I had been planning for years to see the total eclipse; April 8, 2024. One year ago, I reserved a home in Fredericksburg, Texas, treating my son Garret, his wife, her father, and my 4 grandkids. We came in April 1st and left April 9th. I wanted a high elevation location to see the eclipse so I chose Cross Mountain on the outskirts of Fredericksburg. To pick up my weekly 3 cardio exercises I jogged from our house to Cross Mountain 3 times, April 3rd, 5th, and the day of the eclipse April 8th. I jogged, rather than hiked, 3 times because Cross Mountain is not much of a mountain by New Mexico standards. I was surprised that it was listed on the 3 websites that I log peaks. It is listed not because of size, but because it has a name. I had 6.3K, 5.6K and 5.3K runs. (3.9, 3.5, and 3.3 miles.) The elevation gain was about 250 feet. The day of eclipse was absolutely amazing! I had been praying that God would give a little glimpse of the eclipse because it appeared it would be totally cloudy. It felt like God opened the clouds just for me at the perfect time, and all of us on Cross Mountain were equally blessed. (See my YouTube video of the event.) I was with my son Garret, and 7-year-old grandson Alex and 13-year-old granddaughter Sophia. My son’s wife Becky, her father Danny and my other 2 grandkids, Luke age 11 and Natalia “Bunny” age 3 went back a day earlier for a dental appointment. I saw the 2017 total eclipse in Casper, Wyoming on a clear day. The darkness was much deeper in Fredericksburg with a shadow band of 120 miles compared to Casper’s 60-mile shadow band. Both eclipses were exciting, but the perfectly timed opening of the clouds made this extra exciting. We were in the best location possible. The eclipse maximum time was 4 minutes 28 seconds and our location was only 4 seconds shy of that. We traveled at the perfect time to see Texas’s beautiful wildflowers along the highways! We had a wonderful vacation together seeing the sites around Fredericksburg, the kids fished, and we playing board games most evenings.

See extra special total eclipse cloud opening on Cross Mountain, April 8, 2024 - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1TxzjMoLjU

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