Eclipse 2017

Flash back to August 2015

Me: Hey I found something for us to do in Casper, Wyoming in 2017, wanna go?
Mark: *the look*
Me: No seriously.
Mark: 2017...Casper...
Me: Yup!

 

Seems that I wasn't a complete goof-ball afterall .  Turns out that me and approximately 20 million others had the same idea...GO SEE THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE!  Now a little back story to this.  I read that the total eclipse was going to be over the whole US and that the closest prime viewing places were going to be in Wyoming and Nebraska. I pulled out my trusty laptop and started searching for places to stay for the night before the eclipse. The first place I looked, Alliance, Nebraska: No vacancy in ANY hotel, motel, rest stop, parking lot, etc.  Second place: Ogallala,NB: No Vacancy. Third place: North Platte: No Vacancy and so on and so forth for ALL of Nebraska and Wyoming.  I mean there was nada.  Nothing.  Zippo.  As I quickly learned, a whole bunch of people had already heard about this eclipse and had reserved their hotel stay about 6 years ago because they are nerds. 

But did that dissuade us from going?  Nope not hardly.  Oh and before I go any farther, Mark was totally on board for this little road trip once I told him what we were going to do :) So we decided to drive up to either Wyoming or Nebraska early in the morning of August 21st and drive back to Denver after the eclipse had finished.  Guess what?  That's what approximately 1 million other people from the Denver area had decided to do too.  Who would have thought that there were that many other smart people (such as myself) around here...

We had told Mom and Dad about our plans and they said that they had wanted to go see the eclipse too so we had invited them to come up here and we could all travel together.  Good plan but unfortunately Mom was hospitalized on Sunday morning and they were unable to join us on our sojourn north. 

We got up early and were on the road by 5 am hoping to avoid the heavy traffic that they were predicting.  Uh guess what.  You know those other 1 million people from the Denver area that I mentioned?  They heard the same reports about heavy traffic too and they were on the road right along with us. 

Morning Sunrise

Warnings every few miles about the heavy traffic.

Somewhere on I-25

We drove in bumper to bumper traffic for about 5 hours until we were about 15 miles from Casper, Wyoming and pulled off on one of the access roads to watch the event with about 500 other people who had the same plan as us.  Mark got all set up with his camera so that he could get some pics of the eclipse and I was in charge of catching it on video and taking selfies. 

Some of our 500 new friends we made while watching the eclipse.

My Co-Nerd

Right before total darkness

Let me say: The eclipse was certainly worth the drive and the traffic.  Even if it took us 5 hours to get to a place where we could sit in darkness for a mere 2.5 minutes and then turn around and drive home for another 5 hours.  Totally worth it.

                This is a time-lapse of the eclipse

We headed back to Denver right after the sun reappeared and fortunately we were at the head of the pack for the trip back home.  Those people who were behind us were stuck in heavy, heavy traffic and the news reported that it took most people over 11 hours to make the trip from Casper to Denver.  Boy were we happy to have avoided that.

We've heard that there is another total eclipse that is happening in Austin on April 8, 2024, and guess who is trying to make hotel reservations already? Yup...this nerd!

Sunset