My dear friend Steve has a tradition in his family known as “adventure points”. Created when his kids were little, it began as a way to get them to try things they were reluctant to attempt. Thus, one could achieve “culinary adventure points” by trying a new food; “sports adventure points” by attempting a new athletic activity, etc. My family has since adopted the term and often uses it to re-frame an unpleasant experience (usually after the fact!). Thus, a rain-soaked canoe trip might garner adventure points; unpleasant in the moment, we look back on it and try to find some positive in the experience. In that light then (that’s a pun but you don’t know it yet!), allow me to share the story of our recent celestial adventure points.

The story begins on April 8, 2024 (two days ago) as we travel ninety minutes north to Rangeley, Maine to view the total solar eclipse. Having seen all the American total eclipses in my lifetime, I was not going to miss one this close to home — and the weather was as perfect as could be, 60 degrees (unusual for a Maine April) and not a cloud in the sky. Honestly, Maine was the only totally clear spot in the entire eclipse path across thirteen states, a wonder since the odds of any given April day in Maine being clear are only about 20%.

And everything worked like a charm. I researched good viewing spots before we left, and found one that was not advertised, at the Maine DOT garage in Dallas plantation, just north of Rangeley. We departed about 9:30AM in several cars (daughter Alli, grandson Jaxon and I, with our good friends Kathy, Allan and Maureen), and arrived at our spot just after 11AM. Nobody there but us, and the DOT workers, who were supremely cordial and welcoming. Here we are, setting up for a first-rate star party:

Kathy had the foresight to bring a couple of folding tables, and soon we had the food set out and the telescope assembled (solar filter in place) and tracking the sun. Here you see Allan enjoying the bright afternoon:

Alli’s friend and colleague Alex soon arrived, unaware of the leading role she would soon play in our celestial saga. Below you can see Alex and Alli left of the telescope, with Kathy behind it.

The woman to the left in the above photo is Shannon, wife of the DOT foreman Guy, both of whom turned out to be wonderful company for us throughout the day. Eventually about three other parties joined us at the DOT lot, and all took a turn at the telescope before the eclipse was over. Here you can see Allan (left) and Alli (right) at the scope:

Alli had a gift for positioning her cellphone perfectly above the telescope eyepiece, capturing this excellent photo (among many others) of the moon encroaching upon the solar disk:

Grandson Jaxon amused himself in the bed of the Santa Cruz. He found several other kids as the afternoon wore on, and quickly made friends.

It is very difficult to describe the experience of totality; words do not do it justice whatsoever. Sunlight becomes, for lack of a better word, strange — brittle, cold, blue, something like sunset but with a distinctly different cast to it; filtered, washed-out, pale and wan. The temperature drops about ten degrees. Birds and animals go to sleep. And then, as the orange colors of sunset spread 360 degrees around the horizon, you see the moon’s shadow racing toward you. You look up at the sun and see Bailey’s Beads around the circular blackness (flashes of sunlight shining between the mountains of the moon). And then, one last bright flash of light creates the diamond-ring effect, and then the sun is gone — only the ethereal corona remains.

I wish I was a better photographer. Looking at the totally eclipsed sun through binoculars, the corona was ephemeral, diaphanous — exquisite. Vivid red solar prominences peeked through the corona in several spots. For me, a total solar eclipse is a mind-blowing, life-altering experience. But the best I could do are these decidedly pedestrian cellphone photos:

And now we come at last to the adventure points. Knowing that traffic would be overwhelming immediately after totality, we decided to stay until the entire eclipse was finished; until the moon had completely traversed the face of the sun and left it completely uncovered once again. We watched it move along through our eclipse glasses and the scope, and when fourth contact was completed, we reluctantly began packing things away, our jolly eclipse star party sadly concluding.

We left the DOT lot about 5pm, heading back south toward Rangeley. Almost immediately we hit a colossal traffic jam. Knowing that we could reverse direction and head south by a different route, we turned around and headed north on ME-16 to Stratton, and then turned south on ME-27 in an ill-advised attempt to get home through Kingfield. Why was it ill-advised? Because I had forgotten that one of the biggest ski areas in the east (Sugarloaf) is on ME-27, and that it would be absolutely mobbed with eclipse-watching skiers. No sooner than we left Stratton did we hit an apocalyptic traffic jam, stop-and-go with the “go” being limited to short stretches at 5MPH.

It was at this point that I began rapidly accumulating adventure points. The tachometer in the brand new Santa Cruz, with only 2200 miles on the odometer, went fire-engine red and a neon sign appeared on the dash: engine overheating. I immediately pulled to the side of the road as an overpowering stench of radiator coolant filled the vehicle. Al and Kathy, right behind us, stopped and asked if they could help. I foolishly (as it turned out) declined their assistance, and waved them on their way.

Alli and I got out of the truck and opened the hood, only to find coolant sprayed all over the engine compartment. Having spare water in the vehicle, we brought a bottle out and poured it into the engine coolant reservoir, where it immediately spilled to the ground. “Great”, I thought, “blown head gasket”. It appeared that I had just purchased a very expensive lemon.

To make matters worse, there was almost no cellphone reception there in the wilderness of northwestern Maine, and on top of that my phone was almost out of power. I tried the Hyundai app, as I knew they had a roadside assistance feature built into it, but without reception it didn’t work. I then called 911, barely able to communicate my location as best I knew it, and waited for help to arrive.

It was at this point that the heroine of our story, Alex, pulled up behind us. Apparently she had headed home to Freeport after we packed up, got stuck in the traffic jam, and decided (as we had) to turn around. On her way back she spotted us beside the road and turned around again to help us. We agreed to send Alli and Jaxon with Alex (and her Labradoodle, Blaze) in her small Subaru, while I waited for the sheriff. And so, off they went.

In about twenty minutes Sheriff Desilvestro arrived, cordial, helpful and efficient. He tried to raise a wrecker for me, then radioed his dispatcher to find us one, but all to no avail — nobody was going to try to navigate through that traffic tonight. The sheriff helped me push the vehicle off the road and then suggested I call Alli to come back and get me. So, Alex turned around again. I locked the telescope into the rear seat of the Santa Cruz and climbed into the front seat of the Subaru, with Alli, Jaxon and Blaze shoehorned into the back, Blaze’s head between me and Alex as she drove. In that way, Alex braved the traffic jam again; she (angel and Godsend that she was!) dropped me off at home at 11PM. What should have been a ninety-minute ride, in that traffic, took six hours.

I got up early the next morning (yesterday) to try and recover my poor Santa Cruz. After several calls, Hyundai Roadside Assistance was able to find a wrecker to tow it back to the dealer in Augusta. Kathy (another Godsend) so kindly agreed to drive me all the way back to Kingfield, as the wrecker needed the key in order to hook up the tow — so we drove back up ME-27 (now a blissful and scenic expanse of open road), loaded everything (including the telescope) out of the Santa Cruz and into Kathy’s car, left the Santa Cruz unlocked, and set the key in the hidden compartment in the truck bed. Kathy then drove me back to Augusta, where the dealer had a rental car waiting for me. Miraculously, the Santa Cruz had been untouched and unmolested there beside the road in the woods all night.

I expected a long wait for my Santa Cruz to be repaired. While I was waiting for the rental car yesterday afternoon, a salesman told me that they only take tow-ins when they can fit them in around scheduled appointments, first come, first served. He guessed I’d be waiting a couple of weeks at least. So imagine my surprise this morning when I got a call from the dealer saying that the Santa Cruz was ready to go!

What happened? Apparently the vehicle had been assembled at the factory without attaching a radiator clamp to the hose connecting the coolant reservoir to the engine! The hose was attached in the right place, but the clamp was just left hanging below it! When the vehicle was moving normally, there was enough airflow over the engine to keep the pressure down; but in the slow crawl of the stop-and-go traffic leaving the eclipse, the coolant heated up, building up the pressure in the system. When it got hot enough, the pressure blew the hose right off the engine and drained out all the coolant.

The dealer said he had never seen anything like it. They block-tested the engine and pronounced it damage-free and ready to go, after correctly clamping the radiator hose back where it went. So I guess (hope?) I didn’t buy a lemon after all. Probably some tech got a text just as the car reached him on the assembly line…….

I was very pleased with the service I got from Darling’s Hyundai in Augusta. I paid nothing for the tow, the repair, or the rental car, and they obviously made my vehicle a top priority. But I did receive countless adventure points…….!

Stay tuned! I’m heading to Ohio again soon for niece Madison’s college graduation, and the arrival of a new granddaughter! But if you ever get a chance to see a total solar eclipse, don’t miss it. And maybe you can re-frame some of your own travails into adventure points, too!