The Arc of Totality

The Arc of Totality

           Back in August of 2017, Laura and I decided to pack up the kids and drive our Highlander from our home in Chico up to Oregon to see the total solar Eclipse. I made us camping reservations at a private campground on a small farm, outside of a town called Yachats...right smack dab inside the Arc of Totality!

           The Arc of Totality. I love saying it. The Arc of Totality. It makes me feel like Carl Sagan or Mr. Spock.

           At 75 bucks per person per night, the locals were milking the situation and they knew it. What could we do but pay it?

           We decided to drive I-5 to Eugene, then hang a left for the Coast from there. Siri said that was fastest...seven hours and ten minutes if all went well. We could easily make the drive in one leisurely day, set up camp, sleep, wake up, experience the Eclipse, maybe spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach, then back to camp to sleep, and on home first thing in the morning. Back at the office Wednesday morning. A family road trip! Our first one in years.

           The kids--Emily, 15, and Danny, 12--approached this trip very differently. Danny was thrilled--a trip to Oregon, to see the Eclipse? He couldn't have been more excited. A chip off the old block. But Emily threw a fit the morning we were leaving, demanding to be dropped off at her at her friend Wendy's house, where she'd stay while we made our "ridiculous road trip."

           We explained to her that this was a family trip. We were a family. She had no choice in the matter. And anyway, didn't she want to see the Eclipse?

           "No! Who cares about a stupid Eclipse?"

           She'd stormed off to her room and slammed the door. Laura had to go in and talk her around. I don't know what she said, but finally after over an hour delay, we were on the road.

           I made our stops brief all day, feeling, as I did, that we were behind schedule due to the unexpected dramatics in the morning. I didn't want to be caught wandering around coastal Oregon in the dark looking for the campground. So it was just gas and bathrooms all the way to Eugene.

           But in Eugene, we needed to make a longer stop to pick up dinner and stretch our legs a bit. We found a store called Sundance. Siri said it was close to the highway and had a salad bar.

           The moment I stepped inside I realized maybe we'd made a mistake. It was some sort of hippie health food store. The girl that greeted us from the register had long blonde dreadlocks and a bull's ring through her nose. Ugh! I shiver just remembering it.

           The next person I saw was a shoeless, shirtless, bearded, nearly bald guy, sort of dancing down the aisle from the left, right toward me. I was ready to flee right then, but Laura and the kids had already disappeared into the store. I stood there gaping at Shirtless, Barefoot Guy (Aren't there laws against that sort of thing? Health codes and such?) He shimmied by me, not even noticing I was there, probably on drugs, and headed for the produce department.

           I knew we needed to get our salads and snacks and get the heck out of there. Fast. But where was Laura? I began a rapid, almost frantic search. It was not a large store, but it had a maze-like feel and I quickly felt lost. And I could find neither my wife nor my kids, just ever more bizarre-looking characters, heavily tattooed, with piercings in the most surprising and painful-looking places. Eyebrow. Cheeks. One young woman squeezed past me in the narrow bulk aisle, saying, "Excuth me," and I saw she had a piece of metal stuck through her tongue. Yikes! I began to grow desperate.

           At long last I found Danny, studying the ice cream choices.

           "Danny! Thank God I've found you! Do you know where your mother is?"

           "I think she's in the bathroom. Geez, Dad, take it easy. Are you OK? You look all sweaty."

           "Yes, of course, I'm fine. Do you want something from the salad bar?"

           I grabbed him by the arm and steered him through the produce section to the salad bar, which turned out to have soups and some hot bar selections as well. Scanning the choices I realized that everything in this place was vegetarian. Argh!

           I started filling take-out boxes with salad fixings and paper bowls with soup, trying to keep an eye on Danny, and hoping Laura and Emily would appear. With still no sign of them I took our boxes and bowls to the checkout stand. There, by the magazine rack, was Laura, looking confused.

           She said, "Oh! There you are! I've been looking everywhere."

           I ignored the comment and said, "I've got salads and soups for everyone. Let's get out of here. Where's Emily?"

           "I thought she was with you."

           After paying Dreadlocks Girl, we filed outside to find Emily deep in conversation with Shirtless Bearded Balding Guy. They were chatting away like old friends, which I found alarming. I deployed Laura to retrieve her and get her into the Highlander.

           At the periphery of my hearing I heard Emily's voice saying, "Whoa, Mom. Take it easy. I'm just chatting with Blue Salmon here. He's cool!"

           A moment later they were both in the Highlander, Laura flushed and flustered, Emily in a deep sulk. I handed around the food and started the car.

           "I'm not hungry!" Emily spat. But she took her food and set it on her lap.

           I pulled us out of the ridiculously tight parking lot and breathed a sigh of relief. Following Siri's directions, I eventually found Highway 126 and escaped Eugene. I felt myself relax. My spirits lifted.           

            "Hey, everybody! We're nearly there! Just another two hours! What do you say to a game of 20 Questions?"

           No one answered. Even Laura seemed dispirited and lost in thought, which was unusual for her. I took a look at the kids in the rearview mirror. Emily was furiously punching away at her phone, while Danny sat, slack, staring out the window.

           But I couldn't give in so easily.

           "OK, no 20 Questions. But think of it!" I bellowed. "Tomorrow, we will be inside the Arc of Totality!"

           I thought I caught the brief shadow of a smile on Danny's face, but Emily remained scowling and punching.

           "I'll tell you what. If after the Eclipse tomorrow you can honestly tell me it wasn't the coolest thing you've ever seen, I'll...eat my hat."

           Definitely a smile from Danny. Emily rolled her eyes.

           After and hour or so, as we neared the town of Mapleton, the car suddenly lurched and a horrible thump-thump-thumping began on our right side.

           "Oh no. Noooo!"

           Pulling off the highway into an empty gravel parking lot, I shut off the Highlander and pressed my forehead to the steering wheel.

           "All right, everyone. Unscheduled rest stop!" I tried to sound chipper. "Just be a minute putting on the spare."

           Unfortunately, that meant unloading everything out of the back of the Highlander--bags, camping gear, coolers--to get at the spare tire and jack. Another delay, and it was getting late. The sun was well in the west.

           The kids stayed in the car, staring into their phones as if seeking answers to deep questions. Laura stood by me to lend moral support as I changed the tire.

           Strange, I thought. These tires are practically brand new. Must have picked up a nail.

           With all of our possessions strewn across the gravel, I set to jacking up the Highlander. When I had the new tire on and was preparing to tighten the lugs, a rusty old Suburban pulled into the lot, spewing exhaust fumes, and idled right next to us.

           "What's problem, eh? Need a hand?"

           I looked up at a grizzled, toothless old man behind the wheel of the Suburban, a shapeless, colorless hat sitting askew on his head.

           "Ah, no thanks. Got it all covered here. Thanks."

           "You sure?" When he swung the door open and started climbing out of the Suburban, I saw he held a tire iron in his hand.

           "Yes, yes, I'm sure!" I signaled Laura with my eyes to get back in our car. This guy was making me very nervous. On closer inspection, I realized he was not as old as I'd first thought, grizzled and toothless as he was. I held up my own tire iron. "I got this. Thanks."

           He came over to stand over me, watching me tighten the lug nuts. My heart was pounding and my hands started to shake. The reek of his Suburban, still running, was overpowering--noxious exhaust, mixed with gas fumes from a leak in his gas tank, and something else...cigarettes and mold maybe.

           "Here for the Eclipse, eh?"

           Finishing the last lug nut, I stood up, wiped my hands on my pants, and for no conceivable reason said to the toothless guy standing there with his tire iron, "OK, then. Thanks for the help." Then I climbed into the Highlander, locked all the doors and sped out of Mapleton as fast as seemed safe.

           "Dad, what was wrong with that guy? What did he say?" Danny wanted to know.

           "I don't know son. I just don't know."

           Now the road followed the Siuslaw River along a straight, flat stretch that ended in Florence on the Coast.

           Emily was still sulking and wouldn't talk to any of us. She made a show of ignoring us, communing deeply with her phone.

           At Florence we turned right onto Highway 101. We were so close. But our delays had put us woefully behind schedule. As we entered the gorgeous winding coastal road north of Florence, the sun hung just above the horizon, setting the Pacific Ocean aflame in colors that we certainly didn't have back in Chico.

           But ten minutes later, the sun was gone and darkness began to creep over us.

           My directions said the farm was nine miles up the Yachats River. Even with the long dusk of Coastal summer, it would be dark by the time we arrived.

           After one of the most twisty, tortuous roads I'd ever seen, we arrived in Yachats, stopped in Ray's Foodland and picked up Eclipse viewing glasses, and headed up river. The dark descended. As we drove on and on into deepening gloom, I cursed our bad luck; the flat tire, the melodramatic teenage daughter. I dreaded setting up camp in the dark.

           After another twenty minutes of driving, growing more anxious by the moment, I finally saw the address on a mailbox by the side of the road. No sign, no name. Just the number. We pulled in and saw that the "campground" was just an open meadow surrounded by enormous trees of some kind, with two or three tents scattered across it.

           Danny and I found a flat spot in the field and set up our tent while Laura and Emily joined the group around the fire.

           Our hosts here a friendly couple in their forties. They said their farm grew berries of all kinds, and we were welcome to pick in the morning. For what I was paying to put up a tent here, I suppose they figured a few free berries were part of the package.

           When we'd set up our camp, in the darkness but with the aid of my halogen lantern, we strolled over to the fire. Laura had saved us two tree rounds to sit on.

           To my relief, the scene seemed normal enough. After our encounters in Eugene and then in Mapleton, I was beginning to have a bad feeling about Oregon. But now, people were roasting marshmallows, chatting and laughing. A couple of them had open beers by their sides.

           But the fire threw moving shadows around the circle that confused and disoriented me. I found it difficult to focus on any one face or thing.

           I did notice that Emily had apparently attached herself like a barnacle to a long-haired young man playing a guitar. He was there with his parents from somewhere in Southern Oregon. His parents also had startlingly long hair.

           The only other people at the fire, besides our camp hosts, were a young couple, late twenties maybe, from Olympia, Washington. They said they were students up there, studying permaculture, whatever that is.

           The boy with the guitar, Dylan by name and just turned seventeen, strummed quietly. When there was a lull in conversation, he started singing. Most everyone except Laura and I seemed to know the songs and joined in.

           The rest of the evening was spent pleasantly enough, listening to Dylan's guitar songs, roasting marshmallows, talking of the Big Event tomorrow.

           Gradually I fell into a reverie staring at the fire. I saw scenes there of ships at sea, battles on far shores, heroic feats of strength and agility, cartoon scenes like Coyote chasing the Roadrunner. When I looked around at the faces in the circle they seemed to be the faces of some ancient tribe; long faces, serious and sad. I shook my head to clear the image, but it persisted.

           The night passed as a if a dream. Sometimes words were spoken, but I did not understand them. Dylan's songs became ancient chants in a forgotten language. Faces elongated and shrunk. I looked at Laura next to me. Her eyes glittered and her dark hair hung around her face in a way I'd never seen.

           Eventually, I excused myself and stumbled to the tent. Slipping into my bag I fell asleep immediately.

           I awoke in the morning not knowing where I was. I sat up and looked around me. Laura was asleep beside me, snuggled into her down bag. Danny was snoring softly near the door. But there was no sign of Emily.

           I quietly dressed and went out of the tent. Emily and that boy, Dylan, were still by the fire, sitting close, talking softly.

           The sun was just filtering through the giant trees up behind the campground. Birds were beginning their tentative first songs of the dawn. The scene was so peaceful I just stood for a moment, breathing it in.

           To tell the truth, the Eclipse later that day was somewhat anti-climactic. The Totality lasted all of five minutes. It was a very strange five minutes too. The temperature went from a balmy eighty degrees to about twenty degrees cooler in an instant. The light went dim and some stars came out. All the cows in the neighbor's field lay down as one. Then five minutes later they stood up and went on with their day. The dark viewing glasses we'd picked up in town allowed us to see the sun being eaten by the moon. It was certainly fascinating.

           But I suppose I just wasn't moved in the way I had expected.

           After a drive to a beach as promised, we returned to camp for another evening by the fire. Young Dylan strummed and sang again, and had still not shaken our daughter's rapt attention. They'd spent the entire day together. I was feeling concerned. Laura told me to stop worrying.

           "She's a big girl. She's smart."

           Well, I wasn't so sure about that, but I tried to let it go.

           But then Laura hit me with, "And don't be so uptight."

           "Me? Uptight?"

           In the morning we packed up camp and loaded the Highlander.

           Then came the first shock.

           Emily came to inform me that she was going home with Dylan and his parents to Southern Oregon...for the rest of the summer.

           "His parents said it's OK. They're cool..."

           "What about your parents?"

           "Mom already said it's fine. I've got everything I need in my pack. They said they'd drive me back to Chico before school starts. Bye!"

           And off she went, just like that. I just stood there in disbelief, my mouth hanging open. I looked at Danny and he had the same expression on his face: gaping disbelief.

           Laura had disappeared for some time and I wondered if everything were all right with her digestion. She came strolling up out of the woods arm in arm with Dylan's mom like they were old friends, both of them smiling and laughing.

           Danny and Laura and I climbed into the Highlander and drove home. The spare tire held. We didn't stop in Eugene. Emily's absence actually lent a peacefulness in the car. We were home in seven hours and ten minutes.

           The next day I went back to the office. When I arrived home I found the house empty. There was a note on the kitchen table from Laura:

           "Honey. I'm sorry I couldn't say this to your face, but I couldn't. I've moved out.            I'm staying with my sister Kate in Sacramento. I'm sorry. Danny will have to be            with you for now until we figure out what's next. I'm sure neither of you will            mind.

                      All the best,

                      Laura"

           At first I though it must be a joke. But Laura never makes jokes.

           It could only be one thing: The Arc of Totality!