Anticipating hectic traffic and poor student attendance, schools in Canton, Texas, pop. 4,229, were among the areas in East Texas closed Monday due to the solar eclipse. Bluebonnet and Indian paintbrush bloomed along Interstate 20, where signs warned visitors to “ARRIVE EARLY, STAY IN, LEAVE LATE.”
The city, about 60 miles east of Dallas, is accustomed to influxes of crowds for a sprawling monthly shopping event billed as the world’s largest flea market.
Canton purchased 7,000 custom eclipse glasses for a partial eclipse last fall and today’s total solar eclipse, which he began planning several years ago. But Monday’s forecast was for heavy clouds, and some maps showed a chance of hail or tornadoes.
Brent and Jamie Driggers had driven to Texas from Hillsboro, Kan., a rural area about an hour’s drive north of Wichita. Mrs. Driggers wore a T-shirt to commemorate the family’s trip to Nebraska to see the total eclipse of 2017. She had been drawn to the eclipse out of scientific curiosity, she said. But it was a more profound communal experience than she expected, prompting her to seek it out again.
“It got dark and there was an air intake,” he recalls. “I hope we’ll feel that community spirit.”
In the end, only a few dozen visitors, and about an equal number of city officials, had gathered on the grass around the civic center by noon. Families rolled out camping chairs, unpacked picnics and set up cameras to capture the event if they were lucky.
“It’s just crazy stupid,” said Don Kelly, a retired police officer who traveled from Baton Rouge, La., with his wife, Donna. “There are no concessions for any number of years. It’s now or never for some of us.”
Edgar Peréz kept his son Evan, 13, and daughter Ariana, 6, home from school to experience the eclipse. He hoped they would recognize “the heavenly side of things,” he said.
“We are just a small part of the universe,” he added.
Children scooped colorful ice cream out of plastic foam cups and gazed up at the cloudy sky.
Around 12:30 the clouds parted. The moon came before the sun. “It begins, it begins!” someone shouted. The clouds covered the sun again and then parted again, again and again.
Meg Veitch, a geologist in Alabama, met her parents, Chris and Jim Veitch, who traveled from Berkeley, California. She wore a dress with a solar system pattern and checked her camera that she had propped up and covered with an $8 telescope cover in hopes of capturing the moment. As the sky darkened, the family brought out a round cake decorated like a cloudy, dark sky and quietly sang “Happy Birthday” to Chris.
At 1:41 p.m., the sky darkened. There was silence, then cheers as the clouds parted again to reveal the spectacular sight of the moon perfectly centered in front of the sun. Then silence again.
“It’s one of the longest and shortest moments of your life,” said Meg Veitch.
Mr. Kelly then walked slowly across the parking lot with a smile on his face. “I’ll have driven 12 hours and change for two seconds of eclipse,” he said. “I’d do it again tomorrow.”