This year’s total solar eclipse isn’t the first time Rockville, Maryland, father Jamie Nicholas, will travel out of state to go see it.
He’s traveled to get the perfect view of a solar eclipse in the past, and he is about to pack up and do it once again next week for Monday’s eclipse.
“It’s a very awe-inspiring experience,” said Nicholas.
Monday’s total solar eclipse will make landfall along Mexico’s Pacific coast and cross into Texas and 14 other U.S. states before exiting over Canada.
It will last almost twice as long as other eclipses for over four minutes, with an even wider audience, than the total solar eclipse that stretched coast-to-coast in the U.S. in 2017.
That is when Nicholas traveled to South Carolina so he could be in the “path of totality,” which is the area where people on Earth can see the moon cover the sun completely.
More on the solar eclipse:
- What to know about next week’s total solar eclipse in the US, Mexico and Canada
- Not in the path of totality? You can still watch Monday’s total solar eclipse online
- Blind people can hear and feel April’s total solar eclipse with new technology
“When you look up, you see this dark circle in the sky with just a little bit of light that’s a ring around it,” Nicholas explained. “I remember thinking that I could understand 1,000 years ago when people looked up and saw that, that they would draw the conclusion that the world was ending.”
For Monday’s eclipse, an estimated 44 million people live within the path of totality, which extends along a narrow stretch of land from Texas to Maine.
The moon will shroud the sun for up to 4 minutes 28 seconds.
Practically everyone on the continent will get to see at least a partial eclipse.
Nicholas researched places along the path of totality and found a house for rent in Ravenna, Ohio, which is a roughly five-hour drive from the D.C. region. He will be bringing his two sons along to watch it happen.
“We’ll have an entire backyard to ourselves and it will just be more relaxing that way,” Nicholas said.
When the sky goes dark, Nicholas said he’ll “look around, make a short video to share with people of what it looks like and just kind of take in that experience.”
“There are a lot of things in this world that pictures just don’t do justice,” Nicholas said. “You have to be there and you have to experience it.”
Monday’s eclipse will be the last total solar eclipse visible from the lower 48 states until 2044.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.