ASHLAND — Mike Spreng’s grandfather gave him and his brother a telescope in 1963.
From then on, Spreng loved looking up to space. As an adult, that love has taken Spreng globetrotting.
Over the last 20 or so years, Spreng, a retired dentist from Ashland, has seen five different solar eclipses, traveling the world to do it.
“I say I’m an astro-nerd, with reverence,” Spreng said. “I’m not as big as people who’ve seen 20 or 25.”
Solar eclipses are fairly common events — one happens every year to year and a half or so — but what’s uncommon is being in the path of totality the way Ashland is this year.
Some people travel to see the phenomena though, and that’s a hobby Spreng has adopted with his retirement. He’s seen four across the world: the Caribbean, China, South Carolina and Peru. The one this year will be his fifth, provided good luck with the weather.
Once you do it once, people get hooked.
Mike Spreng
But Spreng’s solar eclipse story began with bad luck.
A game of odds
In 1991, Spreng and his family took a trip to the Kona Coast in Hawaii. It happened to coincide with a solar eclipse, and Hawaii was right in the line of totality.
Spreng and his family went out to a golf course to watch the event. He remembered the crew of “Good Morning America” standing nearby.
But as the eclipse got closer and closer, it became evident that a cloud cover over the island wouldn’t be dissipating.
It was Spreng’s first time with “playing the odds” of trying to see a solar eclipse.
He explained there’s always a chance that the place you’re viewing it from might have a cloud cover that day that blocks your view of the sun. Traveling to see it comes with that risk, too.
Eclipse chasing
That first disappointment didn’t stop Spreng from wanting to see an eclipse, though.
“Once you do it once, people get hooked,” Spreng said.
For Spreng, that first eclipse came in 1998. He went out on a boat in the Caribbean, and watched the event in the middle of the ocean.
Spreng recalled that everyone on the cruise ship spent the trip on the boat’s top deck with eyes on the sky, even when the eclipse had finished. The crew was confused at first.
“Nobody told the crew they had a group of astro-nerds on there, and they were surprised nobody was in the bars and casinos,” Spreng said.
Eventually, the crew figured it out and moved the bar up to the top of the ship.
For Spreng, that experience was enough to reel him into becoming an amateur eclipse chaser.
His next solar eclipse sent him traveling to China in 2008, where he got to view the astronomical event from the “middle of nowhere” in the Gobi Desert. He’d tagged along on a trip hosted by Travelquest.
Spreng said it was advertised in “Astronomy,” a magazine.
Three minutes before totality in China, Spreng remembered people started running in one direction before stopping and reversing course.
He said eclipses attract large numbers of people, and it’s easy to develop a “mob mentality” when you’re in the midst of it.
But when the eclipse came, he saw lightning at the same time as the eclipse went through its phases.
“China is hard to beat,” Spreng said.
That doesn’t mean he hasn’t tried to beat it, though. Spreng watched a 2017 eclipse in South Carolina, and saw another on a beach in Peru in 2019.
“I got to see Machu Picchu that trip,” Spreng said.
Adding another to the list
Spreng plans to travel to Texas to see this year’s solar eclipse. He has a niece there, and he’s playing the odds again, betting there’s a higher likelihood that Texas will have good weather than Ohio.
Still, he told his niece that if things look cloudy the day of the eclipse, he’s ready to drive elsewhere to see it.
Spreng is already looking toward future eclipses after this year. He’s always wanted to go to New Zealand, he said. There just so happens to be a solar eclipse with New Zealand experiencing totality in 2028.
Still, Spreng has advice to share with eclipse newcomers. He said the best place to see the eclipse is somewhere that offers you a view.
Freer Field would be a good place to watch it in Ashland, he suggested, or going out to Savannah could be an option.
That’s the best part, in Spreng’s estimation. The sky becomes a deep twilight, he said. Birds chirp differently.
“You can’t believe how fast it goes,” Spreng said. “It seems to fly, because you’re just amazed. I just like to sit there and take in the whole thing.”
Knox Community Hospital proudly supports the vibrant pulse of our community by sponsoring the Life & Culture section on Knox Pages, celebrating the stories and experiences that make our region unique.
