A couple of weeks ago we road tripped west to see the eclipse.  The plan was to see it in Malakoff Texas.  This might seem like a lot of effort to go to, but I like the idea of setting off for nowhere special.  You at least begin with low expectations, which is important when planning a good time.  I was clear with myself that the success of the trip did not depend on actually seeing the eclipse.  That’s just the excuse for the trip.  If eclipse viewing happens, great, but who knows what else might happen that you didn’t even expect?  A somewhat open ended road trip across America, that’s the thing.

We spent a night in Nashville on the way with Jenny’s med school mate, Ruth, and husband Mike, except Mike was out of town working. Ruth’s daughter-in-law, Allie, and a young man named Adonai joined us for dinner with Ruth.  Adonai is a recent immigrant from Haiti.  Twenty years ago Ruth did medical missionary work there and met Adonai who was 8 at that time.  At that time he needed some orthopedic surgery so it was arranged that Adonai would come to the US and live with Ruth for his surgery and during the recovery.  Then he went back to Haiti.

Now fast-forward 20 years to the present.  Adonai, now 27, contacts Ruth from Haiti and asks her to sponsor him in the humanitarian parole program which is in place for Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans.  Adonai arrived for good in Nashville a few months ago and now lives with Ruth and Mike while he sorts out his life here.  He is learning English and working as a landscaper. He would like to be a dentist one day, completing studies he began in Haiti.

Adonai speaks Haitian Creole and French, which he learned at school.  I have been studying French, so I was interested and a little nervous to see if we could communicate in that language.  It turned out that Adonai preferred to speak French with me and Allie, than to converse in English.  It was hard for him to follow the fast moving English conversation at the table.  I was thrilled to be able to talk with him.  Allie also speaks some French so that was very fun.  Very, very fun.  You just don’t expect to bump into someone in Nashville who wants to speak French with you.

After that we went to Memphis where we stayed in the one-of-a-kind vacation rental of our friend Olivia.  Olivia has an artistic eye and loves folk art, that is to say, art of the people.  Her rental is a beautiful display of her collection gathered over many years of seeking out interesting people who make interesting things.  And there is a hot tub.  Really all y’all should spend a weekend in Memphis being tourists.  For goodness sake, go to Graceland like Paul Simon says.  Stare at the Mississippi River.  Walk the streets Faulkner walked for inspiration.  Drive down to Oxford to Faulkner’s house, the old buzzard.  Listen to some blues music like we did at the Railgarten.  And stay in Olivia’s folk art vacation rental.  

The second night in Memphis, Kris and John joined us and it was time to get serious about the eclipse.  Except Texas looked to be surprisingly cloudy, even stormy!  What the heck.  We reconsidered our plan.  The weather map showed that a window of clearness would open during eclipse time stretching from Paducah, KT southwest into Arkansas.  We decided to forgo Texas and just day trip to nowhere, Arkansas for the big event.  I love it when nowhere is the destination.

With Kris navigating, we crossed the bridge over the Mississippi to West Memphis(Listen to Lucinda Williams sing about West Memphis), then to Earle, AR, then Parkin, Wynne, we angled just north of Palestine, AR, then to Judson, Albion, just north of Rose Bud and Hopewell, finally through Pangburn and really finally to Heber Springs!

In Heber Springs we looked for a nice park for comfy viewing.  I voted for the town park but Jenny said let’s check out the park by the lake.  She was right.  It was perfect.  There were a couple of hundred people there playing in the water and waiting for the eclipse.  It was a huge area so not at all crowded.  

When the moment came and the moon began its path in front of the sun, it was not dramatic.  You can see the sun being eaten away by the moon through the dark glasses, but the light changes very gradually.  For 20 minutes or so, the sun slowly disappeared but the change in light was just barely noticeable.  

But then at the moment of totality, the change was very dramatic.  I felt like I could almost hear the moon click into place over the sun.  It became quite dark and 10 degrees colder.  Everybody was paying attention now.  Through the dark lenses I saw some stuff around the edges of the sun, but mostly I was afraid to stare at it.  And honestly it was scary and uncomfortable to me.  I wanted it to be over.  We had about 4 minutes of totality at Heber Springs.  We had perfect viewing conditions.  I had an irrational fear the moon might get stuck in front of the sun.

When the moon finally began to slip past the sun, very quickly the light returned to something like normal and …it was over.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

Have you read 3 Body Problem(by Liu Cixin from China) or watched some of it on Netflix?  My standard for a great book is it needs to change my life, or change how I think about something in a significant way.  The 3 Body Problem did that for me.  

Here are 2 facts that don’t seem to fit together:

  1. There are probably thousands(at least) of planets like Earth out there.  So it seems very probable that there are many planets with life.
  2. But we haven’t been able to detect even one signal from space that seems to have an intelligent origin.  

If the universe is full of life, why is it so quiet?  You might say the distances are too great for any communication, but in this case you might as well just say we are alone for all practical purposes.  Also there is no reason to think we are particularly advanced for a life form.  It seems reasonable that if there are thousands(at least) of inhabited planets, some of them would be very advanced.  Why don’t they contact us with their advanced technology?  Why don’t they send up a flare?  Read about the Fermi Paradox to consider this further.

The 3 Body Problem explains this with a bit of game theory called the Dark Forest hypothesis.  Basically the idea is that in a dark forest, it is best to be quiet.  To make yourself visible in the dark forest is to alert everyone else that you may be a dangerous predator, or a potential victim.  Therefore everyone remains quiet.  Those who don’t remain quiet, don’t last long.  It is not a happy hypothesis, but it does explain the facts.  

     3 Body Problem can be read as an allegory about the interaction of great powers on earth.  In the book it is the planet of Tri Solaris contesting with planet Earth.  But could Tri Solaris be a stand-in for China and Earth is the US?  Or is it the other way around and we of the US are the technologically advanced aliens coming to plunder Earth(China)?  Liu is clearly a fan of game theory and this book  changed how I think about relations between the US, China, and Russia.  He brings a very different(alien?) perspective to these questions.  I will never look at the sky(or the news) the same way again.