of my 20 years living in Virginia, by a stepfather with a chronic case of “itchy feet” where he was never satisfied with anyplace we lived, once we got to it. I went to 7 different schools over 12 years, and unlike many of my schoolmates, who, along with their families, were hop, skipping, and jumping all around the world at Uncle Sam’s whims, none of mine had anything to do with the military! It’s very difficult to make and keep friends when you’re only in one school one year at a time and then it’s off to the other city, or even just another neighborhood, but still changing schools! I finally got to settle, for two whole years in a row, into the high school from which I would graduate, in the 🎓Class of 1975!🎓 🦀GO CRABBERS!🦀
Hampton High School is the only high school anywhere which has a GIANT Red Crab for its mascot! The real person/student wearing the giant red crab costume at all the sports events, is known as “Freddy the Crab.” And of course, our school colors are ❤️Red❤️ & 🤍White!🤍
Anyway, this event was of course on a Saturday in the early spring, but as I recall it was pleasant weather. We all went outside into the yard, and sat in lawn chairs, or wallowed in the grass, or sat on towels or old blankets, and waited for the show to begin. It started slowly, but as totality approached, the sky got darker, the temps dropped appreciatively, and the wind picked up a bit. The birds stopped their chatter, and flew into the trees, but you could hear the dogs in the neighborhood begin to bark! The sky continued to darken, and every school aged child in the neighborhood either had fancy “Eclipse Watching” glasses furnished by their parents, or the pinhole cameras they had made in class! I had mine out of course, but mom took the youngest 3 of us 4 (I’m the oldest, by 7, 8, and almost 10 years) into the house, since they were all under 6, and would not understand the dangers of watching it without eye protection, or how to use a pinhole camera.
It was very strange to see the sky darken, the stars come out in the middle of the day! Then it all started to reverse, gradually, and the sun showed its edge, the sky gradually brightened, the stars faded away to reappear at nighttime, and the birds woke up from their 2 minute nap and began singing again! Of course those of us in 7th grade had to write a paper commemorating the event for Science class on Monday. Some of my classmates’ fathers worked at the NASA unit (which is one of the oldest facilities of NASA, even before it was NASA, and started out as the NACA(?), right next to the Air Force Base, and managed to get some great photographs of the whole thing, to go along with their papers, for which they got extra points!
We lived in Denbigh at that time, very close to the largest of two local Army posts, both of historical import, and not much farther in the other direction from an Air Force Headquarters base, also with historical roots, plus across the river to the south is Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Chesapeake, where the US Navy has a heavy presence, along with the detachments of Marines stationed with the Navy, AND a Coast Guard base just north of us in Yorktown. Yorktown, of course, speaks for itself, along with its two nearest neighbors, Colonial Williamsburg, and Jamestown! Sorry to hear from your story that you weren’t able to avail yourselves of the opportunity to visit those three areas! They certainly made for hugely popular and much anticipated field trips during our early years in school! And particularly Williamsburg, which continues to attract hoardes of people, particularly during the Christmas 🎄 season!
In fact, after my husband got his discharge from the Air Force, we packed up, picked up and moved 900 miles away to northwestern Indiana/northeastern Illinois, where he is from. We had only been married for a year by 1977, having married the prior summer, in July of 1976 – which of course was Bicentennial season, with a much anticipated visit from Queen Elizabeth II! – he at 20 and I at the tender age of 19! But, we had no obligations to anyone except each other at the time, and I was up for an adventure, so we trekked westward, arriving on September 1st of 1977. Just in time to be “greeted” to the area two hours south of Chicago by the infamous Blizzard of ’78! OMG what a blast!
About 10 years later, after having our two kids in 1979 and 1981, we took them back to Virginia for our annual week-long pilgrimage back to my homeland, and to visit with my family, for Thanksgiving week break. We took them to all three historic areas, took scads of photos, gathered bags full of pamphlets, booklets, post cards, and some of the usual touristy type souvenirs, and a few not-quite so touristy! We got two of everything, at least, and used them all to create scrap books, one for each child. These then became items for either classroom “Show and Tell,” or contributions to their teachers’ materials to teach their Colonial history curriculum, covering the importance and activities of those who landed in what would be Jamestown in 1607. They were greatly appreciated, and because the work of gathering the materials and assembly of these books involved the kids directly, they got extra credit for sharing them with the class.
We now have the opportunity – just us and our son, who lives in Indianapolis proper, and works at Butler University – since our oldest child, our daughter, her husband and their 8 children live in Northern Washington State, missing out on it this time – to be involved in another TSE, tomorrow, April 8th, 2024, around 3:15 PM or so (I 🤔 think?) Since our own travels over the last 47 years managed to finally land us in December of 1990, in a small town directly east of Indianapolis, right off of I-70, where we now live, directly in the center of the path of this one, as it traverses directly over the roof of our house! It’s going to be interesting, since this will possibly be the last TSE we will be around for, since my husband and I are in our mid 60s now. But we will get pictures, my husband has his telescope, and we have a very large open, but pleasant fenced back yard in which to sit and enjoy it! Hoping you are able to do the same, and can enjoy it likewise!
Best Regards,
🌞🌖🌗🌘🌚🌒🌓🌔🌞
Shari Davenport