...with a Little travelogue.
Little Sister Resister and her friend, Littler Sister Resister, went on a Little trip last week to the Great Plains of the United States to experience the Total Eclipse of the Sun. It was a fun, full weekend.
Trish and I met in Denver on Thursday night.
DENVER
We spent a nice day in Denver on Friday. We visited the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Reserve, where we took a nice walk through the fields and forest to some ponds, and we also made the scenic drive around the park. We were able to spot mule deer, prairie dogs, and a herd of American Bison ("Sure, I've heard of bison...")
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| Doz ears, doe! |
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| See the prairie dog on the lower left corner? They are soooo cute! |
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| Them black spots are American Bison! |
After our day of nature, we were hungry women! Trish knows how to conjure the best places to eat. She has this magic little metal box that she stares into, and it tells her good places to stop.
We followed Gigi the Google girl to a sort-of sketchy neighborhood, and we had the most amazing Southern cooking! Fried catfish, collard greens, and yams. Oh my! So yummy! If you're in Denver, find the Blazing Chicken Shack on E. 33rd.
After dinner, we walked a block to the Denver Turnverein and I danced for a while. Trish watched and took pictures. The Lindy dancers in Denver are a welcoming group, and I had some fun dances. They had a birthday / newcomers dance, so I was honored to be in that jam. Right after that dance, we had a Shim Sham. Oh, yeah!
WYOMING DAY 1: Saturday
We started our eclipse trek in earnest on Saturday, when we made the drive up to Wyoming. A quick hour and a half to Cheyenne, and we were happy to stop for visiting and lunch with my dear Auntie Nene and my cousin Steve and his wife Carol. Love them people! And we even got to have a little taste of New Mexico when we had green chile for lunch!
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| Gosh I love these people! |
Another hour and a half, and we made it to Haven on the Rock, just south of Ft. Laramie. We were so lucky that Trish stumbled upon this place during her search for a place to stay. When I started planning this adventure, I booked one of the last remaining motels in southern Wyoming for $450/night. I figured I'd just drive up to the eclipse from Laramie. But, as usual, Trish came to the rescue.
Haven on the Rock is a Christian children's summer camp in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming. It was run by Karisa and Zach, a super nice young couple who managed a big undertaking in welcoming people from around the world to their little corner of the American plains.
Trish, who does magic with the inter-webs, found the place, which was within the 70-mile-wide totality zone. The folks at Haven were renting out camping spots, RV camp sites, and, luckily for us, beds in their half-dozen or so barrack-style cabins. We were assigned to cabin 4, "Coyote." We were the only ones occupying the large room, which contained a bunch o' bunkbed pairs. I call top bunk! We weren't sure what to expect. Would other people join us to share this space? Turned out, no. It was comfortable. There were communal, camping-style bathrooms and showers. $150 for the both of us, meals included. What a deal!
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| Trish got up for the sunrise on Eclipse Day. |
I was tickled for the experience. It was communal dining, so we got to know a few other people during meals. The food was typical middle America meat-centric down-home food. The grounds were nice, and they offered their full array of activities, from archery, to shooting practice, to rappelling and horseback riding!
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| Ice cream! |
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| We added pins in California and Florida! |
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| The other side says, "JESUS LOVES YOU. AND SO DO WE" |
WYOMING DAY 2: Sunday
Sunday found a huge influx of people into Haven on the Rock, and by dinner there were about 150 people there. Still no one joined us in our cabin! It felt festive, and people were buzzing with excitement.
We took the opportunity on Sunday to see a little of the area. We drove dirt roads north to the town of Ft. Laramie, a 2-saloon town. We visited Ft. Laramie National Historic Site. It was a cool history lesson. I am always moved when I visit historic sites. Here, travelers on the Oregon and Mormon trails stopped to rest and trade; peaceful Indian trade was big here, and, tragically, the Indian wars started here. We learned that both the Pony Express and the telegraph had big roles there. It's always emotional for me to walk the same place where history happened.
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| The historic Ft. Laramie bridge |
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| This buffalo hide tipi is a contemporary creation, made with traditional methods, including 8 buffalo hides and tanning with buffalo brains! |
We watched some civil war re-enacters demonstrate musket loading and firing and also the firing of a cannon! Really cool, but it reminds you that war is not good.
That afternoon, back at Haven, we mounted our trusty steeds Hank and Taxi, and enjoyed a 90-minute trail ride over the prairie. It was a beautiful afternoon to enjoy the grasslands and the interesting limestone (I'm guessing) formations.
The afternoon got a little cloudy. We threatened the clouds with violence if they or their friends showed up the next day.
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| Trish, in blue, on Hank |
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| Thirsty horses get relief after the ride |
WYOMING DAY 3: Monday
THE TOTAL ECLIPSE
Wow!
We packed our backpacks with snacks, water, and blankets, and walked about 1/2 mile west from the camp to a hill on the prairie. We had 360º views of the horizon. And there we sat, staring into the sun for hours and experiencing the celestial event of a lifetime.
I didn't want to take photos because I knew 1000s of others across the US would take much better photos, so it wasn't my priority. I wanted to just experience it. That being said, I wasted too many precious seconds searching in the dark for my camera to take a souvenir snapshot.
HOWEVER, after taking a few written notes during the partiality, I extemporaneously decided to turn on my iPhone's voice recorder. I did not know that Trish had planned (and executed) a video of us watching the totality. Serendipitously, we have a wonderful video and audio recording of our reactions, which I was able to synch with iMovie. You can see me in the video just looking around, looking dazed. I was trying to memorize every bit of it, from the feel of the wind, to the temperature, to the sounds, to the light. Oh! the light!
There wasn't really much change in the light until it neared totality. Then it started feeling like dusk. But it was a different quality light, different from everyday dusk. It was quite eerie, grey or more brown. Impossible to describe. I wish the video captured the changes in the lighting. I don't think any camera could have. The camera auto-corrected the light. But it is seared into my memory. At totality, it really was pitch black. Though the video shows a more subtle change in the light, you can still see the magnificent return to sunlight.
Other notes:
The event was amazing - magnificent - incredible - stunning - extraordinary - insert superlative here.
The crickets got confused. They woke up and started chirping about 20 minutes before totality.
I watched for the moment in the west when the moon's shadow started barreling toward us. You can see the moment when I tell Trish, "Oh yeah, look, look, look! Look over there!" The moon's shadow was coming at us at more than 1,100 miles per hour. It got very dark very quickly. Indescribable. And very cool.
I was confused as well.... haha. You can see me on the video say again and again, "The sunset's in the west." Well that's nothing special! But it was also in the north, east, and south! The horizon held sunset colors all 360 degrees around us.
For the record, the body I saw to the left of the Sun was Mercury. And I was so fixated on Venus that I missed Jupiter in the East and Mars was around, too.
I truly believe that up on that little hill on the prairie, where we had flat 360º views, and not a single cloud in the sky the whole day, we had the best eclipse experience that anyone on the planet could've had.
It breaks my heart to hear people say that they saw 99% totality and "didn't think it would be that big a difference." The reality is that the difference is... well, between night and day! Totality is amaze-balls. There really are no words.
I hope the video gives you a little glimpse of what it was to experience a total solar eclipse.
Here it is.
THE JOURNEY BACK
We missed the camp's lunch, so we got an ice cream to go, and after packing up we started the drive back to Denver.
And so did everybody from Colorado, along with their kids, their cousin, their aunt, their cousin's mother-in-law, their grandma, and the neighbors in the back.
Imagine a straight road through the treeless prairie. Now imagine thousands of cars nose-to-bumper. For 202 miles.
Everything worthwhile has its challenges. The journey home was ours. There was no choice to accept it. I went at it with an attitude of "We'll get there when we get there." And I knew that whatever we faced, it had been worth it to have the experience we did.
It took us 7 hours to drive to Cheyenne and 11 hours (normally 3 hours) total to Denver, including one brief stop at the cousins' house to return the borrowed blankets and one brief stop at McDonald's. Get us food! Any food-like substance will do!
One demoralizing moment came when the the plodding bicycle that we had passed a couple miles back overcame us -- and we didn't catch up to him again for probably 15 minutes or more.
One magic Karma moment came early on in Torrington, WY. I had tried to turn off the engine whenever I could, especially during the miles through town where it was literally a parking lot. I would let a car length or two stretch before I turned on my engine again to drive those few feet and sit again. At one point, the truck behind me didn't take kindly to that, and he pointedly honked and zoomed around me while the passenger flipped the bird as the truck nosed into the car-length in front to sit with that view for the next however-the-freak-long.
After another block and 20 minutes, a nice lady and her dog passed us, and she stopped to talk to us through the window. "Where you from? Where you heading? Wow, you came a long way to see us!
And then.... "If you cut through this alleyway here it it'll take you to 14th. It may cut a little time off." This alley, here? The one where our nose is, and the a$$hole's back bumper just passed? "Yep, that one!"
Zooooooom! Buh-bye, sucka! Instant Karma. She's a bitch.
Despite the frustrations, the journey home was totally worth it. Every moment was a moment well spent in the pursuit of this experience. There are so many experiences this world has to offer. Make the effort to find them.
"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." -- John Muir
Now, plans for April 8, 2024...... Join me?
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| I was there!! |
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