Eclipse tourist: This York doctor travels far and wide to see the 'breathtaking' totality

In 1999, Chris Davis planned a European family vacation around a solar eclipse.

He had been interested in astronomy since he got a telescope for Christmas when he was about 7 years old. He got away from it while going to college and then medical school, but by the turn of the century, his interest was rekindled, and he wanted to witness a total eclipse of the sun. Among the best spots to see the celestial spectacle that year was in Munich, Germany.

They spent five days in Venice and then traveled to Munich for the eclipse. The day of the eclipse, Aug. 11, thousands of people gathered in a huge park in the city. A beer garden was doing a brisk business. It was a party atmosphere, the crowd giddy and terribly excited about being able to witness a total eclipse – darkness in the middle of the day.

The moon began obscuring the sun at 11:09 a.m., slowly covering the sun. Moments before it was to completely cover the sun, creating a glowing corona around the moon, clouds rolled in.

“It ended up being a bust,” Davis said. “Just five minutes before totality, here come the clouds.”

He would have to wait 18 years and 11 days to witness a total eclipse.

'A very intense experience'

Monday, April 8, should be a national holiday. That day marks the first total eclipse visible in the United States since 2017, an event that has been dubbed the Great North American Eclipse, or the Great American Total Eclipse, or, simply, the Great American Eclipse, by various media outlets. (It’s so great, it has three upper-case monikers.)

As Joe Biden once said about Obamacare, it’s a big (very bad word) deal.

For fans of eclipses, it’s a chance to view what Leonard Nimoy once described as a “cosmic ballet,” not far from home in central Pennsylvania. The partial eclipse can be viewed in much of the central part of the state, but to see totality, the full Monty, so to speak, in the state, you’d have to travel to Erie, or cross the state border into Ohio or upstate New York.

Eclipses have captured the human imagination since the dawn of humanity, contributing to the myth and spiritual life of civilizations that we now find ridiculous. (The feeling, one could imagine, would be mutual.)

An eclipse, said J.D. Stillwater, a former science teacher from Harrisburg who writes about the juxtaposition of science and spirituality and aims to make difficult concepts graspable for non-scientists, “was seen as a rare and unexpected event. For the day to go dark was very different and meaningful for them.”

In some west African cultures, eclipses were viewed as the sun and moon fighting one another and people had to settle old grudges to encourage peace between the celestial bodies. In ancient China, it was believed that a dragon chasing the moon consumed it, and by making lots of noise, it would convince the dragon to cough up the sun. ("It worked every time,” Stillwater said.)

Stillwater’s favorite ancient myth comes from Indian culture. Hindus believed that a cunning demon disguised as a woman snuck into a banquet of the gods to drink a nectar that would grant immortality. The demon was discovered and was beheaded, and its immortal head pursued the sun to eat it. Since the demon had no throat – or body, for that matter – the sun would reappear as it exited its severed neck.

The myths reinforce the notion that witnessing a total solar eclipse, although an astronomical phenomenon that can be explained, is "a visceral experience,” Stillwater said.

“It’s a very intense experience,” Stillwater said. “Your whole being feels that something intensely special is happening and you’re a part of it. It’s hard to put into words.”

'The most amazing thing I've ever seen'

Chris Davis grew up in Miami, but his family moved to York when he was in fourth grade – his father had accepted a residency in pathology at what was then known as Memorial Hospital, now UPMC Memorial.

He was interested in astronomy and, now 62, he came of age during the space race. He recalled that when he was in elementary school and there was an Apollo launch or moon landing, the teacher would wheel a TV into the classroom and the class would be able to watch about 10 minutes of it.

Davis wanted to see the whole thing, from the countdown to the coverage after the launch or landing, so every time something was happening with the space program, he would tell his mother he was sick so he could stay home and watch it for more than 10 minutes. He’d tell his mother, “Hey, there’s a launch on TV. Maybe we can watch it.” She never caught on, he said. “I was really into it at the time,” he said.

Life got in the way, and Davis's interest in astronomy and space waned. Then, in about 1995, he was driving home from work – he is an addiction physician and internist in York County – he looked to the sky and saw a comet. That year, the Hale-Bopp comet – the same comet that sparked the mass suicide of 39 members of the UFO cult Heaven’s Gate in San Diego – was streaking across the night sky, visible from earth without the aid of binoculars or a telescope. It fascinated Davis and soon, he acquired a new telescope and “started to get back into it,” he said.

And then he decided he wanted to see a total eclipse. He had seen some partial eclipses, but viewing the sun totally obscured by the moon was something he hadn’t experienced.

He came close in Munich – weather getting in the way – and soon made plans for the next eclipse that could be seen from a convenient location, one his family wouldn’t mind visiting. Solar eclipses occur every year, but some are visible only from far-flung venues, such as the middle of the Pacific Ocean or Antarctica, not exactly easy-to-get-to locations and certainly not places his family would agree to visit.

His chance came on Aug. 21, 2017. A total eclipse would be visible in the eastern United States. He chose Sweetwater, Tennessee, a town of about 6,000 in the southeastern corner of the state that was smack-dab in the middle of the path of coast-to-coast eclipse.

Sweetwater rolled out the red carpet for what had been billed as “The Great American Eclipse,” at least the great American one for that year. The town put up light-post banners and planned for a huge festival to attract the thousands of pilgrims seeking to experience totality. The town expected to attract 50,000 visitors.

It didn’t come close to that figure, but it was still impressive, Davis said. Thousands of people flocked to the small town. Vendors set up stands along the streets and in parking lots. Bands played. It was very festive.

Davis set up his telescope in a parking lot. A friend, Tom Rhomberg, a former patient who worked on printing presses, was going to be in Tennessee for work that week and joined Davis and his family.

Rhomberg, now 66 and semi-retired, caught the eclipse bug in the 1970s, when he was living in Chicago. He recalled fashioning a pinhole camera from a shoebox and watching the eclipse outside his brownstone in the city. (A friend signed his shoebox, “To Tommy, I’ll see you in 2017.” Rhomberg still has that signed piece of cardboard.)

Rhomberg had been interested in astronomy since high school. “I had a teacher who was into astronomy, and he would take students out onto the football field and turn off the lights and you could see the Milky Way and all that stuff,” he recalled. And astronomer/author/PBS documentary host Carl Sagan was a pop culture phenomena then and he watched his specials. “I was always interested in that stuff,” he said.

He'd had chances to see an eclipse, but circumstances, mostly weather, always got in the way.

In August 2017, he was working a job in Morristown, Tennessee, when he had a chance to meet up with Davis in Sweetwater. (Davis was his rehab doctor; Rhomberg has been in recovery for 19 years.)

“It worked out beautifully,” Rhomberg said. “Somebody else paid for my trip.”

The weather was perfect, and the eclipse was perfect. When it reached totality, Davis said, you could see the sun’s corona, glowing around the circumference of the moon. (It was unlike an annular eclipse, which occurs when the moon is at its farthest point from the earth and creates an effect called a “ring of fire,” a solid ring of light. And no, it was not the inspiration of the Johnny Cash hit “Ring of Fire,” written by his second wife June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore. Davis had the chance to see an annular eclipse in San Antonio in October 2023. “It’s not as impressive (as a total eclipse), he said.

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Totality began at 2:32 p.m. and lasted two minutes and 37 seconds. Rhomberg recalled that the birds acted strangely, chirping excitedly, as the moon blocked the sun. Davis said it was “an eerie feeling.” It was weird. When the sun sets, he said, you can see its glow in the western sky. During a total eclipse, he said, “that glow is all around you.”

“It was breathtaking,” he said. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

As they watched the eclipse, they got to see what’s known as “the tree effect,” an eclipse projected by the gaps between the leaves, creating a kind of repeating pattern of sickle-like images on the ground.

Rhomberg, for the event, made a pinhole camera out of a cardboard box for the event, homage to his first eclipse experience.

Hello, Cleveland, maybe?

For this year’s total eclipse, Davis and his family will travel to Lake George in upstate New York and drive to Lake Placid to be in the path of totality. Rhomberg has made flexible plans. He is either going to join his friend in New York or go to Ohio, depending on the weather forecast. He has reservations for both locales, in Syracuse and in Cleveland. “Cleveland is going all out for it,” Rhomberg said. If the weather fails him, he said, he could always use the trip to Cleveland to visit the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.

'The next adventure'

Davis is already thinking about his next eclipse vacation.

In August 2026, a total eclipse will be visible in Iceland and elsewhere. His wife, Carol, may balk at Iceland – they’ve already been there twice.

The path of totality, though, also crosses the eastern coast of Spain.

“She would go for Spain,” he said. “So that may be the next adventure.”

Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: York PA doctor travels far and wide to see the 'breathtaking' eclipses