Now, you really shouldn’t work on vacation. However, it just so happened that some of the people I’ve worked closely with over the last 10 years, including my undergraduate advisor who started my Astronomy career by replying to an email I sent him in 2012, were all gathered in Teruel for a research conference. I was asked to speak at it, but well, we had these plans since the last eclipse.
Still, Bae and I decided to crash the conference for a day so that I could meet up with all of my old friends for a bit and cash in on a free lunch. The drive inland was quite interesting. First of all, we saw a pretty gnarly burn scar from one of the many fires Spain had in the weeks leading up to our trip:
Like the entire mountain burned down.
We also saw a griffon vulture flying high above us! We didn’t get a photo, sadly, but it was so cool to see one. Every once in a while, on the Tour de France or Vuelta a España broadcasts, the camera helicopters will zoom in on one. They are very cool birds.
Anyway, the science conference happened to occur at a special science museum on this day: https://www.cefca.es/galactica_en/general in a small village of Arco. The local police had already turned the entire town into a giant one way loop to prepare for the eclipse. I guess they were going to do a lot of eclipse events at this town, as it, too, was in totality. Here are some photos of the museum and local area:
Even though it was a long drive to a near-work thing while I was on vacation, it was SUPER great to see everyone! You make a lot of friends when trying to understand why the Universe is the way it is, and this day in Arco was a reminder of all the great relationships forged over the years.
After stealing some conference Tapas, we drove back to the VRBO in Alcossebre. A few of us hiked back up to the church ridge at sunset to 100% verify that the Sun would be visible at eclipse time the following day. Some photos from up there:
While we were waiting for the Sun to set, we saw several trains go by. I ended up taking a video of one, cuz why not:
After a long, but good day, we retired to prepare for the following day…Eclipse Day