Total Annular Eclipse of the Sun: Texas, October, 2023

National Park Unit Count: 68

Hey there Adventurers! I wrapped up my 2023 travels a little on the early side. The last trip of the year was to check out the total annular eclipse that crossed the United States on Saturday, October 14. The Sidekick and I made a long weekend of the event in central Texas!

The eclipse started in the US in Oregon and exited in southern Texas. The eclipse actually crossed several national parks, but those were all out west, and earlier in the day. Texas was not really on my list of places I had a desire to visit, but for this eclipse, Texas was ideal: close nonstop flight and a midday event. A note, first, about this eclipse. An annular eclipse is one where the moon is closer to the earth, meaning the sun is not completely covered. These eclipses are called “ring of fire” eclipses due to this fact: the moon is smaller than the disk of the sun, leaving a fiery edge around the entire moon. This type of eclipse happens more often than a total eclipse, though they are still a rare occurrence to witness on any given spot on the Earth. These eclipses also do not cause the darkness that is experienced with a total eclipse and you absolutely must use glasses and filters for your cameras throughout the entirety of the eclipse. I was able to see the great total eclipse in 2017, so I have now experienced both! I thought I had made a post about that one, but apparently I did not. I might do one eventually if I can dig up anything to post with!

We flew into Austin and hung out there for the day and night. We got in pretty early so we started out by a visiting scenic overlook on the outside of town called Mt. Bonnell. This is the highest spot in the city and overlooks the Colorado River about 700 feet below. The other direction gives nice views of downtown Austin. Austin is a really fun town, but it’s very loud. Our hotel was in the heart of downtown and the music was going full blast into the wee hours of the night. The upside is there is great jazz to be found! The Elephant Room is a great underground club with some awesome live jazz and should be checked out! Austin also has a famous downtown bridge known as the Bat Bridge. Technically, it’s Congress Ave Bridge, but Bat Bridge will do. During part of the year the bats will all come out from under the bridge around sunrise and put on a shown for the humans. October is part of their bridge season, but, unfortunately they no showed for us :/.

Austin was not in the path of totality, but San Antonio was, so the next morning we packed up and headed south. En route, we stopped by a Texas State Park called McKinney Falls State Park. We were just looking to see the dog/Bark Ranger situation at the Texas parks. This area is within Austin so it’s a nice, easily accessible spot for the city dwellers. There are supposedly some waterfalls here, but Texas had a very dry 2023, so there was very little water, and no falls to be found. After looking around a bit we continued on our way.

San Antonio is home to the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park. This NPS unit is a trail of old Spanish missions starting from outside downtown and ending at the famous Alamo in the heart of downtown San Antonio. San Antonio is also home to the Pearl Brewery. This is where we chose to watch the eclipse. The Brewery is defunct, but the entire complex has been repurposed into restaurants, a hotel, and a market space. The whole idea is very nicely done and a pretty big hotspot! More importantly, it has a large open courtyard with unimpeded views of the midday sky. 

We managed to set up a spot at the brwery a couple hours prior to the big event. At times the clouds threatened, but it ended up being a perfect spot and we got a perfect view of the eclipse! I had my phone with a solar filter and a tripod to take some shots. There is another big total eclipse in April, 2024, that will also be passing right through here! We are planning on coming back to Texas (kinda in the same area as well!) and this presented a good opportunity to practice with this set up. Anyway, the eclipse began around 10:30 or so and totality was just shy of noon. We viewed the great celestial show and then when it was over we packed up and headed to the missions. 

The visit to the missions was more of a short, just-stop-and-take-a-look-around visit. This site has a Bark Ranger program, so we wanted to stop by and talk Bark Ranger to the rangers and try to get some tags to take home. We started at Mission San Juan, the southern part of the unit. This area is a collection of smaller structures, in addition to the church, which is also on the small side. This is where we accomplished our Bark Ranger business. Next we headed up the road to where the visitor center is located, at Mission San Jose. This is a much larger church. We didn’t stay here very long as we had an hour and half or so drive to our overnight location and we still wanted to check out the Alamo. The Alamo was surprising to me. It is quite small and it is right smack dab in the middle of downtown. Also, unless I am mistaken, the site, while a component of the Spanish Missions, is not a part of the national park service. There is a ticket situation we didn’t want to fuss with and the area was super crowded so we headed on our way.

Our evening stay was in a small town called Wimberley. This town is somewhat out in the middle of nowhere about halfway between San Antonio and Austin. I only mention it because it is really quite a neat little place. Despite its small size and relative remoteness, it is surprisingly artsy with some really good restaurant and shopping options. There are also a lot of fun outdoor activities in the area. We were not here long enough for those experiences, but the places we had thought about checking out were mostly water features that the locals told us were not worth the effort due to the extremely dry conditions. They included Blue Hole Regional Park, Jacobs Well, and Cypress Falls. Maybe worth a visit if conditions are better! The following morning we got up and stopped at a really nice winery/brewery, Wimberley Valley Winery This is a great spot! In addition to wine, they also operate Lone Man Mountain Brewing Company. If you need some grub, they have a food truck that had some tasty pizza. And on top of all that they have donkeys and ponies you can feed! With our flight later that afternoon, this trip was a wrap with a successful eclipse viewing and a nice, surprising taste of a new area of the country here in the Austin/San Antonio corridor. Keeping fingers crossed for April, we will be traveling to Austin again to check out the total eclipse in Waco from the Waco Mammoth National Monument!

So, this trip ended the 2023 travel year. Upcoming, I have a couple Bark Ranger related posts and my 2023 round up. The 2024 travel year is looking exceptionally busy! The Sidekick and I have trips planned to Joshua Trip and Death Valley in March, the aforementioned total eclipse trip in April, a wedding to attend that will couple with a visit to Great Smoky Mountains National Park in May, Glacier National Park in June/July, and I am embarking on a solo trip to to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska in July, so stay tuned!