Jaci Dawn

So? Were you close enough to travel to the path of totality?

I admit, the eclipse wasn’t really on my radar. there was apartial eclipse of the sun when my kids were in grade school, and they made cereal box viewers, but that’s as close as I have ever come. I didn’t have much expectation beyond that. But my husband – ever the science nerd – was very excited that we were within 30 miles of the path of totality and we could actually get to a place to view the total eclipse.

He did the research, he bought the lenses. Now, he didn’t buy those cheap paper glasses that you have to destroy by 2020. Not his style. He purchased a pair of welding goggles for me that covered my glasses and asked me to purchase new lenses for his welding goggles. We were going Steam Punk, and he doesn’t even know what that means. Forget the cheap paper glasses.

The front flips up so you can see in day time. But down like this: you see NOTHING unless you’re looking directly at the sun.

Unfortunately, my phone died so I have no pics of him in his goggles. Damn.

Months ago, he decided we should ask his reclusive friend if we could come down to Monitor, Oregon, to view the eclipse. By the time he called, two other parties had invited themselves. I think we overwhelmed the woodworker. Great minds…

We spent the past four days figuring out the perfect back roads and timing them. This morning, he decided we needed to leave even earlier (I needed to get gas). What a good call! I had gas before the station started to back up. We followed several cars and bike (on back roads with no shoulders!) into Monitor. Traffic was light, considering we usually see NO ONE on those roads and today we saw ten cars.

My phone died. I have no photos of the mayflies rising to mate as dusk came on. The people around us were taking photos through filters on their phones (or trying to). The professional photographer was aiming his camera. We bantered. Then the sky turned dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, and cooler. We put on out glasses and watched the moon cross the sun into totality. And we removed our glasses to gaze upon the BEAUTY of the total eclipse.

I have no photos. It was beautiful. Solar flares. Deep blue sky. Planets coming out.

And it was over.

We packed up, headed north. Our secret back roads were suddenly not secret, but they were road that all other roads funneled into. I really have no complaint about the ensuing traffic (it took us3 X the normal to get home) except this: the 1% of bicyclists who consider themselves above the law and invincible. We were on 2-lane roads with no shoulder, very curvy. And this 1% decided they could pass cars on the left, over double yellow lines, in places where you could not see oncoming traffic. They were lucky to miss the semis.

What took us3 0 minutes to get to, took us 1,75 hours to get away from, going the same direction.We were good – we just leaned back and let other drivers in at intersections (we’re all in the same problem). While I don’t have an eclipse picture to show you, I can assure you: it was worth it. That was beautiful.