As we got closer and closer to August 21st, we decided to scope out the area for the perfect place to be that morning. We walked up the mountains behind us and found a beautiful spot that had views of the red hills, both Upper and Lower Slide Lake, the Tetons and our campground. This was it!
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And, we checked it out at exactly 10:16 am
and this is what we saw-Perfection! |
In the meantime, the Forest Service had mowed down the grasses in many of the fields by the day use and boat launch areas below us and we watched as many moved in for the event. People-watching became our favorite MO. There were families and young couples and single people and us older guys. Everyone was well behaved, friendly and happy. It was just wonderful to see so many gather together for such an historic, peaceful and beautiful event.
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Lots of RVs moved into the parking lot at the boat launch. We walked down
there every evening to check out how many and what kinds of campers
were moving in. |
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Dave, our camp host
This guy was amazing-finding places for
everyone to camp, keeping everyone well-
behaved and happy. |
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These guys moved in for the Eclipse. They almost never
had their shirts on! |
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| We did use the time in our campground to do a major laundry! |
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| People were moving in. |
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| Tents kept going up. |
One of the groups camping here in the tents was one of 68 teams around the country from Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse Experiment (CATE), sponsored by NASA. Every team was trained to take white-light coronal images with fancy telescopes set up in front of their tents. The images will be stitched together, providing a new tool for other scientists.
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There was such a sense of camaraderie between these
tent folks. |
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| This tent was erected over a car trailer. |
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These two are enjoying dinner the night before the eclipse
outside their van-kind of the way we used to camp. |
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| A very nice Airstream |
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These two were playing guitars and singing to a crowd
that was busy doing their own thing. |
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| Loved this tent. Note the ladder to get in. |
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The sun was a little much for this one, taking a break
from the crowd. |
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Some swam, some fished and some were out in kayaks
and paddleboards. |
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This guy and his wife were from Canada and came when
they heard about the Eclipse. They were on their honey-
moon. Playing Scrabble-sweet! |
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Amazing how people cooked their meals and got together
with others. |
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The RVs were lined up near the lake and tenters parked
their cars below their tent sites.
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| This guy found the perfect table for his cook stove. |
We saw cars in the parking lot with license plates from Florida, Colorado, Idaho, Wyoming, California, British Columbia, Quebec, Oklahoma, Alabama, Washington, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. We also met people from Austria, Germany, Mexico and Japan. We debated whether we'd rather be alone at our site or be with a community of eclipse seekers, but our site won out. When the moon blacked out the sun, we could hear all the oohs and aahs and shouts of joy down below.
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The time has come! We got our glasses; gave some to those
without them and got on our way up the mountain by 9:30. |
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| We walked up to our eclipse site location, with our chairs, Boo, snacks and an umbrella-we had the place to ourselves save maybe 6 or 8 people a little higher up. Who could ask for anything more?!! |
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| The eclipse was just beginning here. You can see it getting a bit darker. |
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I had a tough time going between the eclipse
glasses and my regular sunglasses. |
At 10:15 we could see the first little bite out of the upper right corner of the sun. Amazing those incredible scientists could pick that time so precisely! How do they do that!?!! It was 80 degrees out. (It had been 39 degrees when we woke up!) The darkness came on slowly.
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Kayakers and Paddleboarders experiencing the eclipse on water.
We thought about doing that, but decided we couldn't have the kind of
comfort we could have on the hill. |
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We brought an umbrella with us so that Boo could sleep in the shade
during the show. And, as much as we heard that animals probably
never look at the sun, we wanted to be sure he would be ok. |
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Getting darker
The quality of the light was so different than anything I'd ever seen. It
was much different than just a cloudy day or a day approaching twilight.
There were pinks and purples and blues in the sky before and after the
totality. |
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Pretty dark.
We loved being able to also see and hear the people in the boat launch area. |
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| Dark |
Neither of us wanted to take a chance with our cameras to take a picture of the totality and also, we wanted the experience (very short- 2 minutes and about 15 seconds or so), not the picture. I can't explain what it felt like as well as some wonderful writers like Annie Dillard or Lynne's friend, Carla, but I did cry; I got chills all over (from the experience as well as the drop in temperature-from 80 to 52 degrees). We both simultaneously ohmed and felt a connection with our planet, our universe and all the people who were experiencing this with us, near and far. We picked a small bundle of sage and chamisa as an offering of sorts, held hands and waited to see what would happen. We really had no expectations. We had seen partial eclipses many times. Nothing prepared us for what we experienced.
None of the pictures do it justice. The world stood still as we were mesmerized by the most thrilling, amazing, awesome, spiritual and physical experience. It was freezing! The stars and planets became visible. The corona glowed and undulated, the colors and the flames were indescribably gorgeous, it was alive in a way I can't describe. I've never seen anything like it in my whole life. I am filled with emotion as I write this, two weeks later. When I'm 80, the next time we have a total solar eclipse in our country, I hope to be at the center of totality once more. I can't wait to experience this again.
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We celebrated with champagne and an antipasti brunch of fruits
and cheeses and meats. |
Afterwards, we went on one of our favorite hikes in the red hills.
