The Trip: Day Five

So this is the big day, the day of the Eclipse.  We got to get from Stone Reservoir/Curlew Campground to as close as we can get to the center of totality.  The reports are that traffic is going to be brutal.  We are monitoring the two meter linked repeaters and the RACES (I think) Emergency Operations Center frequency.

I just read on the Curlew Campground website that the water isn't potable at this time.  Great, I drank some, and brushed my teeth with it.  Now I'm gonna die! EDIT: I called the ranger in Idaho and he said that the water system had been tested and was OK. He did not know why the water warning was still on the web site, and would check it out.

I am not sure of exactly which route we took.  I was asleep most of the way.  Hey, it was DARK when we left the campground!

Eventually we ended up in Rexburg, Idaho.  A very nice little city of around 25, 484 (2010 Census) folks.

WARNING: You are gonna see a lot of pictures of airplanes.  This park is right under the landing pattern.

Don't say I did not warn you!

 
Telescope, camera, two-meter HT.  We are prepared!

Greg brought this canopy, and this was its maiden voyage.  Went up real smooth!

It's not too crowded, but eventually all the parking spaces were filled.

I probably should have left some of these out.

They seemed so low that I just kept shooting picks, trying to show in an image what it felt like to be there.  Never quite caught it, though.

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This one looked a little different.

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I shot a little video of an airplane landing.  Link to short movie of airplane landing.


I'm not sure how well that works, using your Eclipse Glasses as a camera filter.  Lots of people came over to check out our (and by "our", I mean Greg's) setup with his telescope and camera.

 Greg and Matt had a lot of problems with getting the iPhone to work with the telescope, but eventually they prevailed. Greg had to keep adjusting the telescope as it wasn't tracking quite accurately.  It has been a continuing problem, he said.

It's coming along nicely.

What's that, about fifty percent?

THIS airplane was taking off!

 Getting closer to totality.  I better tell you right now, I don't have any pictures the sun blocked out.  I STILL waiting for the guys to post their pics...

Matt mentioned about the temperature dropping, so I took a quick pic of the thermometer across the street.  It is not accurate, of course, but it's all we had!

 
It is gradually getting darker, but the camera is compensating so it really does not show.

I tried again for some darkness, but no joy.

 
Ain't that purty?

Almost there!

 
Well, that looks a little darker!

Greg is adjusting his camera.

I'm too lazy to check if I used the iPhone or the camera for these pics, but something is obviously lacking in my technique.

Sky is dark!

 Sad pic.

 
This is totality!

Good thing the scientists are not depending on me for pictures~

I'M waiting for the temperature to come up, but they are looking at the eclipse.

There we go!  It has dropped a bit, and probably is lagging.

A couple of hours after the eclipse we hit some geocaches.  The one at the library we couldn't do because the library was closed for the eclipse!  This one is Matt and me at at BYU Rexburg on a webcam.  I am the green blob.

To avoid the traffic on I-15 we took the back roads.  The next pictures are of Craters Of The Moon  National Monument in Idaho.

Pretty desolate!

You can't walk out there, but if you drive to the visitor's center there is road through the park with trails you can go on.  We didn't have time for that, but we did drive the loop.

Nature finds a way...

 Oh, look, I learned how to zoom in a little...

 
And it's pretty darn HOT today, too!

It was about 175 miles from Curlew Campground to Rexburg, Idaho.
It was about 323 miles from Rexburg to Curlew Campground.
So that is about 598 miles of driving for the day.