Paradise Reservoir, Idaho

We really didn't have an idea where we were going to go when we left Salmon.  We were told that the road west of Leodore was just beautiful, leading up to the Continental Divide and we thought we would land somewhere near there.  We arrived there too early to call it a day, and decided to keep going and see what we would find.  I talked to a man on the phone who was referred to me by the Forest Service and he (Raeto) had lots of ideas.  We knew we needed a place for the weekend, before we would get ourselves in place for the Eclipse on the 21st, Monday.  He was very helpful, suggesting the Swan Valley area, Teton Canyon near Driggs and Blow Out at Paradise Reservoir.  We weren't finding anything at Swan Valley (we thought it might be good to get a place with Internet, but everything was full). We looked at Riverside at Paradise Rez but it was below the dam there, and I would have thought of nothing else but the dam breaking the whole time I was there, so that was out.

We pulled into Blow Out around dinner time, found the last site, moved in, had dinner and fell asleep.  The next day we found a great spot with a view that someone left that morning, so, we packed up (we're pretty good at that by now) and moved over there. We spent the weekend, studying our maps and Eclipse information, taking walks and relaxing, enjoying the view.

Sunsets were beautiful and the weather delightful.  We went to bed thinking we would probably go up to Driggs and camp on the back side of the Tetons, but when we woke up, we changed the plan to go to Atherton Creek Campground outside of Jackson.

We had gone through various ways of thinking about the Eclipse.  We had originally put it on our calendar about 2 years ago and thought maybe we would end up in Casper, which was in the middle of the zone of totality.  Well, it turned out that one of our friends, Julie Thorpe, was going to go to Jackson and we decided that we would love to join her there, but it was questionable whether or not, even if we were there, that we would be able to see her.  Meanwhile, we talked to others about the Eclipse.  And, it seemed that everyone was going somewhere to experience it.  There were horror stories of places running out of gasoline, stores running out of water and other supplies, including food items and we began to think maybe we wouldn't even bother, as we might get caught in gridlock and not be safe.  That eventually subsided and we then got excited about it again and by Monday morning, we wanted to find a place right in the middle of the totality.  We called the Forest Service and learned that Signal Mtn filled up by 8 am (which we would NEVER make) but that Atherton was not filled.  So, we high-tailed it out of Paradise and headed straight down the road to Alpine and east, following the Snake river down a beautiful canyon to Jackson Hole, where we got groceries for a few weeks, in case, and headed up the Gros Ventre (GROW VONT) to Atherton, where we found our home for the next 16 days.