The morning has arrived--the day of the Total Eclipse, and
we are off to an Alpine meadow and a spot on the line of totality that my
friend has scoped out for us ahead of time. The map shows the path through
Wyoming. The dark swath is area that will experience some amount of Totality,
if even fleeting on the edges. The blue line in the middle is the line of
greatest of totality. For us that means 1 minute and 54 seconds.
Another amazing sunrise on the Wind River and the sky seems
relatively clear--a good thing!
Looking in the direction of our viewing destination. We will be
somewhere to the right of the center right mountain, which I believe is
One the way, which will take us about an hour, we happen
upon this herd of Bighorn Sheep gleaning from this recently bailed field of
hay.
Almost there and you can just see the Tetons in the
distance.
To kill some time as we waited for the main event, I went
exploring some of the wildflowers. Abundant still owing to the atypically wet
summer.
At this point, I was TOLD by the gentleman in the SUV that I
was "blocking his shot". I was nice about it.
It was a bi-coastal expeditionary force. Myself and my
friend Joey from Maryland and members of Greg & Pamela's extended family
and friends of theirs from San Diego.
I did kind of want a moose to raise up and surprise us...
Our nearest co-observers.
And this quite surprised me--by this time we were a mere few
seconds away from the totality (
my camera compensating for the darkening sky!
Ugh!!) and it was quite cold at this point. Around 50-45 with a steady wind chill.
I know I had gone into it thinking how much I wanted to experience the
temperature change, but by now my ears and hands were chilled enough, thank
you. Some people are just more intrepid than I...
BAM! Best my little camera could do...
What I was able to see with my naked eye. Even now I am covered in the proverbial
goose bumps just thinking about it.
