One year ago today, I got to experience something truly awe-inspiring: a solar eclipse in totality.

About 3 weeks beforehand, my sister had the idea to take a trip into the path of totality to see the total solar eclipse. I’m always down to take a long weekend, so I obviously agreed and we started planning.

Over the next couple weeks, I got approved for the time off from work, picked up 2 pairs of free eclipse glasses from Warby Parker, packed a weekend bag, and got on the road the Friday before.

First stop was getting to my parents’ house in CT, which is about 3.5hrs from me in Philly. We hung out over the weekend and spent some time finalizing where the two of us would be going that Monday. I realized that the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Burlington, VT was within the path of totality, and ice cream during an eclipse sounded like a great idea, so we locked in our destination.

We finished packing our day bags the night before and at 5:30 Monday morning, loaded the car and got on the road. It was only about a 3hr drive to VT, so we made it there around 8:30am. Ben & Jerry’s didn’t open until about 10am, but we found a cute gift shop across the street and stopped there.

My sister’s friend was meeting us in VT so we met up at the gift store while shopping. We chatted with the owner, picked up souvenirs, and bought commemorative shirts they printed right in front of us – and they’re glow in the dark!

I’ve been wanting to visit Ben & Jerry’s and take a factory tour for years. Sadly there were no tours being offered this day so that their staff could also enjoy totality (I love that they look out for their employees). Thankfully they allowed people to tailgate in the parking lot and hang out on the park grounds for the day.

After a quick trip to the grocery store down the street for sandwich stuff and more snacks, we came back to the lot and got comfy. The temperature had warmed up quite a bit and it felt like a nice summer day. It was such a fun vibe hanging out eating ice cream and laughing with strangers, all counting down until this cosmic event. We walked around the grounds to see the flavor graveyard, the huge ingredient storage tanks, the picnic site out back, and of course stopped at the gift shop for more souvenirs.

The eclipse started moving around 2pm, and we kept looking through our glasses every now and then to see the sun being slowly covered up. As time got closer, we decided to leave the parking lot and head back up towards the park site. Being so high up on a mountain, the view was spectacular even before totality.

Countdown hours turned to minutes and there was a tangible buzz in the air; everyone was getting more and more excited for what was to come. I knew it would be cool but I was honestly a little nervous since I didn’t know what to expect. I had seen the last solar eclipse in 2017 but not in totality, just a partial view through a makeshift cardboard box viewer.

Nature let us know how close we were before we could check the time. The sky went from the bright sunny blue of 3pm to the darkness of dusk in minutes. The warm temperature that had us wearing just t-shirts dropped dramatically, making us put our jackets back on. Birds had stopped chirping in the distance, and the whole space got eerily quiet.

Minutes turned to seconds, and the crowd counted down from 10. Looking through our glasses at 3:26pm, we watched the sun go from the tiniest sliver of light to absolute nothingness. I heard cheers, screams, and laughs all around me and felt butterflies in my chest. I remember reading that during totality it would be safe to look without glasses, so I took mine off and got full body chills at what I saw.

I genuinely don’t think there are strong enough words to describe the pure beauty of totality. I audibly gasped at the view in front of me. Realizing my sister still had her glasses on, I tapped her and basically yelled “take off your glasses!” Once she did, she was literally taken aback, gasping and damn near losing her balance at the sight.

It was almost scary at first because the sun/moon looked SO DAMN CLOSE. It felt like I could reach out and hold it like a beach ball right in front of my face. There was an ethereal glowing ring in the sky, the purest most blue-white light slightly dancing in a circle around the darkness of the moon’s shadow, little flares spraying off the sides in bursts.

I made sure to take some pictures and video, but I really wanted to take it in with my eyes and not through a camera lens. For 3 full minutes, all we could do was stand there in pure awe, giggling and in total shock at what we were witnessing.

I’m not exaggerating when I say it was a spiritual experience for me. It made me feel so unbelievably small on this planet, but also like I truly understood how big the universe really is. It’s one thing to learn about the cosmos in science class, it’s another thing to experience it firsthand.

Honestly, I totally get how ancient civilizations might think the world was ending if they had no understanding of what was happening. People worshipping the sun/ moon after seeing these enormous cosmic beings dancing together in the sky makes complete sense.

Before we knew it, the glowing ring started to get brighter and brighter. I put my glasses back on and started to see a sliver of sunlight on the opposite side of the circle. The crowd cheered, the sky lightened, the temperature started to rise, birds start to chirp again, and it was all over.

I truly felt like I had been touched by something divine. I know it might sound silly because it’s just a big rock and a ball of hot gas lined up in the sky lol but there’s no other way I can describe the high I felt afterwards.

We made our way back to the car, said bye to my sister’s friend, and started the trek back home. The 3 hour drive up was the easy part: it took EIGHT FULL HOURS to get back to CT. Sitting in traffic the entire drive, it didn’t let up at any point. It seemed like everyone in the world was on I-95 at the same time as us. We hadn’t planned to stay the night afterwards, and everywhere along the way was sold out (or stupid price hiked), so we had to push through and keep driving.

Leaving VT at around 4pm, we didn’t get back to CT until almost midnight. Our parents had waited up for us to get home safely and once we got in the house, we just word vomited about everything we just experienced lol.

Driving over 11 hours in one day was infinitely worth it, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat for an experience like that. I’m literally tearing up while writing this just thinking about what I saw that day. I’m so grateful that my sister had the idea to go into totality, and that we decided to do it.

Over the last year, I’ve been buying more lunar and celestial decor and even planning a new tattoo as just one more souvenir from that day. Not like I need a reminder, that eclipse is something I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. If you see more moon stuff in the background of my pics/videos, now you know the story behind it.