Eclipse 8-21-2017

Flew from Las Vegas to Seattle to go and see the total Eclipse. Tried to get a flight to Portland a couple months before the Eclipse but there were no seats available on any flight to Portland. An even worse sign was the lack of any hotel rooms in Portland for the Eclipse dates. Found a motel in Corvallis but was told they were $1,000 a night with a 2 night minimum. Did find a hotel in Springfield, 45 miles south of the Eclipse center, and even with all the dire traffic forecasts figured I could make it to the center by the 10:17 totality. If Hwy 5 was gridlock I had drawn up a map of all the backroad that could get there.

Secret UFO landing sight near Las Vegas or maybe a solar site

Crop circles

Lake somewhere north of Las Vegas

Mountains in Oregon

Over the Columbia River

Landing in Seattle

My friend Tom picked me up at the airport Sunday morning and we immediately left for Oregon. We were worried about traffic as the Governor of Oregon had declared an emergency and even called out the National Guard to handle traffic problems. Traffic was no problem and we made it to the motel in five hours and had plenty of time to check out where we wanted to be for the Totality. The next morning we left at 4 AM as we were warned it would take over three hours to get to Albany which was having a huge Eclipse event. Actually mad it passed Albany in less than an hour to get to the center of the Eclipse path.

Totality

The "Diamond Ring" right after Totality

Shadow on the cooler, light coming through the leaves after Totality

As we headed back north the traffic fears came true. It took eight hours to get back to Seattle. Still not as bad as expected. Maybe all the reports of gridlock kept a lot of people from coming. We saw no evidence of restaurants and stores running out of food or gas stations running out of gas.

It was definitely worth the trip. I have seen several partial eclipses but seeing the totality was indescribable. There was enormous excitement when it started "the crowd want wild", then silence durning most of the next two minutes of totality, and excitement again at the end. We had perfect weather with no clouds Monday but on the flight back to Vegas there were clouds all the way back with a few north of Las Vegas also.

Mountain somewhere in Oregon

Landing in Las Vegas