fossilfreak

I had plans to go to Ashland for a week of Shakespeare on the 21st of August. I knew I wouldn't be in the total eclipse zone, and for the longest time I didn't care. I saw a partial eclipse not that long ago, and figured it would be much the same, with crescent leaf shadows. Very nice, but I've seen them. And it sounded crazy... I already had that once-in-a-lifetime experience when we went to see the Pope in Salinas! It was terrific, but getting out of the racetrack was terrible.

However, on my Wyoming trip, with Glendo doing a Gofundme for eclipse tourism, I began to realize it would be a big deal. I saw information that I-80 would be closed to big trucks on the 20th and 21st, and began to realize this was a VERY big deal.

Bernadette and Rob pulled the kids out of school to go up to central Oregon to see totality. They had gotten a box of eclipse glasses, long ago, so she gave me a pair. I made a viewer (but it didn't work all that well) and took the glasses, and planned to stop at a rest area about the time the eclipse started so I could see it.

I started off early, about 6:50, and was a bit nervous when the first two rest areas I saw were closed. I began to think I might have to turn off in Corning, or maybe Red Bluff, but after that the rest areas were open, so I crossed my fingers for the one just north of Red Bluff. It was open and I pulled in just after 9. I gathered my stuff and as I started for the tables, I saw a couple with a camera and tripod, and viewers! So I sat at the table next to them and took a peek at the sun. The eclipse had started! There was just a tiny dent out of the top of the sun.

That couple (Vincent and Irene) had come from Santa Rosa, because it had been foggy every morning that week. (In fact, poor Roni didn't get to see the Eclipse.) They drove as far north as they could being aware that he had to go back to teach English as a Second Language that night. We were shortly joined by a couple from Oakland, driving their son to school in Tacoma. Robert and Robbie and Vicki had thought to stop and look, and she'd made a viewer but didnt have much idea how it worked. We shared our eclipse glasses with them, and "oh, Wow!" was the reaction. Then we explained to Vicki that the viewer showed the same thing upside down. My viewer got a bit of this, but only about to 1/3.

As it slowly got darker, like a cloudy day, and colder, we would look to see and offer passing strangers views. "Oh, Wow!" was the universal reaction. I found this the most fun part of the hour. The peak of the eclipse where we were (high 80s%) was with a skinny crescent of sun on the right (the south, which makes sense... the moon was covering the whole disc a few hundred miles north. Bernadette, Rob, and the kids really were impressed.) The birds were acting like it was the end of the day. And we had leaf shadows as I had had before. Irene had brought a colandar, which was amazing.