May 20, 2012<\/a>, the Tempest group and I were in great position after a chase in west Texas to observe an annular eclipse at sunset. \u00a0 There was a total eclipse across the northwestern U.S. on February 26, 1979…but I was a college student, and a responsible one at that. \u00a0No total eclipse for Bill in 1979. \u00a0I vaguely remember TV news reports of the eastern U.S. eclipse in March, 1970. \u00a0I was 11 years old and it was too far for me and my bike, and my parents would find such a trip ill-advised. \u00a0There was a great solar eclipse at Cabo San Lucas on July 11, 1991, at midday. \u00a0This eclipse was quite long (more than six minutes), and skies were almost certain to be clear. \u00a0I had a friend or two witness this eclipse in southern Baja, Mexico. \u00a0 I pondered getting down there myself, either by air or car. \u00a0But I passed at the opportunity. \u00a0I didn’t really think I would ever witness a total solar eclipse, and it wasn’t that big of a deal to me.<\/p>\nSo, through my years on this planet, I have never actively planned on being smack dab in the path of a total solar eclipse. \u00a0That is, until the days leading up to this latest one on August 21, 2017. \u00a0My chase tour company, Tempest Tours, offered an eclipse tour from August 15-22, and I was thinking that I would work that. \u00a0 My “regular” job got in the way of that chance, however. \u00a0My weather observer boss gave me enough time off to get to the eclipse and back between shifts, but as the event neared, I was resigned to missing it. \u00a0It was a 15-to-18 hour drive, depending on the target state, and I was unenthusiastic about doing that for a 2-minute event that could be clouded out! \u00a0However, I learned that my friend “Rook” was going to make the drive up to eastern Oregon. \u00a0He was going to leave after his overnight work shift in Los Angeles on Sunday morning! \u00a0Rook planned on sleeping in his pickup truck late Sunday night and early Monday morning in or near the path of totality, near the town of John Day. \u00a0I could not imagine doing that drive after working overnight, but I guess some people don’t require a lot of sleep! \u00a0Rook welcomed the idea of having me along to help him make the drive. \u00a0I had a few days to plan for my first total solar eclipse! \u00a0Totality would be around 10:22 a.m. on Monday, giving us about 25 hours to make the 15-hour drive.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, our plans changed a bit. \u00a0My friend Jennifer was interested in observing the eclipse. \u00a0She was contemplating making the long drive from her home in New Hampshire to the totality path in Kentucky or thereabouts. \u00a0But she was concerned about potential cloudiness and traffic and accommodations, as were many others. \u00a0The sky forecast was looking great for eclipse viewers in eastern Oregon by Saturday, 48 hours prior to totality, so Jennifer decided to fly last-minute to LAX on Saturday and to join Rook and me on our Sunday drive. \u00a0We would take my Xterra instead of Rook’s two-seater pickup. \u00a0This would be the first total solar eclipse for each of us.<\/p>\n
Jennifer and I met Rook in Palmdale at 8 a.m. Sunday (August 20) and we stuffed my Xterra with tripods, camera bags, sleeping bags, pillows, suitcases, ice chests, food and drink, and a cot and a tent. \u00a0There wasn’t too much space remaining for anything else. \u00a0Rook tied down two (filled) 5-gallon gasoline tanks to the top of the Xterra. \u00a0If fuel were scarce in eastern Oregon on Monday, then the extra ten gallons could be crucial in getting us back south into Nevada after the eclipse. \u00a0I needed to be back home in Westlake Village by Wednesday morning at the latest for my next work shift.<\/p>\n
There were countless anticipated horror stories with regard to this event. \u00a0Roads might be jammed for hours (or days!) prior to and after the eclipse! \u00a0There might be food and fuel shortages. \u00a0There might be a nightmare traffic jam as millions tried to move from cloudy areas to clear areas for the eclipse. \u00a0And, cell phone service might not be able to handle the number of customers squeezing into the 60-mile wide path of totality! \u00a0Our target area, though, between John Day and Fox, along U.S. 395, was in the vast emptiness of east-central Oregon. \u00a0This area would not be drawing from the largest cities within a few hundred miles, presumably. \u00a0The road network was rather sparse, so I thought that there might be some problems along U.S. 26, the east-west route through John Day. \u00a0But I figured that getting into the path of totality should not be problematic, especially since we would be driving into to it well into the evening hours.<\/p>\n
From Palmdale we drove north into the Owens Valley via 395, and then took U.S. 6 and Nevada 360 to U.S. 95. \u00a0That took us north to Hawthorne and Fallon and Interstate 80, near Lovelock. \u00a0I had never been in this part of Nevada. \u00a0The drive past Boundary Peak and along Walker Lake was pretty, but we were not interested in spending time for landscape photography, \u00a0We needed to keep going. \u00a0We were on I-80 for just an hour or so, and from Winnemucca we turned north towards McDermitt, on the Oregon\/Nevada border. \u00a0We were making very good time — it was still a couple of hours until sunset when we stopped for gas at McDermitt. \u00a0The next gas was about two hours away in Burns, Oregon. \u00a0If the gas stations in Burns and John Day ran out of gas, then we might have problems! \u00a0There is pretty much nothing except Burns between McDermitt and John Day!<\/p>\n
As we enjoyed the sunset sky between Burns Junction and Burns along Highway 78, I was contemplating the uncomfortable night outside or in the car, \u00a0Motels had been sold out for months, and prices were at mega-gouge-levels for the most part along the eclipse path. \u00a0I was thinking that maybe someone had cancelled at the last minute. \u00a0Perhaps I should call around to see what the situation is…the worst that could happen is the motel clerk could laugh at me, right?! \u00a0I checked the motel list for Burns on my phone. \u00a0I chose the Silver Spur and gave them a ring. \u00a0Would the desk clerk even answer? \u00a0Was this the worst shift of his life with the phone ringing every 5 minutes by late-arrivals with no reservations and no preparations?!<\/p>\n
Well, I lucked out, as the clerk said to check back at 9 p.m. (in an hour) as he had one room left and he was unable to contact the person who had reserved it, 18 months ago. \u00a0“Maybe the guy wasn’t even alive anymore,” the clerk said. \u00a0He had left messages and had not gotten a response, and he didn’t want the room to go unoccupied tonight. \u00a0We were able to fill up with fuel again in Burns, thankfully —- just a 3-minute wait behind one other vehicle. \u00a0Burns was about 45 miles south of the path of totality, but since it was the only civilization for hundreds of miles around, it seemed, it was a relief to see that it was not clogged with eclipse viewers. We got to the Silver Spur Motel at 8:30 p.m. \u00a0The clerk called the person with the last room reservation one more time, and was not able to reach him or her. \u00a0He sold the room to me for 150 bucks, which was not too unreasonable! \u00a0The three of us would sleep in relative comfort this night.<\/p>\n
Rook wanted to be set up for the eclipse well before the first (partial) coverage, which would be around 9 a.m. \u00a0He had scoped out a good potential viewing area northwest of John Day, between Fox and Mount Vernon (but a lot closer to Fox). \u00a0Much of the area was forested and hilly-to-mountainous, and we wanted a wide-open vista in all directions, if possible. \u00a0It would take nearly two hours to reach the area in mind from Burns, so we got up early again and were on the road north at 6 a.m. \u00a0The light of dawn indicated a mid-level overcast layer of some sort, which was disconcerting. \u00a0The skies were “supposed” to be clear or mostly clear this morning! \u00a0What was this noise? \u00a0It looked like this was a smoke layer, and it was. \u00a0It was fairly thin, and it looked like bluer skies were to the north. \u00a0On the way north to John Day, we traveled through a cold, open farming valley where the temperature was 35F. \u00a0A little later we were winding our way through a forest along steep mountainsides. \u00a0We were seeing more and more campsites and vehicles parked near the road. \u00a0The campsites were filled with tents, and some non-campsite areas were filled with tents, too! \u00a0Most of the vehicles observed had California plates. \u00a0This area of the eclipse path was probably the easiest and fastest to reach from most of southern California and much of western Nevada. \u00a0Fortunately, the traffic at 7 a.m. was still thin, and I breathed a sigh of relief when we were inside the path of totality, near Seneca. \u00a0But what would John Day be like? \u00a0A logjam of vehicles? \u00a0We needed to go through it to get to our special spot. \u00a0Fortunately, the smoke layer up here near John Day was now to our south, and skies were looking great!<\/p>\n
We wound through a couple of mountain valley settlements which were loaded with tent sites, and came into the little town of John Day. \u00a0Who had ever heard of this dinky place before the eclipse? \u00a0Not I. \u00a0It was almost 8 a.m., and traffic was light. \u00a0We were near the middle of the eclipse path, so we could break down and be stuck, but we would still see the eclipse from here! \u00a0After a pit stop in town, we made our way west a few miles and then north about ten more to Rook’s open viewing area. \u00a0This looked perfect, with wide vistas in all directions. \u00a0There were a handful of folks already parked along the highway in this area, several miles south of the small town of Fox.<\/p>\n
We had plenty of time to set up tripods and cameras. \u00a0The air was cool, around 55F, and the weather was clear and calm. \u00a0Distant smoke was to the south and west. \u00a0Totality would be in about two hours, and conditions were looking about perfect. \u00a0We stopped by an ancient and abandoned wooden house, and I got some pics of it. \u00a0I wanted to shoot the eclipse with the dilapidated structure in the foreground, but the land owner chased me back to the roadside.<\/p>\n\n\t\t
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