Chasing the Total Solar Eclipse in Northern New Hampshire: Worth Every Minute of the 12-Hour Drive Home
Hey Siri, play Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler.
We drove to the Canadian border to watch the sky go dark in the middle of the afternoon, and I would do it again immediately, even knowing what the drive home would look like.
Connecticut Lakes in northern New Hampshire sits right at the border with Canada, about as far north as you can go in the state before you are suddenly in Quebec. It is remote in a way that feels intentional, the kind of place where the quiet is loud and the only thing competing with the sky is the tree line. We chose it specifically to be in the path of totality for the total solar eclipse, and it delivered everything we came for and then some.
The day itself was one of those unexpectedly perfect ones. We found a spot at the lake and settled in to wait, which in practice meant napping in a hammock, wandering the park, and spotting moose footprints in the mud along the water's edge. No actual moose, which I manifested very hard for and did not receive, but the footprints felt like a consolation prize. The lake was calm, and the air had that particular northern New Hampshire quality of being completely removed from everything.
And then the eclipse started.
There is something that happens during totality that no photograph fully prepares you for. The light goes wrong before it goes dark, that eerie dimming that makes your brain signal that something is off before your eyes have fully processed what is happening. And then the moon slides fully in front of the sun, and the sky goes a deep twilight blue in the middle of the afternoon, and everyone around you goes quiet at the same time. We were strangers sharing a patch of northern New Hampshire lakefront, and for a few minutes, we were all just looking up together, unified by the same thing happening above all of us. It was one of those moments that stays with you.
I got some photos I am genuinely proud of. The eclipse is a technically challenging thing to photograph, and I will not pretend I had everything perfectly dialed in, but the shots captured the feeling of the day, and that is what I wanted.
And then we got in the car to drive home.
We left Connecticut Lakes around 3:45 in the afternoon. We arrived home at 5:45 in the morning. That is over 12 hours for a drive that normally takes 4 to 5. We ate cold leftover pizza. We listened to a police scanner for entertainment because that is what you do when you have been in a car for eight hours, and options are limited. We almost witnessed a fight at a rest stop. We did not see a moose despite my continued efforts at manifesting.
Do we have regrets? Possibly. Would we do it again? Also possibly. The eclipse was worth it in the way that things are worth it when they are genuinely once in a lifetime — not comfortable, not convenient, but completely worth every cold slice of pizza and every hour of sitting still on a New Hampshire highway at midnight surrounded by everyone else who had also chased the same thing and was now collectively paying the price.
Total Eclipse of the Heart was on the playlist the whole way home. It felt right.
