Will Iowans Get the Whole Enchilada with The Upcoming Total Solar Eclipse?

So, are Iowans going to get “the whole enchilada” when it comes to seeing the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024? No, but we’ll see a partial eclipse. The T-shirt Sena got for me says “Total Eclipse” on it—but it also has extraterrestrials on it, which I really like.

The paths of these total eclipses are narrow. The path of the Total Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017 would not have been visible in the totality phase for Iowans either. So, no whole enchilada then either.

In fact, I don’t remember the 2017 solar eclipse at all. Sena watched it on TV when CNN televised a special program about it. She noticed that it got dark, probably in the early afternoon. I don’t know what I was doing, but I was no doubt running around the hospital responding to psychiatry consultation requests. I probably wouldn’t have noticed a gigantic enchilada stalking the earth.

In fact, to see a total eclipse back then and next month, we’d have to drive to Carbondale, Illinois. That’s at least a 6-hour drive and probably longer since a lot of people would be on the road with the same goal. There are already warnings from some officials about traffic jams, cell phone problems, and other disasters which can happen during the mad rush to see the whole enchilada.

Which brings me to the question: do you know the origin of the phrase “the whole enchilada”?

I guess the history of the expression is a little dark, in a manner of speaking. Some people don’t define it and bail by comparing it to other similar phrases like “the whole nine yards” or whatever. On the other hand, there are variations on another story of the origin that date back to the Watergate tapes scandal in the era of President Nixon’s administration in the 1970s. Supposedly, John Ehrlichmann called Attorney John N. Mitchell “the big enchilada.”

In general, it means the whole thing, the entirety, everything. So, if we want to see the whole enchilada as far as the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, we’d have to drive 6 hours to either Carbondale, Illinois or Poplar Bluff, Missouri. We’ll pass on that.

However, Sena did make the whole enchilada last night for dinner.