2017 Eclipse!

AMAZING, PHENOMENAL, FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL!!   There are not enough superlatives we can use to describe the experience of watching the solar eclipse!  For those of you who missed it we have a VR film you can watch.

We put the VR camera on top of our coach so you can see everything that happened a minute or so before, through the eclipse, to a minute or so after.  (If you do not have VR glasses you can view it in your browser by swiping through the video.)

We had a 10° temperature drop, a full 360° sunset, wildlife went to roost, dogs stopped barking, those watching started howling, nighttime insects started biting, and Jon even caught the diamond ring as it reached totality.   Truly a once in a lifetime experience!

Since we were here a week prior we got to watch the campground owners, Jean and Rod, get ready for the masses to arrive.

And arrive they did!  We had originally been told to expect about a 1000 in our sleepy campground.  We ended up with over 2500!!  They were everywhere!  In full hook-ups, boondocking, tents, every variety of RV, big, small, new, old … we even had them just sleeping in hammocks.

Before
After
And to the right ….
to the left and behind us!!!

 

As we had gotten to know Jean and Rod we volunteered (you know we could not just sit by and watch it happen!) to help out at the registration table.  The most amazing thing is that with all those people there were very few problems … a couple of grouchy people who just needed to complained, one woman drove her car through a barb wire fence into the neighbors horse pasture, and one arrest for drunk and disorderly.  Jean and Rod put on quite the event with a full outdoor kitchen serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, music every night (The New Blues Brothers and Kevin Earlywine), a children’s activity tent, and even a vendor’s craft market.

 

The weather cooperated with clear skies for the eclipse but the night before we had 40 mile an hour wind gusts blowing grit, sand, and dirt everywhere taking out a couple of tents and the children’s pavilion.  We were at registration holding down our awning with our backs to the wind trying to keep everything from blowing away.

So much planning and it was over in minutes!  We are so glad that we made the trek across the country to find the perfect viewing spot at the most welcoming campground!  Jean and Rod were wonderful hosts and put so much planning and work into making our experience one we will never forget!

We decided to extend our stay by a couple of days to let the crowds get home before we hit the road.  We took the back roads down to I80 and were able to stop at a pull out for lunch in a section of the BLM lands.  What a beautiful country we live in!  We crossed the Continental Divide three times, the highest at 7700 ft., into the Rocky Mountains and high desert.  The landscape looks almost like Mars but with sagebrush.

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Now we are in Rock Springs, WY for a couple of days before we head down to Provo, UT.  We are at a KOA that is really best described as a parking lot but it gives us a chance to catch up on the blog, campsite reviews (on Campendium.com), laundry, cleaning …. just the day to day things that need to get done.  We do have a couple of sites we will try to see, not as once in lifetime events like the eclipse, but still worth the effort!

Till next time!

 

1 thought on “2017 Eclipse!

  1. What wonderful adventures you two are having…….how cool! The pictures are beautiful….

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