When I was planning this vacation I went day by day figuring out what we would be doing and where we would stay. I got to the next to last day and decided that somewhere mid-Oregon along I-5 would be best. Only when I could not find a single hotel that had vacancy did I wonder why Oregon was all booked up. John and I pondered about this. Was there some big event happening? Were all the colleges going back to school on the same day? Finally John had an aha moment, the eclipse!
So I had planned the perfect vacation with its climax at the moment of total eclipse somewhere near Salem, Oregon. We were offered eclipse glasses early on at the Museum of Eastern Idaho so we were prepared.
We leave our hotel in Chehalis, Washington early hoping to avoid the Portland, Oregon rush hour travel. Strangely there is no traffic at all around 8 AM. Maybe all the Intel people have the day off to watch the eclipse. About twenty miles north of Salem we start running into some traffic and decide to take some back roads and camp out on the side of a country road to watch the eclipse. Our plan is working perfectly. The eclipse starts and I am ready with my iPhone to snap some pictures but the sun is too bright. So I take to putting my eclipse glasses over the lens. Here are the results –
So obviously I am not very successful with the picture taking. I guess you would need a much more sophisticated camera than an iPhone. Shucks. Here is a picture from NASA showing what it actually looks like from Madras, Oregon.
We do take some pictures of John and I looking comical in our cool eclipse glasses called “The Eclipsers.”
Here are some of my impressions about seeing a total solar eclipse. First, it happens really slowly. It tkes a long time for the moon to move into position. As it approaches, the sky begins to get a twilight kind of appearance. Then you notice the wind pick up a little and it starts to feel cooler. Finally when the sun it is totally eclipsed, it is dark but not totally pitch dark. There is still enough light coming from the edge bits to make things seeable. It only last for a minute or two before the moon and sun begin to part and the light comes back really quickly.
This is an awesome experience and the perfect end to our vacation. And because it is so worthwhile and special I am not going to complain about the monumental traffic where it takes us 4 hours to go 60 miles!