Skipping Ahead- The Great American Eclipse 2017

We were inspired by the eclipse yesterday, so we wanted to skip ahead to the present to share. (As some of you may have noticed, we post a bit delayed. This is due to lack of internet availability in national parks and/or time to write on certain days. We will generally continue to post consecutively, but we really wanted to share our experience going to watch the eclipse!)

Seeing a total solar eclipse has been on Jason's bucket list since he was a youngster, looking at the moon and the planets through a telescope with his dad. So when our itinerary came together last month and we found that we already planned to be within several hours of the path of totality in Oregon, we decided to make this happen.

You will learn, in future posts, about our time at Crater Lake, so briefly we'll just mention that we decided not to stay overnight at our booked campsite. Instead, we drove north to one of the best eclipse viewing spots in the country- the small town of Madras, OR in the high desert.

We hadn't booked a place to stay, but figured we'd wing it and risk a parking ticket if necessary. The town itself didn't seem as full as we thought it would be despite estimates of 100,000 people driving into this town of 6,500. We navigated to the event we planned to attend the next day at the Madras High School, and fortunately when we arrived a bit after midnight, they were accepting cars and RVs for overnight parking to benefit the Athletic Department. We were happy to support, and the benefit to us was waking up in the spot where we intended to watch the eclipse!

Our seats on the football field

The football field and the neighboring Performing Arts Center were the locations for an event hosted by the science channel (SCI) and the Lowell Observatory. There were astronomers giving talks, numerous telescopes, local fundraiser food and merchandise booths, and a SCI channel-hosted photo booth.

Ready to look at the sun!

After setting up our blanket, chairs and some sun cover for Ella, we watched the countdown which was set on the football scoreboard. The crowd cheered at the 5 minute then the 2 minute marks.
A fascinating part we weren't expecting was seeing everything darken and feeling the air get much cooler - in the desert the temp drops quickly when the sun goes down. In the minutes before totality, it felt like it dropped 10 degrees.

Staring at the sun with those glasses and realizing that it was looking like a crescent moon was already pretty fun.

However, when an announcer from the observatory told us we could take the glasses off as we were in "totality", the atmosphere was incredible.

Two minutes of a bizarre environment

That two minutes, where the desert air felt cool, the sky looked like sunset, and the sun was visible with a large dark spot in the middle, can only be described as surreal. The glow of the sun's corona around the moon was just beautiful. We discussed how frightening this must have been before the science was well understood, as it really did look and feel like the sun was getting quickly snuffed out. We took some pictures, but we also took the time to really experience and enjoy the moment and agreed that this was one of the best stops on the trip so far!