Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations
Traveling America's backroads, history and road trip enthusiasts - Noah and Noodles - unearth fascinating locations overlooked while traveling.
Living out of a van, they research and visit each story location to share the (often shocking) secrets held within.
If you love travel, history and thoughtful storytelling - join us on the road!
Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations
Van Life Diaries - Understanding Solar and Lunar Eclipses
How much do we REALLY know about eclipses?
My answer one year ago would have been - not much.
-
To amend this, my dog and I witness a total solar eclipse and - nearly a year later - a lunar eclipse in Southern Florida.
We use each experience to explore the profound cultural, historical and scientific significance of eclipses.
Sit back, relax and join our venture into cosmic happenings well beyond the walls of our small van ...
Listener questions at the end of the episode include:
- If you found a large diamond in Arkansas - what would you do with the money?
- Did it take you a long time to understand your van’s electric system?
- Will your show be coming to YouTube?
- Can we get an updated Audiobook recommendation episode?
- How long in general does it take you to research an episode?
Works Cited:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/178278?read-now=1&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/4130201?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.history.com/articles/solar-lunar-eclipses
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/LEhistory/LEhistory.html
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/eclipse-maps-halley-18th-century-astronomy
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Johannes-Kepler
https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/SE1601-1700.html
https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/history/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231012-how-solar-eclipses-have-shaped-history
https://science.nasa.gov/eclipses/geometry/
https://www.planetary.org/worlds/pale-blue-dot
https://www.astronomy.com/science/a-history-of-solar-eclipses/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTxz_d2q7Js
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idlq8zCrUkY
Noah and Noodles here!
We want to extend a heartfelt thanks to every listener of Backroad Odyssey.
Your support fuels our passion and inspires us to keep sharing stories and discover overlooked locations.
Follow each adventure visually at:
https://www.instagram.com/backroadsodyssey/
Cruising down the street. I wonder where this road would lead. So many possibilities. Care to share what you think. Oh, noodle Dolls, what do you see? Back Road, odyssey Road, odyssey.
Speaker 1:April 8th 2024, 3.16pm. Upstate New York. A shadow covers the once vibrant forest. Birds sound their confusion as warmth leaves the air. The sun in the sky is gone. In its place, a void. Faint wisps of light encircle the darkness. Totality is here.
Speaker 1:March 14th 2025, 2.26 am. Southern Florida. The night is quiet. Passing clouds briefly darken the brilliant silver of the moon. With each cloud's passing, the moon's color changes. Its light dims. When a particularly large cloud passes, a blood-red moon is revealed. A silent eclipse shows itself to a crowd of one.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Van Life Diaries. I'm your host, noah, joined as always by my dog and co-host, noodles the Woodle. If you've been with the show, welcome back. If you're new here, welcome. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1:This episode is a year in the making. Noodles and I record ourselves during a total solar eclipse in upstate New York and again nearly a year later, during an early morning lunar eclipse in southern Florida. We'll be answering listener questions at the end of the episode, as always, but for now let's dive right in. We all know, an eclipse is a shadow cast by celestial bodies. The moon passes in front of the sun, the earth passes in front of the moon. But let's go deeper. What really are eclipses, historically, culturally, scientifically, and why do they demand our attention? These are questions we'll ask and answer in this week's celestial episode of Van Life Diaries.
Speaker 1:I'm drinking a proper stout tonight Felt appropriate, as we'll be discussing eclipses and space, among other things. Feel free to join me, alcoholic or not. Otherwise, sit back, relax and join our exploration into cosmic happenings well beyond the walls of our small van. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home. That's home. That's us On it. Everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you've ever heard of every human being who ever was lived out their lives, the aggregate of all our joy and suffering. Thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species. Lived there, on a moat of dust, suspended in a sunbeam Carl Sagan, pale Blue Dot 1994. It is April 7th 2024. We're driving to our chosen campsite in northeastern New York right now.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow is what's being referred to as the Great American Eclipse. Totality will start at Mexico's Pacific coast in the morning, then make its way northeast across the US towards Noodle and I, above our chosen secret, possibly illegal campsite, around 3 pm or so. I do not know what to expect. I genuinely don't. But today, now, modernly, we can predict eclipses. We know what they are. I'll be in awe and I'll be impressed, I assume, but I'll be calm because I know what it is. It's the moon passing in front of the sun. But imagine for a second, just imagine historically, minding your own business, living your life, and the sun disappears. No, thank you, I'd find myth, I'd find religion so fast. And this is actually where I'd like to start today. And this is actually where I'd like to start today.
Speaker 1:Way back when the sun and the moon were entities and pantheons and characters and stories, the understandable awe and confusion at the sun's disappearance, at the moon's change in color, had to produce reasons for its happening. Here's my question now Culturally, historically, what explanations existed for the complete reversal of what seemed to be the natural order of things. Nothing in the world can surprise me now, for Zeus, the father of the Olympians, has turned midday into black night by shielding light from the blossoming sun, and now dark terror hangs over mankind. Anything may happen. A Greek poet's comment on an eclipse over the Greek island of Peros, 7th century BC.
Speaker 1:Throughout history, from ancient Greece to Mesoamerica, china, india and beyond, eclipses have displayed the grandiose nature of reality. Today they largely inspire wonder, reflection, a light reconsidering of our place in the universe. But for most of our time on this planet, wherever your location, whatever the time, the disappearance of the sun, the reddening of the moon have only been met with one emotion Fear. The sun has been eaten. A description of an eclipse recorded on oxen shoulder blades and tortoise shells in Anyang, china, 1200 BC. In ancient China, eclipses occur when a celestial dragon devours the sun. Only the persistent banging of drums, the shouts of desperation would scare away the dragon would bring back the light. Chalk Tall Legend tells of a mischievous black squirrel who's gnawing at the sun causes the dampening of its light. The ancient Batamabila of Western Africa believed that human anger and fight spread to the sun and the moon, who then begin to fight with each other, causing an eclipse.
Speaker 1:Hindu stories tell of a cunning demon named Rahu. Hindu stories tell of a cunning demon named Rahu. Rahu's greatest desire in the world is to find and to drink the forbidden nectar of the gods. One drop of this golden liquid grants its drinker mortality. After years of waiting, of skulking about, the devious Rahu spots an opportunity. During a lavish banquet held for the gods, rahu, in disguise, manages to steal one brief sip of the cherished nectar, only one sip Before the divine liquid reaches his stomach. Vishnu catches the cunning Rahu in the act and promptly decapitates the demon's head. The liquid then never reaches below his throat, granting only Rahu's throat and head the immortality that he so desperately sought, the immortality that he so desperately sought. Today, it's said, the now deathless head flies across the cosmos in perpetual pursuit of the sun. Sometimes the still devious Rahu manages to catch the sun and to consume it, but because he has no throat. But because he has no throat, the sun, along with its light, returns after a brief absence.
Speaker 1:Wherever you go, whatever story you listen to, the fear of uncertainty drives most explanations of unexplainable events To tell a story that provides reasoning for its occurrence. This lessens that fear, that fear of uncertainty, and so a headless demon eating the sun beats no explanation at all. I'm here in southern Florida waiting for the lunar eclipse. It's 1.50 am. You've got maybe 30 minutes until the moon is entirely within Earth's shadow. The entire night side of the Earth will be able to see a red moon tonight. That's how expansive it is. And right away I'll say there's not the buildup, the anticipation that definitely was there for the solar eclipse almost a year ago.
Speaker 1:Today Lunar eclipses are often overlooked, but throughout history, both solar and lunar eclipses have been seen as omens, as signs, and sometimes these signs, these omens, changed the entire course of history. A total solar eclipse in 585 BCE occurred during a battle between the kingdoms of Lydia and Medea. This leads both armies to lay down their arms and a quick declared truce ensues. Later, greek historian Herodotus writes, quote Quote well, cleombrotus was offering sacrifice to know if he should march out against the Persians. The sun was suddenly darkened in mid sky End. Quote this apparent eclipse convinced Spartan forces to order a full retreat away from the Persians in 480 BCE, not long after an Athenian naval fleet invading Syracuse was delayed by the onset of a lunar eclipse in 413 BCE. This delay leads to a cataclysmic desolation of the Athenian naval fleet and ultimately leads to Athens' fall from greatness. The moon was as if it had been sprinkled with blood A report in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle referring to a 734 lunar eclipse.
Speaker 1:Still setting up my camera to photograph the moon, let's start with this right now. Humans in general are remarkably adept at noticing patterns, and when something's as frequent as a lunar eclipse, patterns begin to emerge, you notice occurrences, similarities in the night sky. Notice occurrences, similarities in the night sky. Eventually, something as random as a lunar or solar eclipse becomes predictable because you pay attention. And this started to happen earlier than you might think. Thousands of years ago, during nights much like tonight, people would sit and make quiet observations underneath a blood red moon.
Speaker 1:In ancient Babylon, lunar eclipses are seen as a bad omen for its king. Woe be the ruler of Babylon during the hours of an eclipse. To avoid this dark omen, the ruling class throws vast amounts of time and resources into the study of the moon, its tendencies, its patterns in time. Methods are meticulously made to successfully predict when the moon will turn red. Predict when the moon will turn red, unlocking the very important knowledge of well knowing when, to avoid being a ruler. When the next eclipse came, which the kings and courts of Babylon could now predict, a puppet ruler would briefly rule during the hours of the eclipse. When normalcy returns to the moon, as the true ruler, you simply dispose of your decoy king and return to the throne. No bad omen to taint your rule. If nothing else, remember the following the need to avoid omens tarnishing the reputation of the powerful leads to meticulous observation of the sky, which is followed by a multi-generational recognition of patterns in that sky and in time.
Speaker 1:This predictive power doesn't stop at the moon. The lunar patterns recorded within the walls of Babylon would, in part, forge the path towards predicting and understanding the much, much more rare phenomenon of total solar eclipses. The moon becomes the key to understanding the sun. Astronomers are greatly disappointed when, having traveled halfway around the world to see an eclipse. Clouds prevent a sight of it, and yet a sense of relief accompanies the disappointment.
Speaker 1:Simon Newcomb, canadian-american astronomer, it's April 8th, the day of the total solar eclipse. We're at our campsite, the sky is clear, we've got two hours until totality. We picked a spot in the forest, away from anyone. A small creek is nearby, the birds are chirping right now. Couldn't be a better setup. Here's my question when it comes to solar eclipses. In the past, how could anyone have predicted such a rare event? The landmass that a solar eclipse, a total solar eclipse, covers is so minuscule. It happens so infrequently. How could they predict it without telescopes, without much else, back in Babylon?
Speaker 1:The relative consistency of lunar eclipses lead to the development of a sophisticated lunar calendar defining what's now called the Saros Cycles. Saros Cycles are, when most simply put, repetitious patterns, where our celestial geometry resets. Every 18 years-ish. Give or take, the moon will be in the same place relative to the positioning of the sun and the earth. You might ask, and I did why isn't there only one lunar eclipse every 18 years? Then we see lunar eclipses all the time, and that's because there's more than one Saros cycle. Multiple cycles are happening simultaneously, but each cycle and this is important has a predictable pattern. Let's say you see a lunar eclipse one night at 18 years old. At 32 years old, you can expect to see roughly the same eclipse, cosmically speaking. Most fascinatingly though, once you figure out the math for these lunar Saros cycles, that same math can be applied to predict patterns in solar eclipses. A cosmic pattern exists for the sun and the moon. It's this cosmic clockwork, these Saros cycles, that open the door to further scientific observations of eclipses, further discoveries. When you know exactly when and where something will be, it can be studied, it can be understood. Eventually, the demon eating the sun loses some of its allure. They will see that there is nothing in it more than a natural process and no more than the necessary result of the motions of the sun and the moon.
Speaker 1:Edmund Halley, by the 1600s, astronomers create books with diagrams explaining exactly how lunar and solar eclipses occur Movement and shadow, nothing more. From here out, the prediction of eclipses become more and more precise, precise. In 1715 AD. Edmund Halley publishes a map predicting almost exactly the time and path of a coming solar eclipse. This detailed map that he creates shows the near exact path across England of the totality. He correctly predicts the time of the eclipse only being around 4 minutes off and 20 miles off center. German astronomer Johannes Kepler, his laws of planetary motion, isaac Newton's laws of universal gravitation, brilliant minds all across the board begin to contribute to understanding of eclipses More and more.
Speaker 1:When you look up at the darkening sun or the moon's, silver turns red. The sight is meant with understanding, with awe, with wonder, not fear. Okay, everyone, literally seconds away from totality here I'll try my best to keep up. Shadows in the forest formed crescent shapes on the ground, mimicking the shape of the approaching moon. Birds started to quiet down for a little bit. It's as if someone put kind of a dimmer on the sun. It keeps getting darker, it keeps getting colder. Obviously, you can't see the eclipse.
Speaker 1:Totality, totality, wow, genuinely wow. The sky is dark, the sun is corona. It's kind of whispering outwards. It's a different color. Skies dark, the sun's corona, just kind of whispering outwards. It's a different color. It's not like a normal, it's like a. The quality of it it's different. It's a white light. It's hard to describe. All around 360 degrees, sunset Looks like a sunset. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm speechless. I just kind of want to. I might just enjoy this, if you guys are okay with that.
Speaker 1:Wow, in preceding centuries we've discovered that, even though the sun is around 400 times larger than the moon in diameter, it's roughly 400 times further away from Earth. This unlikely cosmic fluke makes both the sun and moon appear the same size in our sky. That's why our eclipse, more than any other eclipse in the universe, is so unique. We also can predict eclipses the exact path, the exact time, the exact location hundreds of years in the future. We know that solar eclipses will come to an end eventually, but not for another 600,000 million years from now, as the Earth's rotation, as the Moon, continues to fall away from the Earth. So we have time. But interestingly, just as the Moon's movements helped predict solar eclipses, solar eclipses now help our further understanding of our place in the world. Further understanding of our place in the world.
Speaker 1:In 1868, french astronomer Pierre Jensen observed the spectrum of the sun during a total eclipse in India. A bright yellow line appears in his reading of the sun's chromosphere and lo and behold, a yet undiscovered element is discovered Helium enters the jet During a total solar eclipse. In May 1919, sir Arthur Eddington uses the eclipse to prove Einstein's prediction that light is warped in the gravitational fields of larger celestial objects. To accomplish this, he photographs stars near the sun during totality, later noticing the stars appear to be shifted slightly away from their original positions. So gravity from then on bends light rays. Space-time is born of an eclipse.
Speaker 1:The point is this Even though the crafted stories explaining the sun's disappearance are no longer used widely, the importance and relevance of a passing eclipse cannot be overstated. There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. George Carlin, here we are a year after the solar eclipse. The moon's getting dimmer, more red as we speak. Definitively less eventful than the solar eclipse, less noticeable, but I think and hear me out that's what's so endearing about the less sought after but equally important twin of the eclipses.
Speaker 1:Lunar eclipses happen more often. Half the world can see it. It's not as dramatic. But if you take the time to stop, to observe something that's overlooked, to consider its history, its importance, it becomes just as grand as a solar eclipse Might be pushing it. But the point is this Notice overlooked things and they become special.
Speaker 1:On April 8th 2024, at 3.16pm in upstate New York, the immortal head of a demon ate the sun. Also, the moon cast its shadow over the earth. On March 14th 2025, at 2.26 am in southern Florida, a bad omen lit up the sky with blood-red intensity. Also, the moon passed through earth's shadow. Both explanations for both uncommon events express one thing it expresses humanity's deep desire to explore and to understand the world around us, to understand our place in this vast universe. The delicate celestial dance between the earth, the moon and our sun forces us to re-examine our place in the universe. And, in the end, whether the sun's being eaten or blocked by the moon, what's reaffirmed by an eclipse is that the permanence of our situation isn't, and has never been, as solid as we might assume. Our only obligation, then, as humans floating on a rock through space, is to enjoy the passing view.
Speaker 1:With all of that said, let's get to listener questions. If you found a large diamond in Arkansas, what would you do with the money? A great question right off the bat. This is in reference to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, where you can publicly go, pay $14, $15 and look for diamonds, noodles and I went, did an episode on it, didn't find anything. But if we did answer this question, the first thing that comes to mind is get another battery for the van and get more watt capacity for my solar panels so I can off road a little easier. That's the first thing that comes to mind. Just the convenience of that is nice. I have to always pay attention to the energy that I'm using and I'd like to do that a little less. I'd sell the diamond I find in Arkansas and do that probably. Thanks for the question. This is rather relevant to the question I just answered Did it take you a long time to understand your van's electric system?
Speaker 1:You know it did, and longer than most. Really. I'm not a handy person, naturally, but living in a van, being in a van, I think you really have to buck her down and figure out how everything works. I think you really have to buck her down and figure out how everything works, you know, and with electricity, you have to take into consideration where you are in the nation, how much sunlight you're getting. A lot of times I'm actually in cities, so it's hard. I do have a generator so I can run that, but I can't do it if I'm staying at a cracker barrel or anything like that, really. So yeah, understanding amps and volts and watts and what I can use, what I can't use, how I get work done using the electricity that I have, it really really took a long time. You know, you get used to it and it makes you a more handy person to, like. I said, just buck her down and get it done, and that's what I did. Just buck her down and get it done, and that's what I did.
Speaker 1:Will your show be coming to YouTube? Yeah, yeah, I'm recording a lot as we speak to dump it on bulk on YouTube and to kind of make the workload. So I don't have to lessen the quality of the podcast, because there's a lot of research that goes into into the podcast and I don't want to lessen the show and what you get out of it, so so I want to make sure it's sustainable in that way. But yes, yeah, yeah, that's the plan. Can we get an updated audio book recommendation episode? Great, yeah. So this is in reference to a van life diaries a bit ago where I recommended audio books because I drive a lot, because I'm by myself with noodles, of course, I listened to a lot of podcasts and audio books, so I recommended audio books and I'd be glad to do that again. Yeah, as many times as you want, that's all I do. So great question. Yeah, as many times as you want, that's all I do. So great question.
Speaker 1:Last question for the day how long in general does it take you to research an episode? Wow, it really depends on the episode. To be honest, if it's an episode where I have to fill in a lot of the blanks the Civil War series, for instance, the World War II series, historical things where there's a certain sense of objectivity, take longer because I want to make sure that I get it right. So I read different opinions. There's a certain sense of possible confirmation bias with shows like this sometimes, where you know if you're looking to tell a certain story, you can just look it up online and craft a story from that, and that's not what I want to do at all. So with heavy historical episodes, I want to make sure that I get it right and I want to make sure that I'm not just trying to tell what I think the story should be. I want to tell what the story is.
Speaker 1:Those are what take the longest, but how long in general, if weeks for those? Yeah, a long time it's. It's just, uh, you know, hours in a day while I'm completing other episodes, and and. But it's rewarding work too, you know, and, and I enjoy it while I'm completing other episodes, but it's rewarding work too, you know, and I enjoy it. I'm fascinated by it and I hope you are too, but it does take a very long time, not counting going to the actual location, all the editing and all that, just the research. So, yeah, the long-winded answer to that great question.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's Noah here. I hope you enjoyed this week's Van Life Diaries. Yeah, so the Great American Eclipse had I'm looking at something here 12 million people already living the path of totality. This is April of 2024 when Noodles and I went to upstate New York and an estimated 220 million were within 500 miles of the eclipse path. 14 states are in the totality zone, so the amount of people that were going into this small section of the country was pretty wild and the remoteness of where Noodles and I had to go kind of reflected that.
Speaker 1:In terms of going to eclipses, future eclipses, which I think you should, especially after listening to this episode, I hope the next total solar eclipse with a coast-to-coast path spanning the lower 48 states of the US will occur August 12, 2045. Occur August 12th, 2045. And genuinely, if you get the chance, look back on this 20 years from now 2045. And remember that, even if it's difficult to get there, make it a priority to go and see a solar eclipse, please. With that said, if you appreciate the work that we put into each episode, the research that goes into it, one way that you can help us continue to grow, to put more research in, to get the show better, is to rate and review wherever you're listening. Now, if you subscribe as well, it will drop right into your podcast feed. And with all of that said, you know what I'm about to say. We're two. Next, be good to each other.
