Start looking for a boondocking site: eclipse (Aug 21 2017)
It's never too early to plan that trip! Path of totality
Forum Discussion
Well, I still haven't received all of the photos taken by the others in our small party, but this will give you an idea of the site I ferreted out. I had several possible locations from Guernsey, WY, east to north of Scottsbluff, NE. In the week running up to eclipse day, we were camped within a 3 hours drive of each location. I kept tweaking my plan by taking in the observed weather and traffic reports and expectations on the various local radio stations. I finally settled on a country road about 30 miles north of Torrington, WY, Co. Rd. 24.
We fueled up in Cheyenne right at HWY 85 which led to our site. Round trip to this service station was 204 miles. The drive in was what I expected, as we entered the Path of Totality vehicles began peeling off to find a viewing site. We continued north to ours and there was less and less traffic as we proceeded. The road, route 159, had people lining the soft shoulder pretty much the whole way but, with about 5 miles to go, there were fewer and fewer people until about the last mile nearest dead-center then the die-hards were lined up there. (At this point our driver, my wife, was ready to pull over anywhere (we were pulling the Casita, luckily!) and I was the navigator working at a disadvantage . . . I had forgotten to bring either of my 2 Garmin GPSs, the Tahoe's navigation and entertainment failed, our smartphone GPSs didn't work due to the cell/data system being overwhelmed, and the county roads were not numbered as county roads, but as streets! fortunately, I had looked at the online maps so much that I had them memorized and found Co. Rd. 24. We turned and drove another half mile to a mile until we topped a small rise. We pulled over right on the road. There was no one else in sight.
My wife took this picture. I'm on the left, the couple on the right were with us for the Cabo San Lucas Total Eclipse in Baja in 1991 and this was there 5th total eclipse that they travel around the world to view. This was the first total eclipse for the guy behind the telescope. He lives in Colorado Springs and is a friend from an online Military site I frequent and thought that it would be fun to see it. Boy, was he surprised!
My wife made it into the pic.
The drive back to the camp site is a WHOLE 'NUTTER STORY. I'll tell it later.
LS
We fueled up in Cheyenne right at HWY 85 which led to our site. Round trip to this service station was 204 miles. The drive in was what I expected, as we entered the Path of Totality vehicles began peeling off to find a viewing site. We continued north to ours and there was less and less traffic as we proceeded. The road, route 159, had people lining the soft shoulder pretty much the whole way but, with about 5 miles to go, there were fewer and fewer people until about the last mile nearest dead-center then the die-hards were lined up there. (At this point our driver, my wife, was ready to pull over anywhere (we were pulling the Casita, luckily!) and I was the navigator working at a disadvantage . . . I had forgotten to bring either of my 2 Garmin GPSs, the Tahoe's navigation and entertainment failed, our smartphone GPSs didn't work due to the cell/data system being overwhelmed, and the county roads were not numbered as county roads, but as streets! fortunately, I had looked at the online maps so much that I had them memorized and found Co. Rd. 24. We turned and drove another half mile to a mile until we topped a small rise. We pulled over right on the road. There was no one else in sight.
My wife took this picture. I'm on the left, the couple on the right were with us for the Cabo San Lucas Total Eclipse in Baja in 1991 and this was there 5th total eclipse that they travel around the world to view. This was the first total eclipse for the guy behind the telescope. He lives in Colorado Springs and is a friend from an online Military site I frequent and thought that it would be fun to see it. Boy, was he surprised!
My wife made it into the pic.
The drive back to the camp site is a WHOLE 'NUTTER STORY. I'll tell it later.
LS
