Van Life Diaries - Understanding Solar and Lunar Eclipses - Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cruising down the street.
I wonder where this road wouldlead.
So many possibilities.
Care to share what you think.
Oh, noodle Dolls, what do yousee?
Back Road, odyssey Road,odyssey.

(00:27):
April 8th 2024, 3.16pm.
Upstate New York.
A shadow covers the oncevibrant forest.
Birds sound their confusion aswarmth leaves the air.
The sun in the sky is gone.

(00:48):
In its place, a void.
Faint wisps of light encirclethe darkness.
Totality is here.
March 14th 2025, 2.26 am.
Southern Florida.
The night is quiet.

(01:12):
Passing clouds briefly darkenthe brilliant silver of the moon
.
With each cloud's passing, themoon's color changes.
Its light dims.
When a particularly large cloudpasses, a blood-red moon is
revealed.
A silent eclipse shows itselfto a crowd of one.

(01:44):
Welcome to Van Life Diaries.
I'm your host, noah, joined asalways by my dog and co-host,
noodles the Woodle.
If you've been with the show,welcome back.
If you're new here, welcome.
Thanks for tuning in.
This episode is a year in themaking.
Noodles and I record ourselvesduring a total solar eclipse in

(02:05):
upstate New York and againnearly a year later, during an
early morning lunar eclipse insouthern Florida.
We'll be answering listenerquestions at the end of the
episode, as always, but for nowlet's dive right in.
We all know, an eclipse is ashadow cast by celestial bodies.

(02:32):
The moon passes in front of thesun, the earth passes in front
of the moon.
But let's go deeper.
What really are eclipses,historically, culturally,
scientifically, and why do theydemand our attention?
These are questions we'll askand answer in this week's

(02:53):
celestial episode of Van LifeDiaries.
I'm drinking a proper stouttonight Felt appropriate, as
we'll be discussing eclipses andspace, among other things.
Feel free to join me, alcoholicor not.
Otherwise, sit back, relax andjoin our exploration into cosmic

(03:17):
happenings well beyond thewalls of our small van.
Look again at that dot.
That's here, that's home.
That's home.
That's us On it.
Everyone you love, everyone youknow, everyone you've ever
heard of every human being whoever was lived out their lives,

(03:39):
the aggregate of all our joy andsuffering.
Thousands of confidentreligions, ideologies and
economic doctrines, every hunterand forager, every hero and
coward, every creator anddestroyer of civilization, every
king and peasant, every youngcouple in love, every mother and

(04:03):
father, hopeful child, inventorand explorer, every teacher of
morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme
leader, every saint and sinnerin the history of our species.
Lived there, on a moat of dust,suspended in a sunbeam Carl

(04:27):
Sagan, pale Blue Dot 1994.
It is April 7th 2024.
We're driving to our chosencampsite in northeastern New
York right now.
Tomorrow is what's beingreferred to as the Great
American Eclipse.
Totality will start at Mexico'sPacific coast in the morning,

(04:50):
then make its way northeastacross the US towards Noodle and
I, above our chosen secret,possibly illegal campsite,
around 3 pm or so.
I do not know what to expect.
I genuinely don't.
But today, now, modernly, wecan predict eclipses.
We know what they are.

(05:11):
I'll be in awe and I'll beimpressed, I assume, but I'll be
calm because I know what it is.
It's the moon passing in frontof the sun.
But imagine for a second, justimagine historically, minding
your own business, living yourlife, and the sun disappears.

(05:31):
No, thank you, I'd find myth,I'd find religion so fast.
And this is actually where I'dlike to start today.
And this is actually where I'dlike to start today.
Way back when the sun and themoon were entities and pantheons
and characters and stories, theunderstandable awe and

(05:59):
confusion at the sun'sdisappearance, at the moon's
change in color, had to producereasons for its happening.
Here's my question nowCulturally, historically, what
explanations existed for thecomplete reversal of what seemed

(06:19):
to be the natural order ofthings.
Nothing in the world cansurprise me now, for Zeus, the
father of the Olympians, hasturned midday into black night
by shielding light from theblossoming sun, and now dark
terror hangs over mankind.

(06:40):
Anything may happen.
A Greek poet's comment on aneclipse over the Greek island of
Peros, 7th century BC.
Throughout history, from ancientGreece to Mesoamerica, china,

(07:02):
india and beyond, eclipses havedisplayed the grandiose nature
of reality.
Today they largely inspirewonder, reflection, a light
reconsidering of our place inthe universe.
But for most of our time onthis planet, wherever your
location, whatever the time, thedisappearance of the sun, the

(07:26):
reddening of the moon have onlybeen met with one emotion Fear.
The sun has been eaten.
A description of an eclipserecorded on oxen shoulder blades
and tortoise shells in Anyang,china, 1200 BC.

(07:47):
In ancient China, eclipsesoccur when a celestial dragon
devours the sun.
Only the persistent banging ofdrums, the shouts of desperation
would scare away the dragonwould bring back the light.
Chalk Tall Legend tells of amischievous black squirrel who's

(08:13):
gnawing at the sun causes thedampening of its light.
The ancient Batamabila ofWestern Africa believed that
human anger and fight spread tothe sun and the moon, who then
begin to fight with each other,causing an eclipse.

(08:35):
Hindu stories tell of a cunningdemon named Rahu.
Hindu stories tell of a cunningdemon named Rahu.
Rahu's greatest desire in theworld is to find and to drink
the forbidden nectar of the gods.
One drop of this golden liquidgrants its drinker mortality.
After years of waiting, ofskulking about, the devious Rahu

(08:59):
spots an opportunity.
During a lavish banquet heldfor the gods, rahu, in disguise,
manages to steal one brief sipof the cherished nectar, only
one sip Before the divine liquidreaches his stomach.
Vishnu catches the cunning Rahuin the act and promptly

(09:21):
decapitates the demon's head.
The liquid then never reachesbelow his throat, granting only
Rahu's throat and head theimmortality that he so
desperately sought, theimmortality that he so
desperately sought.
Today, it's said, the nowdeathless head flies across the

(09:44):
cosmos in perpetual pursuit ofthe sun.
Sometimes the still deviousRahu manages to catch the sun
and to consume it, but becausehe has no throat.
But because he has no throat,the sun, along with its light,

(10:09):
returns after a brief absence.
Wherever you go, whatever storyyou listen to, the fear of
uncertainty drives mostexplanations of unexplainable
events To tell a story thatprovides reasoning for its
occurrence.
This lessens that fear, thatfear of uncertainty, and so a

(10:29):
headless demon eating the sunbeats no explanation at all.
I'm here in southern Floridawaiting for the lunar eclipse.
It's 1.50 am.
You've got maybe 30 minutesuntil the moon is entirely
within Earth's shadow.

(10:50):
The entire night side of theEarth will be able to see a red
moon tonight.
That's how expansive it is.
And right away I'll say there'snot the buildup, the
anticipation that definitely wasthere for the solar eclipse
almost a year ago.

(11:11):
Today Lunar eclipses are oftenoverlooked, but throughout
history, both solar and lunareclipses have been seen as omens
, as signs, and sometimes thesesigns, these omens, changed the

(11:31):
entire course of history.
A total solar eclipse in 585BCE occurred during a battle
between the kingdoms of Lydiaand Medea.
This leads both armies to laydown their arms and a quick
declared truce ensues.
Later, greek historianHerodotus writes, quote Quote

(11:55):
well, cleombrotus was offeringsacrifice to know if he should
march out against the Persians.
The sun was suddenly darkenedin mid sky End.
Quote this apparent eclipseconvinced Spartan forces to

(12:17):
order a full retreat away fromthe Persians in 480 BCE, not
long after an Athenian navalfleet invading Syracuse was
delayed by the onset of a lunareclipse in 413 BCE.
This delay leads to acataclysmic desolation of the
Athenian naval fleet andultimately leads to Athens' fall

(12:38):
from greatness.
The moon was as if it had beensprinkled with blood A report in
the Anglo-Saxon Chroniclereferring to a 734 lunar eclipse
.
Still setting up my camera tophotograph the moon, let's start

(12:58):
with this right now.
Humans in general areremarkably adept at noticing
patterns, and when something'sas frequent as a lunar eclipse,
patterns begin to emerge, younotice occurrences, similarities
in the night sky.

(13:19):
Notice occurrences,similarities in the night sky.
Eventually, something as randomas a lunar or solar eclipse
becomes predictable because youpay attention.
And this started to happenearlier than you might think.
Thousands of years ago, duringnights much like tonight, people
would sit and make quietobservations underneath a blood

(13:45):
red moon.
In ancient Babylon, lunareclipses are seen as a bad omen
for its king.
Woe be the ruler of Babylonduring the hours of an eclipse.
To avoid this dark omen, theruling class throws vast amounts
of time and resources into thestudy of the moon, its

(14:08):
tendencies, its patterns in time.
Methods are meticulously madeto successfully predict when the
moon will turn red.
Predict when the moon will turnred, unlocking the very
important knowledge of wellknowing when, to avoid being a
ruler.
When the next eclipse came,which the kings and courts of

(14:29):
Babylon could now predict, apuppet ruler would briefly rule
during the hours of the eclipse.
When normalcy returns to themoon, as the true ruler, you
simply dispose of your decoyking and return to the throne.
No bad omen to taint your rule.
If nothing else, remember thefollowing the need to avoid

(14:54):
omens tarnishing the reputationof the powerful leads to
meticulous observation of thesky, which is followed by a
multi-generational recognitionof patterns in that sky and in
time.
This predictive power doesn'tstop at the moon.

(15:16):
The lunar patterns recordedwithin the walls of Babylon
would, in part, forge the pathtowards predicting and
understanding the much, muchmore rare phenomenon of total
solar eclipses.
The moon becomes the key tounderstanding the sun.

(15:39):
Astronomers are greatlydisappointed when, having
traveled halfway around theworld to see an eclipse.
Clouds prevent a sight of it,and yet a sense of relief
accompanies the disappointment.
Simon Newcomb, canadian-americanastronomer, it's April 8th, the

(16:03):
day of the total solar eclipse.
We're at our campsite, the skyis clear, we've got two hours
until totality.
We picked a spot in the forest,away from anyone.
A small creek is nearby, thebirds are chirping right now.
Couldn't be a better setup.
Here's my question when itcomes to solar eclipses.

(16:26):
In the past, how could anyonehave predicted such a rare event
?
The landmass that a solareclipse, a total solar eclipse,
covers is so minuscule.
It happens so infrequently.

(16:48):
How could they predict itwithout telescopes, without much
else, back in Babylon?
The relative consistency oflunar eclipses lead to the

(17:08):
development of a sophisticatedlunar calendar defining what's
now called the Saros Cycles.
Saros Cycles are, when mostsimply put, repetitious patterns
, where our celestial geometryresets.
Every 18 years-ish.
Give or take, the moon will bein the same place relative to

(17:29):
the positioning of the sun andthe earth.
You might ask, and I did whyisn't there only one lunar
eclipse every 18 years?
Then we see lunar eclipses allthe time, and that's because
there's more than one Saroscycle.
Multiple cycles are happeningsimultaneously, but each cycle

(17:51):
and this is important has apredictable pattern.
Let's say you see a lunareclipse one night at 18 years
old.
At 32 years old, you can expectto see roughly the same eclipse
, cosmically speaking.
Most fascinatingly though, onceyou figure out the math for

(18:12):
these lunar Saros cycles, thatsame math can be applied to
predict patterns in solareclipses.
A cosmic pattern exists for thesun and the moon.
It's this cosmic clockwork,these Saros cycles, that open

(18:41):
the door to further scientificobservations of eclipses,
further discoveries.
When you know exactly when andwhere something will be, it can
be studied, it can be understood.
Eventually, the demon eatingthe sun loses some of its allure

(19:06):
.
They will see that there isnothing in it more than a
natural process and no more thanthe necessary result of the
motions of the sun and the moon.
Edmund Halley, by the 1600s,astronomers create books with
diagrams explaining exactly howlunar and solar eclipses occur
Movement and shadow, nothingmore.

(19:29):
From here out, the predictionof eclipses become more and more
precise, precise.
In 1715 AD.
Edmund Halley publishes a mappredicting almost exactly the
time and path of a coming solareclipse.
This detailed map that hecreates shows the near exact

(19:53):
path across England of thetotality.
He correctly predicts the timeof the eclipse only being around
4 minutes off and 20 miles offcenter.
German astronomer JohannesKepler, his laws of planetary
motion, isaac Newton's laws ofuniversal gravitation, brilliant

(20:16):
minds all across the boardbegin to contribute to
understanding of eclipses Moreand more.
When you look up at thedarkening sun or the moon's,
silver turns red.
The sight is meant withunderstanding, with awe, with

(20:37):
wonder, not fear.
Okay, everyone, literallyseconds away from totality here
I'll try my best to keep up.
Shadows in the forest formedcrescent shapes on the ground,

(20:57):
mimicking the shape of theapproaching moon.
Birds started to quiet down fora little bit.
It's as if someone put kind ofa dimmer on the sun.
It keeps getting darker, itkeeps getting colder.
Obviously, you can't see theeclipse.

(21:25):
Totality, totality, wow,genuinely wow.
The sky is dark, the sun iscorona.
It's kind of whisperingoutwards.
It's a different color.
Skies dark, the sun's corona,just kind of whispering outwards
.
It's a different color.
It's not like a normal, it'slike a.

(21:48):
The quality of it it'sdifferent.
It's a white light.
It's hard to describe.
All around 360 degrees, sunsetLooks like a sunset.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm speechless.
I just kind of want to.

(22:13):
I might just enjoy this, if youguys are okay with that.
Wow, in preceding centurieswe've discovered that, even
though the sun is around 400times larger than the moon in
diameter, it's roughly 400 timesfurther away from Earth.
This unlikely cosmic flukemakes both the sun and moon

(22:37):
appear the same size in our sky.
That's why our eclipse, morethan any other eclipse in the
universe, is so unique.
We also can predict eclipsesthe exact path, the exact time,
the exact location hundreds ofyears in the future.
We know that solar eclipseswill come to an end eventually,
but not for another 600,000million years from now, as the

(22:58):
Earth's rotation, as the Moon,continues to fall away from the
Earth.
So we have time.
But interestingly, just as theMoon's movements helped predict
solar eclipses, solar eclipsesnow help our further
understanding of our place inthe world.

(23:18):
Further understanding of ourplace in the world.
In 1868, french astronomerPierre Jensen observed the
spectrum of the sun during atotal eclipse in India.
A bright yellow line appears inhis reading of the sun's
chromosphere and lo and behold,a yet undiscovered element is

(23:41):
discovered Helium enters the jetDuring a total solar eclipse.
In May 1919, sir ArthurEddington uses the eclipse to
prove Einstein's prediction thatlight is warped in the
gravitational fields of largercelestial objects.
To accomplish this, hephotographs stars near the sun

(24:02):
during totality, later noticingthe stars appear to be shifted
slightly away from theiroriginal positions.
So gravity from then on bendslight rays.
Space-time is born of aneclipse.
The point is this Even thoughthe crafted stories explaining

(24:24):
the sun's disappearance are nolonger used widely, the
importance and relevance of apassing eclipse cannot be
overstated.
There are nights when thewolves are silent and only the
moon howls.
George Carlin, here we are ayear after the solar eclipse.

(24:48):
The moon's getting dimmer, morered as we speak.
Definitively less eventful thanthe solar eclipse, less
noticeable, but I think and hearme out that's what's so
endearing about the less soughtafter but equally important twin

(25:09):
of the eclipses.
Lunar eclipses happen more often.
Half the world can see it.
It's not as dramatic.
But if you take the time tostop, to observe something
that's overlooked, to considerits history, its importance, it
becomes just as grand as a solareclipse Might be pushing it.

(25:31):
But the point is this Noticeoverlooked things and they
become special.
On April 8th 2024, at 3.16pm inupstate New York, the immortal
head of a demon ate the sun.

(25:52):
Also, the moon cast its shadowover the earth.
On March 14th 2025, at 2.26 amin southern Florida, a bad omen
lit up the sky with blood-redintensity.
Also, the moon passed throughearth's shadow.
Both explanations for bothuncommon events express one

(26:19):
thing it expresses humanity'sdeep desire to explore and to
understand the world around us,to understand our place in this
vast universe.
The delicate celestial dancebetween the earth, the moon and
our sun forces us to re-examineour place in the universe.

(26:40):
And, in the end, whether thesun's being eaten or blocked by
the moon, what's reaffirmed byan eclipse is that the
permanence of our situationisn't, and has never been, as
solid as we might assume.
Our only obligation, then, ashumans floating on a rock

(27:06):
through space, is to enjoy thepassing view.
With all of that said, let's getto listener questions.
If you found a large diamond inArkansas, what would you do
with the money?
A great question right off thebat.

(27:28):
This is in reference to Craterof Diamonds State Park in
Arkansas, where you can publiclygo, pay $14, $15 and look for
diamonds, noodles and I went,did an episode on it, didn't
find anything.
But if we did answer thisquestion, the first thing that
comes to mind is get anotherbattery for the van and get more

(27:50):
watt capacity for my solarpanels so I can off road a
little easier.
That's the first thing thatcomes to mind.
Just the convenience of that isnice.
I have to always pay attentionto the energy that I'm using and
I'd like to do that a littleless.
I'd sell the diamond I find inArkansas and do that probably.

(28:13):
Thanks for the question.
This is rather relevant to thequestion I just answered Did it
take you a long time tounderstand your van's electric
system?
You know it did, and longer thanmost.
Really.
I'm not a handy person,naturally, but living in a van,

(28:34):
being in a van, I think youreally have to buck her down and
figure out how everything works.
I think you really have to buckher down and figure out how
everything works, you know, andwith electricity, you have to
take into consideration whereyou are in the nation, how much
sunlight you're getting.
A lot of times I'm actually incities, so it's hard.
I do have a generator so I canrun that, but I can't do it if

(29:02):
I'm staying at a cracker barrelor anything like that, really.
So yeah, understanding amps andvolts and watts and what I can
use, what I can't use, how I getwork done using the electricity
that I have, it really reallytook a long time.
You know, you get used to itand it makes you a more handy
person to, like.
I said, just buck her down andget it done, and that's what I
did.
Just buck her down and get itdone, and that's what I did.

(29:23):
Will your show be coming toYouTube?
Yeah, yeah, I'm recording a lotas we speak to dump it on bulk
on YouTube and to kind of makethe workload.
So I don't have to lessen thequality of the podcast, because
there's a lot of research thatgoes into into the podcast and I

(29:43):
don't want to lessen the showand what you get out of it, so
so I want to make sure it'ssustainable in that way.
But yes, yeah, yeah, that's theplan.
Can we get an updated audiobook recommendation episode?
Great, yeah.
So this is in reference to avan life diaries a bit ago where
I recommended audio booksbecause I drive a lot, because

(30:06):
I'm by myself with noodles, ofcourse, I listened to a lot of
podcasts and audio books, so Irecommended audio books and I'd
be glad to do that again.
Yeah, as many times as you want, that's all I do.
So great question.
Yeah, as many times as you want, that's all I do.
So great question.
Last question for the day howlong in general does it take you

(30:30):
to research an episode?
Wow, it really depends on theepisode.
To be honest, if it's anepisode where I have to fill in
a lot of the blanks the CivilWar series, for instance, the
World War II series, historicalthings where there's a certain
sense of objectivity, takelonger because I want to make
sure that I get it right.
So I read different opinions.

(30:51):
There's a certain sense ofpossible confirmation bias with
shows like this sometimes, whereyou know if you're looking to
tell a certain story, you canjust look it up online and craft
a story from that, and that'snot what I want to do at all.
So with heavy historicalepisodes, I want to make sure

(31:17):
that I get it right and I wantto make sure that I'm not just
trying to tell what I think thestory should be.
I want to tell what the storyis.
Those are what take the longest,but how long in general, if
weeks for those?
Yeah, a long time it's.
It's just, uh, you know, hoursin a day while I'm completing

(31:37):
other episodes, and and.
But it's rewarding work too,you know, and, and I enjoy it
while I'm completing otherepisodes, but it's rewarding
work too, you know, and I enjoyit.
I'm fascinated by it and I hopeyou are too, but it does take a
very long time, not countinggoing to the actual location,
all the editing and all that,just the research.
So, yeah, the long-windedanswer to that great question.

(31:58):
Thank you, it's Noah here.
I hope you enjoyed this week'sVan Life Diaries.
Yeah, so the Great AmericanEclipse had I'm looking at
something here 12 million peoplealready living the path of
totality.
This is April of 2024 whenNoodles and I went to upstate
New York and an estimated 220million were within 500 miles of

(32:23):
the eclipse path.
14 states are in the totalityzone, so the amount of people
that were going into this smallsection of the country was
pretty wild and the remotenessof where Noodles and I had to go
kind of reflected that.
In terms of going to eclipses,future eclipses, which I think

(32:44):
you should, especially afterlistening to this episode, I
hope the next total solareclipse with a coast-to-coast
path spanning the lower 48states of the US will occur
August 12, 2045.
Occur August 12th, 2045.
And genuinely, if you get thechance, look back on this 20

(33:05):
years from now 2045.
And remember that, even if it'sdifficult to get there, make it
a priority to go and see asolar eclipse, please.
With that said, if youappreciate the work that we put
into each episode, the researchthat goes into it, one way that

(33:26):
you can help us continue to grow, to put more research in, to
get the show better, is to rateand review wherever you're
listening.
Now, if you subscribe as well,it will drop right into your
podcast feed.
And with all of that said, youknow what I'm about to say.
We're two.
Next, be good to each other.

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Van Life Diaries - Understanding Solar and Lunar Eclipses

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