I had planned for the so called Great American Eclipse of 2024, and thanks to my friend Marc Antoine who lives in Austin, I did indeed pick Austin as a destination, and at the same time, he told me about a big festival. I was invited to join NAPF, North America Psytrance Family, and we had a great group camping spot just next to the psytrance stages, woot!
I was able to bring my outfit and find a way to charge it nightly without external power (more on solar below):
As a one off festival, I found it was reasonably well organized, at least from what I got to experience:
- ok, tickets were weird, you had print at home tickets that told you they were good enough to get in, but that was not true, they had to be swapped for actual car stickers at will call. Thankfully there was a convenient will call at the airport baggage terminal with virtually no wait when I arrived a day early (thursday)
- early entry on thursday wasn't bad, by then they worked out the kinks of stupid pointless searches trying to take people's vitamins and other personal items that are more than reasonable to have in your vehicle and campsite (like tools to fix things), but I was specifically very annoyed with them feeling they had the right to go through people's personal drugs, over the counter, or prescription and take everything away that wasn't prescription in original bottle (if you have pill boxes, you're screwed). Thankfully by thursday they had less time to search people's stuff, but still, not acceptable
- My wait in line for search was less than 15mn and the search of my car was 5mn, at most.
- The drive in to the NAPF camp was long and slow on a very dusty road, took over 20mn. All in all from the outside road to camp was a bit less than 1h, not too bad
- I've been told that of course the next day (first official opening day), it took longer to get in, and for people with RV who had paid for and reserved a spot with power/hookups, didn't get them, either because they were partly oversold, and/or because some people who hadn't paid for the spots, took them :(
Setup
I was able to bring a reasonable tent in my check in luggage to austin, as well as enough of a solar system to use the rental car battery as a power station that would get recharged by the panels I bought. It was a bit last minute, experimental, and rough looking, but it worked well enough. The couple of times when I didn't get enough sun, the car came with a free generator ;) (external generators were not allowed in camping):
please don't judge, it worked :)
charging the LED outfit batteries from the car batteries, in turn recharged by solar panels
North American Psytrance Family's (NAPF) camp
We had a nice little setup:
Venue/Grounds
Pictures from arrival:
car search line
many camps, reasonable signage
pretty dry and dusty overall, but a few places with water
the nature looked pretty nice in places
The venue
After getting to camp with early arrival on thursday just before sunset, setup camp and went to check out the venue. All the stages were not open yet, but enough things were running:
festival grounds had several entrances with a pretty quick somewhat pointless looking search
it wasn't burning man, but there was a descent selection of lit art
Lots of vendors of hippie gear :)
And other misc things:
A reasonable number of food options for all tastes:
They had multiple water refill stations and lockers, although the water refill stations ran out at times, which was not ideal, and I'm told they were turned off (no more water) on monday afternoon after they asked people to evacuate, not great...
multiple first aid stations, but apparently they were underequipped (more on that below)
the general store I went to was reasonably equipped, but the prices were hidden and very high
the better VIP area had an IV station where you could pay a lot for some fluids
A few "art cars"
The grounds were quite big and had multiple areas:
There was even a nice river and a makeshift beach:
To pass the day, they also had 2 stages with talks, some were pretty interesting:
great to see Rick Doblin again to talk about his work
The festival had close to 10 stages, 6 of them were pretty big. Honestly they were impressive given that they were indeed in the middle of nothing. The only downside was that the map was pretty poor and it was not too obvious which stage was which from the symbols. But yes, the stages were pretty:
NAPF was adjunct to the Ether stage, so we had our own party:
A highlight was to see Oakenfold's day set:
People
Like each festival I go to, I always enjoy the party that other people bring, with lights, costumes, and more:
glad to see the same friends across different festivals
TFSF represent
Videos
Drone show:
Samskara show:
Small summary of the event:
Nice Lit Display:
A minute of my outfit:
Eclipse and Evacuation Day
Early Departure
Monday morning, with barely a shred of a bar on one of my 2 cellphones, I got an urgent message that said bad weather was on the way, that everything left was cancelled (including the main party monday night and the DJs I really wanted to see), and to evacuate as soon as practical. I was weary that the traffic to exit would be terrible, especially from the southernmost camp, about as far from the main road as you can be, so I packed everything in 15mn and got on the exit road. Thankfully I beat most people to it, and was only delayed an extra 25mn or so by the people closer to the exit who had had more time to pack up and get in line too. All in all, I was out to the main road in 45mn, which wasn't bad. While I expected burning man level exodus lines and many hour long waits, I heard most people got out in fewer than 2h, which wasn't bad.
By then, the weather forecast was such that we wouldn't be able to see anything, so I figured I might as well leave early, but most others chose to stay until after the eclipse and some had renegade parties and stayed until tuesday anyway. The very bad weather that was forecast and caused the organizers to cancel the rest of the event, ended up not happening, but after a statement made by the organizers later, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and that they acted reasonably given the forecast they had at the time. It's true that if hail had come, or even just a lot of rain, the whole event would have become a muddy mess with potentially many cars stuck, getting everyone else, stuck there.
my early departure plan worked out pretty well
obviously not the only car in line, but we got out pretty well
Eclipse
I had looked at the weather forecast enough to have 0 hope to see the eclipse, as the forecast was for a solid overcast and then some rain, but with the evacuation I got out about 1.5H before totality and figured I'd go drive to my friend Marc's ranch about 1h away to spend the rest of the time with him.
Sure enough, the weather did not look good:
from time to time, the sun poked out for a minute or so
made it in time to Marc's ranch
and as we got closer to totality, the sun became visible more often
yes!
and yes!
not bad for a handheld camera
and before long, it was over
and the sun went hiding again, that was close!
Thoughts/Conclusion
Medical Facilities
There were concerns with the medical staff, they had plenty of it (good), when I got bitten by a big spider, I was able to see someone quickly enough to make sure it wasn't poisonous (also good), but for at least one person who needed more serious help, apparently they didn't have a defibrillator at most stations (causing one person not to get medical care for over 45mn), or even a more simple blood pressure monitor, which was suboptimal.
Apparently at least one person died, most likely due to lack of timely medical care, but it's also fair to say that when you have so many people in one place, by the sheer law of numbers, someone is likely to die anyway.
I'll also add that prompt first rate medical care was not included in the ticket, when you're in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a field, more than 45-60mn away from a hospital, expectations should be set accordingly.
Other things
The map in the app was not very useful as it didn't show you where you were on it. An attendee nicely made a pretty good web based map with location dot, but unfortunately it mostly didn't work for me and wouldn't show me where I was. Getting around was somewhat harder than it needed to be.
Water locations were not well indicated on that map either and were not easy to find at night
The festival did have a wristband money scheme, but thankfully it was not required and all vendors also took contactless credit cards, so that was the best of both worlds. I happily ignored the wristband money scheme and used my phone to pay without issues
The security started wrong (taking people's vitamins on their campsite location, totally not ok), but they loosened up over time. Honestly the perimeter to the inside festival was mostly to keep honest people honest as they say. It was trivial to get past the fence in many places, but at the same time, who would travel all the way there just to try to sneak in? I think it was just enough for good measure
I'm not entirely sure what was meant to be disallowed between the campgrounds and festival ground. Once a security person was trying to take a can of mixed drink I had (which did contain alcohol), but that's about it. You could take food in as far as I know
The water points were not 100% reliable, which was a potential problem, but I brought enough of my own water that it didn't matter
There were no official showers included with the price, not even for VIP, but there was a spa built not too far from my camp that offered showers for $16, a reasonable enough price considering.
VIP was a bit of a ripoff in my opinion. The "expedited" VIP entry was totally pointless, there was no wait ever between my camp and the festival grounds. One VIP area had a couple of interesting things and better toilets (although still no place to wash yourself), the other VIP area was just a few toilets and shade, nothing much. I definitely regret paying extra for VIP.
Conclusion
Honestly, given that this is not a yearly festival in the middle of nowhere in a place that wasn't used for that before, a lot of things went right
The stages themselves were actually pretty good considering it was the middle of nowhere, I was pretty impressed.
I'm told the organizers spent several months getting the site ready, including adding the dirt roads to get around and making all of this possible, just once, for only a few days. My impressions were actually "not bad at all".
Price may have felt a bit high, especially VIP that offered very little for its added price. The add ons like group car camping (around $250 extra), early entry (another almost $100 extra), did add up.
The cancellation on monday was very unfortunate, I think it was the right call, but it really damaged the event. The organizers promised a partial refund, still waiting for it at the time of this writing.
All in all I still had a good time, the eclipse itself was fantastic, especially since we were some of the few people in Texas that actually had enough clear sky to see the eclipse when it happened.
The Texas Eclipse Festival did not end as planned, organizers cancelled
the event for weather risk reasons, although in the end the weather was
so much better than forecast (forecast said we'd never see the sun at
all and it would rain).
When I heard about the cancellation on a thread fo bar one of my 2 cell
phones,while barely awake, I managed to tear up camp and start driving
out in just 15mn and got out of the festival in just over 45mn, before
traffic got really bad. I then realized I had just enough time to drive
my friend Marc Antoine's ranch 50mn away, and the fact that 2 lane roads
in TX have 70mph speed limits, sure helped. I got to his place 30mn
before totality.
It did not rain, and the sun came out just at the right time for the
eclipse and went hiding in the clouds soon after. Timing was perfect.
And I happened to capture some solar flares and mercury with my not so
great handheld camera, so I'm happy :)
When I got out of the festival, partial eclipse hadn't started yet, but the sun was barely visible
Marc sent me the GPS location of his ranch, and GPS said I could barely make it and thankfully the roads were near empty
I pulled over a few times when the sun was visible for barely a minute
Most of the time, it was fully overcast, as per the forecast
but the sun came back out a few times
And in barely 50mn I made it to Marc's ranch and got to meet his family. We had just seen one another 2 weeks prior at beyond wonderland
all ready
fun thing is you can see a partial eclipse without glasses
getting there, so close
and yes!
even a decent shot frmo my cell
it got dark :)
I caught some sun flares on this one
on lower right, I think I you can see mercury. Einstein used it the lensing effect of gravity in his theory of general relativity
my best lucky shot!
and way too soon, it was over already :)
and the sun soon went to hide under clouds again, perfect timing!
The eclipse festival didn't end well, but the eclipse itself went way beyond expectations!
Video:
Austin Bob Bullock State History Museum was a decent museum in Austin, where I learned about how the state became a state, starting from when it was taken over by the Mexicans, there was even a French expedition that tried, but didn't get very far (they all died in the end):
remnants of the french boat expedition
maps were still in flux
Frst the mexicans living in Texas kind of wanted independence from Mexico, and then the americans who came to help take care of the land, decided to get independence from the Mexicans:
Plenty of other displays on interesting things that happened in Texas:
π
2024-04-09 01:01
in Computers, Sciencemuseums, Texas
I finished my day visit of Austin in the Texas Toy Museum and Arcade, which had a pretty cool collection of old video games, flippers, role playing games, cartoons, and other geek memorabilia:
I tried to visit the famous Franklin BBQ, but it was mostly sold out by the time I arrived (14:20). I was able to get some leftover "mixed meats", which was better than nothing:
The LBJ Library and Museum was a nice museum in the University, to finish the day. I learned a lot about the man, and he was one of the better presidents that the country did get:
When I was done with the LBJ libray and museum, I went to check out the 6th av district, including murals:
many businesses had these signs, saying anyone with any gun, was unwelcome
I went to check out the museum of the weird, but it was a lesser Ripley's Believe It Or Not, nothing to write home about.
The Texas Toy Museum and Arcade (click me) was a lot more fun, though. Good way to burn time until sunset, when the bats were supposed to come out under some bridge, but by then it started pouring rain, and they didn't come out anytime
everyone waiting and hoping, but no luck
nice views, though
After that, it was time to meet my friend Marc Antoine for a great evening together over some local BBQ:
And that was it for visiting Austin, outside of one museum that was closed that day, got to see all things on my worthwhile list ;)
Hopscotch in San Antonio was a fun place to visit, although you could only pay on your phone through some website, even if you were right there, plus they had a ridiculous waiver that was more pages than anyone could read, and that you were forced to read on your phone, and sign on your phone, before you were allowed in. That really dampened the place for me, which is a bummer as it was otherwise fun:
I typically always go for elevated viewpoints, and did the same, this time around, although after a longish wait for the elevator, we actually got stuck at the top without being able to get around for about 15mn until someone reset whatever safety got triggered and blocked us (high winds, maybe?). The view was ok-ish:
They also had a quick history lesson:
I'd say it's probably somewhat skippable, and somewhat out of town, but it was open when other things had already closed, so I went.
After Austin (for the 2024 Eclipse), I drove down to San Antonio to visit a few days before flying home.
The texas roads were quite good everywhere I went, and they keep building more:
I had a late night in Austin the previous night (lovely dinner and chat with Marc Antoine), so by the time I arrived at the Alamo and managed to park, it was already 11:00 and a total clusterf. Impossible to get any tour or audioguide or anything. I decided to abort and try Alamo again the next morning.
Instead, I started with the river cruise, which was lovely:
After the river cruise, went to check out a nice local market:
even found a friendly cat :)
While walking around some more, went to check out another poor bridge covered with locks. Silly custom that started in Paris :-
the cathedral is a bit basic, but has a nice projection light show at night
Next, I went to Historic Market Square, lots of nice colorful stores with a clear mexican touch
The last 3 activities of that day are on their own pages:
(in real life, because SFO sucks, they cancelled my flight from SA to SFO, so I had to get an emergency uber back to Austin to catch a very delayed flight to SFO and made it home very late that night.
When I showed up at the Alamo, I knew nothing about it, and the first day I arrived around 11:00 it was a mess of people and completely sold out for the day (both tours and even audioguides), quite disappointing. So I booked a tour the next morning at 09:00 as well as an audioguide as they complement one another (although you have to pay twice), and learned the biased history about the place, which is supposed to show that poor Americans got attacked by blood thirsty Mexicans, unprovoked (that part is not really true), and how they did indeed fight to the death defending the position, which helped other American troops later defeat the Mexicans.
The place has kind of a cult status for courage and bravery, somewhat deserved indeed, but both the tour and audoguide focus mostly on the battle and bravery, while skipping the context of this battle (Americans agreeing to Mexican rule to get land, and then later deciding to secede). Basically why weren't quite martyrs, but they did fight bravely
I'll add that getting tickets online is confusing, google gets you tickets to the church, which are free, but you need an extra ticket for the museum and ideally you want the guided tour or the audioguide, and those do sell out.
the church where the battle ended
some original frescos were found under the plaster
The museum had lots of artifacts, most of which were acquired by Phil Collins and donated to the museum:
cannonballs to musquet balls
When doing both the guided tour and audioguide, plus the museum, it took close to 3H. I still had to watch the movie after the fact to get the fuller story.
I finished my San Antonio Tour with the Witte Museum, a mix of natural history museum, and local history museum. While it was a bit of a mix, it was an interesting visit:
I did actually see a roadrunner while driving around, cool birds :)
There was a space exhibit due to the Johnston Space Center
