Crowds gathered across the Toledo area Monday afternoon to witness a generational, total solar eclipse that most will never again see during their lives.
While the morning had started off mostly cloudy in northwest Ohio, by mid-morning, the skies had cleared, and only a thin layer of high clouds dimmed the show when totality reached downtown Toledo around 3:11 p.m.
And those conditions were far better than what people in the area had been warned to expect as recently as four or five days earlier when thicker clouds were forecast to linger throughout the day.
At the Imagination Station science museum downtown, children in orange shirts stared at the total eclipse, screaming in awe and excitement next to chaperones.
Totality excitement at BGSU. pic.twitter.com/ZTCiiRkewO
— Debbie Rogers (@DebRogers_Blade) April 8, 2024
Melinda Jones, who traveled from St. Johns, Mich., with her husband and son, said the eclipse was "life-shattering."
"Words can't explain," she said.
Ryan Champagne, who came from Ida, Mich., with his 7-year-old daughter, said they were fascinated by the celestial display.
"It was the most amazing experience of my life," Mr. Champagne said.
While the thin clouds dimmed other heavenly objects, Venus shone through next to the bright solar corona encircling the moon, along with Jupiter off to the east.
The eclipse was the second of six total solar eclipses to occur in North America during the 21st century, and the next to visit the lower Great Lakes won’t happen until 2099.
Within a half hour of totality’s end, authorities were already reporting jammed traffic on northbound I-75 as spectators who had driven down from Michigan to see the show started their returns. Other area highways quickly became congested soon after that.
Toledo was near the northern edge of totality, with only a tiny sliver of that path touching Erie Township. Even nearby Sylvania did not get the full eclipse, while places well to the city’s south and east got it for nearly four minutes compared to less than two minutes in Toledo.
Good crowd so far for the total eclipse at the University of Toledo’s Glass Bowl. More photos to come later for @toledonews. pic.twitter.com/ciESQowHBU
— Kurt Steiss ⚔️ (@kurtsteiss) April 8, 2024
Traffic had been jammed for miles during the morning on southbound I-75 approaching a work zone south of Monroe where three lanes merged into two as Michiganders headed south. Southbound U.S. 23 was congested most of the way from Ann Arbor to Toledo, too.
Enthusiasm Monday at the University of Toledo was off the charts. Beginning around noon, more and more people filtered into its Centennial Mall, packed with food trucks, bounce houses for kids, and a DJ playing music. People spread blankets on the grass to watch the eclipse.
As the song, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” played throughout Centennial Mall, the 1,200 or so in attendance sat silently, looking up at the sky.
“It’s starting,” someone yelled out. “I can’t believe I get to see this!”
Marc Seigar, dean of the college of natural sciences and mathematics, said he was very excited about the eclipse, Toledo’s first since 1806.
“Not many people get to see a total eclipse in their lifetime,” Mr. Seigar said.
"For scientists, this is a great event because we get to study the corona," he said. "Under normal conditions, you cannot see the corona, it is too faint."
The university decided to seize the moment with a large community event, said Scott Molitor, its interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
“This was a great opportunity for everyone to celebrate the eclipse together,” Mr. Molitor said. ”I have heard that eclipse events are like a spiritual event. Some say it is a good omen, some say it is a bad omen. I believe it is a good one.”
“From what I have seen we have a fantastic crowd here,” he said. “It is important that this community, college students, employees, and our community at large, take advantage of this time to enjoy this event together.”
Jordan Kierpiec, a seventh grader at St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic School in Midland, Mich., eagerly anticipated the eclipse.
“I am very excited,” Jordan said. “This really is a lot of fun. I am on a Capstone trip to the University of Notre Dame so we decided to stop here to see the eclipse. This really is a fun place.”
Celetha Chaney, of Toledo, had three children in tow to see the eclipse.
“I just wanted to get out and see the eclipse and enjoy this weather,” Ms. Chaney said. “I think my children understand what is going to happen. I did my best to explain it to them.”
Janea Carter and her husband, Joe, brought their children to Toledo from Newport, Mich., in northern Monroe County.
“We decided to come and enjoy the activities,” Mrs. Carter said. “The kids do understand what they are going to see because their school did a good job explaining it to them.”
“I can’t wait to see the sky turn dark,” said Garrett Carter, 8.
“I can’t wait to see what the animals will do,” McKenzie Garrett said.
Mary Braun, a senior astronomy student at UT, said that along with her excitement, she also was waiting to see what the animals would do.
“The crickets could be very loud and the birds will chirp, heading back to their nests,” Ms. Braun said. “I am not sure what other nocturnal animals will do, but many may believe it is nighttime for a few moments. It will be interesting to see how nature reacts.”
When all was said and done, the full eclipse lasted just over a minute at the university. The crowd roared and clapped as the moon started to make its way from in front of the sun.
“That was just spectacular and epic,” said W. Benjamin Myers, chairman of UT’s communications department. “It just puts everything into perspective. It lets you know where your place in the cosmos is.”
Tasha Dunn, an associate professor of communications, agreed.
“I just loved it,” Ms. Dunn said. “I was able to see one in Nebraska in 2017 and I believe this one was better. The clouds actually made it so we could see the ring clearer.”
Henry Myers, a junior at Northview High School in Sylvania, said he was also very happy he was able to witness to event.
“It was just amazing and breathtaking at the same time,” Henry said.
Hannah Myers, of Cincinnati, said her brother persuaded her to come to Toledo to see the eclipse.
“This really was a once in a lifetime event and it was 100 percent worth the drive,” Ms. Myers said.
Hundreds of people crowded the lawn at downtown Toledo’s Festival Park, near the science museum, and neighboring Promenade Park to wait for the eclipse.
Bubbles and paper rockets flew above the crowd as visitors enjoyed the sun. People stood in lines in front of food trucks with their families.
Brittney Merritt, of Sylvania, sat on a sidewalk while her two sons and a son of her neighbor’s played football near the line of food trucks.
“We just got done doing the paper rockets,” she said. “We’re going to get food — we haven’t decided what we’re going to get yet.”
Tim Bograkos, of Okemos, Mich., near Lansing, walked around the park supervising fifth and sixth graders from his town’s Kinawa Middle School, taking pictures of his son as the moon just started its transit of the sun.
“They brought 14 buses of kids down here to come witness it [the eclipse],” he said. “He [his son] asked me to come chaperone and I’d figure I’d come chaperone because he seemed pretty excited about it.”
People danced to songs on of the stages at the park while others sat in lawn chairs, looking at the sun with eclipse glasses on.
In Bowling Green, the Santa Croce family came down from Sylvania for a longer look at totality after daughter Ashley Croce, a Bowling Green State University graduate, heard BGSU had special activities planned.
“We’ll hope they’ll always remember this, so that’s why we brought them,” said dad Dino Santa Croce, accompanied by three children. “Totality was awesome.”
Before the event, they chomped some Kona Ice from one of the many food trucks at BGSU’s Doyt Perry Stadium, jumped in a bounce house, and turned cartwheels on the football field.
“I heard it’s once every 75 years, so that’s pretty cool,” said Enzo Santa Croce, 11.
Michael Bratton, a BGSU spokesman, said shortly before totality that about 5,000 eclipse-watchers had gathered there. They filled the bleachers and packed the field itself to take in totality.
BGSU President Rodney Rogers said the eclipse event also combined science, the arts and humanities, and education.
“Staff has been planning this event for more than a year,” he said. “It truly is a community-university wide event. It’s what universities need to be doing. We’re a learning community and certainly celebrating science.”
Andy Layden, a BGSU professor of physics and astronomy, provided running commentary about the eclipse at a lectern in front of a giant screen that displayed images from around the stadium and a NASA feed tracking the path.
“Before we knew the science behind them, it was more mystical and frightening. Now it’s more the wonders of nature,” he said of the eclipse, “and a party.”
Mr. Layden said he relied on Chris Dietz, an associate professor in the BGSU College of Musical Arts, and his students to fill a lot of the time with original compositions about the eclipse.
Noel Tate, a freshman from Cleveland, stretched out on the football field, soaking in the 70-degree temperatures and enjoying some mini doughnuts and lemonade before the eclipse.
“It is pretty cool,” she said. “A lot of people are here.”
“It’s not too often that you get to sit on the football field, so take advantage of it,” said Matthew Bechtol, who was tuning up his mello-phone to play with the BGSU band.
He said 125 band musicians had practiced about an hour last week, playing the “Star Wars” theme, “The Final Countdown,” and “Fly Me to the Moon.”
Just outside the stadium, planning paid off for Marci and Ann Weber, who traveled to BGSU from St. Joseph, Mich. They made the three-hour drive Sunday night and stayed at a Bowling Green hotel.
Ann Weber said they made the reservation a year in advance and paid around $100 for the room.
“At the time, B.G. was right on the edge of it,” she said. Bowling Green wa expected to have three minutes of totality starting at 3:11 p.m.
“We are perfect,” Ms. Weber said with a grin.
The women had two coolers packed with egg salad, a lobster dip, and crackers, plus books and cards. They were camped outside the stadium and content to wait out the crowds before driving home.
Alex and Robert Baldez, from Ann Arbor, said they made a last-minute decision to travel to BGSU for the eclipse.
“We were looking to going to Cleveland and spending the weekend, but the hotel prices were astronomical,” she said.
They were tossing around a football around 12:45 p.m. Their son, Archer, 6, posed for photos with Freddie and Frieda Falcon.
“We wanted to do something memorable for our son,” Ms. Baldez said.
The jubilant atmosphere on Sandusky’s Jackson Street Pier was tempered with just a bit of anxiety as clouds there thickened ahead of totality’s 3:12 p.m. start.
Picnic blankets, camp chairs, and cameras dotted the crowd, while people lined up for local food trucks, shopped at a small eclipse-themed maker’s market, and listened to Cincinnati rock band The Menus finish out the weekend’s Total Eclipse of the Sundusky Festival.
Camped out close to Sandusky Bay were David Nieman, 69, who traveled from Goffstown, N.H. with his wife, Amy, 68. Having witnessed the 2017 eclipse’s totality, the retired oceanographer was driven to see a second.
“An eclipse, when you see the totality, it’s really quite amazing to see the sun’s corona. And people really don’t understand it until they see it,” Mr. Nieman said.
But Mrs. Nieman, a retired medical doctor, had not gone on that trip.
“It’s something I’ve never seen before, and at my age I’ve seen a few things,” she said, laughing.
Sankalp Apharande, 28, traveled from Boston and enjoyed Lake Erie attractions like Put-in-Bay with friends over the weekend before buckling down for the Monday viewing.
Even had clouds covered the sky, said Mr. Apharande, an engineer, the trip would still have been worth it to “experience darkness in the middle of the day.”
As Sandusky’s three minutes and forty-five seconds of totality approached, The Menus closed out their set. The temperature noticeably dropped and the hush that fell over the pier was amplified by a rare silence for springtime Sandusky: quiet seagulls.
The crowd cheered as the moon closed in on the sun and roared as the sky darkened, birds erupted into flight, and someone on a nearby pier set off fireworks as those assembled enjoyed a cloudless solar eclipse.
Erin Rock, 39, had other matters on her mind: keeping her sons Finn, 5, and Jake, 3, from burning their eyes as she struggled to convince them they needed their eclipse glasses.
“There’s nothing else like it,” said Ms. Rock, who traveled with her family from Herndon, Va., for the chance to see the eclipse in its totality rather than a peak of 90 percent. “Supernatural is the best word.”
Her friend, Jennifer Napolitano, 40, described seeing a total eclipse instead of a partial one as the difference between “seeing a movie in IMAX and standing in the parking lot.”
The eclipse was worth the day out for those closer to home, too.
Marisa Akamine, 47, and Gretchen Sutton, 48, both of Westerville, Ohio, weren’t sure they wanted to come out, but Sandusky’s eclipse party made the experience worth it.
“Sandusky did an excellent job promoting it, planning it,” Ms. Akamine said, from the bands to the food and everything in-between. “They just did a really good job of supporting the city.”
Blade staff writers David Patch, Lillian King, and Eric Taunton contributed to this report.
First Published April 8, 2024, 3:04 p.m.
