March 2024
We had been planning a trip to see this event since 2021, and booked an AirBnB in 2022 by prepaying $320 for a one night stay in Mason, TX.  About a year later, we received the news that the owner sold his unit and our money was refunded.  As it turns out, this was a blessing in disguise but at the time, I was disapointed and worried about lodging.  A year later in 2023, the Marriott reservation system finally opened for April 2024, and I was surprised to see many options still available.  We booked a week's worth of rooms in San Antonio and felt happy about our preparations.
We also later learned of a NASA live broadcast in Kerrville, TX, and I made contact with the coordinator from HQ that ran the team for that event.  I was able to join as a volunteer, and by then there were several groups from Aruba that would be joining us inclucing members of Space and Nature Aruba, and a reporter from 24ora.com.
As the date drew closer, we finally were close enough to get a look at the 10 day forecast and it did not show good news for the Southern part of the path.  By then we had picked Kerrville for our viewing site, but it showed cloud and rain on April 8. Both of the articles below showed better weather in the North.


April 2024
As the minus-two-week mark approached we could see that the weather in Texas would not be good.  On April 2 we made the difficult decision to scrap all our plans to the Lone Star State, and instead go North to Erie, PA.  By then we had gathered a fairly large group of people from Aruba include Jairo and Aishele Vrolijk (from Space and Nature Aruba) and Mark Denz (from 24ora.com).  I had also joined the volunteer team from NASA HQ that would be broadcasting live from Kerrville, so leaving that site was a difficult decision.  We made plans to drive to Youngstown for Eclipse Eve and found a hotel there.  However as the final weekend drew close even that site was showing clouds so we moved our destination to Albany, NY and found an Inn at Norwich VT to spend Eclipse Eve.


On eclipse morning we drove 1.5 hrs North to Newport VT and set up near a softball field in town.  There were several bathroom facilities around and we were well stocked on fuel, water and snacks.  As the first contact occurred, I could see it on my solar projector and over the course of the hour the light gradually dimmed.  Similar to previous eclipses, it produced this 'grey' color on everything.  During the totality, we could clearly see a bright red prominence in the 7 o'clock position, and it stayed there during the whole time.  We made friends with a father and son team, and they sent us pictures of the event afterward.  Shout out to Joseph and Justin Materazo.


We would later hear that many places were clouded over, including Texas.  The middle of the country had a few open areas such as in Ohio and Indiana.  Things were certainly clear in New England where we were.  As was the case for Oregon in 2017, the traffic post-eclipse was the worst and it took us 2x as long as best case to drive from Newport to Albany.  The next day we continued onto Phoenix for my work.

Looking back, the skies over Kerrville and Fredericksburg were very cloudy.  There was a gap of open in the center of the nation, and the northern end (where we were) the skies were clear.