Eclipse Trip - The big event

We got up early and drove to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, and viewed the eclipse.  Because it was a last minute change due to weather, we wound up paying $30 to park at the local high school and watch it from their football field.  On the plus side, they had relatively clean bathrooms (the portopotties at the park had gotten so bad that it was literally more hygienic to just go in the woods), and they had decent concession stand food and prices.  I would like to imagine that they used the eclipse money to buy more science books for their school library, so that I don't feel gouged.  Everyone we met there was super friendly, though.

The eclipse took a while to get to totality and a while for it to get back to regular, with about two and a half minutes of actual full eclipse, which went by in a flash.  The glasses and binoculars were awesome for watching it approach the total eclipse, and then you could watch it for that very short time without protection.  During leadup and exit, the light gradually changed and got darker, but once it hit totality, it was very suddenly dark twilight, with sunset on the whole 360-degree horizon, and we could even see planets in the sky.  Bobby got some good pictures on the real camera, but even with the lenses, phones didn't pick much up.  Poor Akasho was very nervous during totality, and he tried to run and hide, so Bobby and I held him between us until the sun came back, and then he was fine.

The whole experience was really amazing and awe-inspiring, and it was everything we hoped it would be and more.  Totally worth driving all the way out here.  And now the long and grueling drive home...the traffic is the worst I have ever been in, because you have thousands of people trying to leave on roads that haven't seen this much traffic in the last decade put together.

Eclipse Trip - Sweltering Sunday

It was hot today.  Triple digits in the shade, humid as a rainforest, hardly any breeze.  We, of course, went on multiple hikes.  We scouted out potential eclipse viewing locations at the tops of mountains, climbed in caves and other fun rock formations, and probably covered ourselves in poison ivy.  It is freaking everywhere.  Most of it is yellowing like it hasn't seen rain in a month, so maybe it's less oily.  I don't know.  I didn't wake up covered in itchy red bumps this morning, which is shocking considering how surrounded we are by it.  I don't think I will escape unscathed though, considering how much more trekking through the woods we did today.  It was so impossibly hot today that we all took a break and sat in the car with the air blasting for an hour or so.  Andrea shared hikes and meals with us and it felt like we had known her for a while.

It looks like the sky will be overcast here tomorrow, so we will be waking up early and driving to Kentucky for better viewing.

Eclipse Trip - A very long day

We left late on Thursday, after Bobby got home from work and packed.  I had that day off to pack, clean, and get various animals ready.  Bobby, Jim, and I took turns driving west for about 20 straight hours, with a few rest stops in between.  We finally arrived around midday on Friday to what would be our campsite for the night.  I have no idea how Bobby even found this place, because it was not set up for tent camping.  It was basically a lawn with RV hookups every so often.  There was no shade, no fire pit, no camp store.  The bathroom and shower facilities were functional, though, and the owners seemed really nice at first.  The old guy/coowner basically told us to park anywhere and his wife would check us in later.  We pitched our tents then drove out to a place called Cave in Rock, which is exactly what it sounds like.  There is a cave in a big rock next to a river.  It was cool inside compared to how hot it was outside, and the acoustics were really fun.  There was also a bunch of graffiti from the 1800s and 1900s.  These people had to bring a hammer and chisel to carve their names into this rock.  Now that is dedication.  Kids these days with their spray paint and their sharpies don't know how easy they've got it.  

After this, we got food and headed back to the campsite.  There was another old couple there now, apparently friends of the owners, and they had a big dog running free on the grounds.  The dog was friendly and we let him and Akasho play for a little bit, but Akasho is nursing a shoulder injury and isn't supposed to be doing anything active for the next month.  So when we decided that he had had enough, we leashed him to the only tree in the place and hoped he would calm down.  The other dog's owners didn't bother to try and wrangle their dog, though, and he kept instigating even after we explained that our dog was injured.  Their dog also peed on both Jim's tent and mine and Bobby's, and the owners didn't even apologize.  Akasho has certainly peed on stuff he isn't supposed to, but we always apologize profusely and clean it up the best we can.  Apparently this is not common courtesy in Illinois.  Anyway, the old lady/coowner checked us in, which included checking our names off a list and taking our $60 (cash only, no receipt) for the weekend.  While I was in the bathroom later that night, the woman came up to Bobby and tried to say that we owed her more than twice what we paid because we had a second tent and a dog.  Bobby said that was insane, because for $60/person/night instead of that price for all of us for the weekend, we could have gotten a hotel with free continental breakfast and wifi, and not have gotten woken up at 6:00 in the morning by some really unhappy sounding cows at the farm across the street.  But I am getting ahead of myself here.  So we said we couldn't give her any more money that night anyway because she had already taken all the cash we had on hand.  In the morning, I took a lovely shower, because I was going to get my money's worth damnit, and we packed up our shit and left.  We found a national park nearby that allows something called dispersed camping, where instead of regular campsites that you pay for, you are allowed to just pitch your tent in the woods for free as long as you put out your fires and take your trash home.  So we did that.  We managed to find a great parking spot and camping spot, and just set up shop.  Lots of people have been arriving and having to hike further in, so we are just going to stay put until after the eclipse.  Near our spot, we met another camper, Andrea, who seems really nice, and have been hanging out a bit with her, in between naps of sheer heat exhaustion.  It is 90 degrees in the shade and humid as all get-out.  The only other drawback of this place is that there is poison ivy everywhere.  If I escape without a rash by the end of this, it will be nothing short of a miracle.  The bugs are so loud here that they can give you a headache, but there are fewer mosquitoes than the Appalachian trail, so, it's ok.

Tomorrow is Sunday, and we plan to hike around a bit and find the lookout at the top of this little mountain where we will view the eclipse from later.