We made the 900 mile round trip in order to be within a mile or two of the center line for the 2+ minute show. Five days, round trip. Just got back and sorted my pix and the one, 3 minute vid. Since Faux Bucket now allows no hot linking, linking to my pix will have to be manual through drop box. If you right click the addresses, depress the "Go to" button to open the link.
We left early on Friday, August 18th from our compound on the West Slope, Northern Sierra Nevada in boondock mode with a week's worth of food, a lot of water, clothes, full propane and empty black tank and, at the last minute, 15 extra gallons of diesel fuel. Why the extra fuel? I perused some local TV stations in Oregon on the day before departure, and they were playing up long lines and potential shortages of virtually everything. https://www.dropbox.com/s/1tws6gv7fd51h3b/DSCN1069.jpg?dl=0
Our hope was to aim for a couple places I found on Google Earth that would be suitably "hard to get to" (in Spanish it's called Malarimo, or bad to arrive at). We heard about all the traffic that was supposed to be at hand, but none materialized on Friday. What did materialize was a terrible accident at the jct. of highway 138 and 97. It was so horrible that two life flight helos were dispatched to the scene and departed in different directions with the gravely injured. The 2-hour back up behind us was about 25 miles.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bphsa78ozrucyia/DSCN1071.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nc81d6dh17bkegc/DSCN1072.jpg?dl=0
A bit further down the road we stopped at a N.F. office and picked up some local maps. These proved invaluable. We found a nice dry camping spot in the Ochoco N. F. down a very faint road.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8fbd7mm0u25yd9n/DSCN1074.jpg?dl=0
On Saturday, we drove down the mountain (and cool) the last 30 miles to Painted Hills State Park. It was already an absolute Zoo. Hundreds of cars everywhere. The very road I was planning on was blocked off to egress. The BLM and the State of OR said they would close some poor roads in order to protect the Madding Crowd from getting stuck out there somewhere. Ever flexible, we got on an adjacent dirt road, which already weeded out the faint of drivetrain. It led to a large expanse of BLM land up on a mesa with tremendous views of the distance.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/htwz704mu5ljpxn/DSCN1079.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/euacj5j4tarpupt/DSCN1101.jpg?dl=0
This little Juniper saved our hide during the ensuing days. We did the shade tree musical chair change every hour following the shade right around the tree.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/psobyymexke7hfd/DSCN1098.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y7hg9pr2u9hk4xm/DSCN1081.jpg?dl=0
Our clean little camp. The BLM ranger drove by and waived at us.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w1tx56d5zjgn6bx/DSCN1090.jpg?dl=0
Slowly and inexorably cars started to drive into our area. One driver said the backup was 5 miles to get onto the narrow road leading to Painted Hills and environs.
Many of these people were from California in their tiny foreign 2 door car with 3 inches of clearance and stuff piled high on the roof. Some just showed up, popped up a little tent and called it good.
The awaited time had come. There were at least 125 people within eye and ear shot all around the area. With my Coolpix on a miniscule tripod, I took this @ about 20% eclipse:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wm5trw812zx1c1l/DSCN1113.jpg?dl=0
This next m4v was started at about 80% eclipse of the Sun:
I hope it runs for you as it is as good as I can get with a $100 camera which luckily did NOT adjust the light level. I let out a whoop about midway so keep the VU level lower. People were screaming and praying and jumping up and down when the final darkness hit, which comes across on the vid. You will hear the faint sound of air craft, which flew along with the shadow as long as they could, which was not much as the dark spot was traveling @1700 mph. The temperature did drop at least 10 degrees during the 45 minutes or so of some kind of sun reduction. No insects of wildlife to observe. This was simply the biggest and most immense thing I've ever witnessed. I can see why there are Eclipse Junkies that roam the world in search of their Eclipse Fix.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/mfgweo1q2r6k79q/DSCN1114.m4v?dl=0
People started leaving immediately after the cessation of eclipse with big billowing dust clouds rolling over the landscape. We chose to stay put for a few more hours and have a leisurely Carne Asada supper. Six hours after the S.E. we pulled up stakes and leisurely made for higher elevation and another oooler night's rest in the camper. There was so little traffic we thought it would be good to just keep going and camp south of Bend, OR. Wrong, salsa breath. There was only one secondary road (one lane each way) leading through a town called Prineville, which had a parallel kind of mini-burning man thing going on, so we got caught up in a 25 mile long string of cars and RV's creeping along to get through the town's 2 stoplights of the dumb variety, made specifically to slow things down. Now we were starting to see a lot of fleeing Millennial eclipsers in their suitably soiled Subarus and Priuses. Most of the plates were CA. and they drove like they had to get back to work the next morning, 500 miles away. Things let up a bit as we headed toward sunset until we got onto Hwy. 97 south. This road was NEVER meant to have these many thousands of cars on them so it was turned into an occasionally moving parking lot/Leviathan. Every time a side dirt road appeared on the radar, hundreds of cars peeled off to race down the dust choked paralell raceway @ 70 mph until it ran out and they had to limp back on Hwy. 97. With a 6 speed manual truck trans, occasionally moving was not my idea of a good time. Jeanie got out the OR Gazetteer and found the minorest of forest roads just ahead so accelerated right across the state highway median and into the woods.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7tozzwwxrsm5yy1/DSCN1117.jpg?dl=0
After a half mile or so we were well away from the madding crowd and leisure started to return. I put up the steps and we played backgammon until about 8:30 p.m. Even at that time I could still hear an occasional truck shifting gears which told me that the traffic was still barely moving.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/578v379wtojlk71/DSCN1116.jpg?dl=0
The plan was then to arise @ 3 a.m. and continue toward home some 6 hours away. We arose without breakfast and pulled back on the dark deserted highway.....noting the ever increasing number people in their Priuses and small SUV's who had had it and just rolled to the side and were getting a few winks sitting up right in the drivers seat. This number increased to over 500 cars/RV's/trailers/trucks. It was like the EMP had hit a certain population. It reminded me of a Millennial version of the Battan Death March with people falling slowly to the wayside. They sat in line and drove until they could drive no more. OR state had, with good reason, closed all the passing lanes which were an accident waiting to happen with all those impatient drivers. As we were slower than the speed jockeys, as break of dawn unfolded, we were passed at very high speed by these same slumbering side-of-roaders that we had passed earlier. All in all, it was a grand time for Jeanie and I. I am truly so glad we made the effort to see the most convenient Total Eclipse of the sun in our lifetime. jefe
Lehmee noh if any of these links do not open.
'01.5 Dodge 2500 4x4, CTD, Qcab, SB, NV5600, 241HD, 4.10's, Dana 70/TruTrac; Dana 80/ TruTrac, Spintec hub conversion, H.D. susp, 315/75R16's on 7.5" and 10" wide steel wheels, Vulcan big line, Warn M15K winch '98 Lance Lite 165s, 8' 6" X-cab, 200w Solar
