Saturday, with some downtime.

We both woke up early and decided to head up to Ecola for some geocaching. I wisely ate breakfast (more cookies in milk) and we got in the car for the first time since we got here on Thursday. We’d been incredibly lucky with the weather, but it was chilly and gray on our way out, with rain predicted in the afternoon. We wore raincoats. We’ve gone on this trail before to geocache, but there’s a new bunch of caches. Also, now we know that it is a very steep up and down climb, so we were prepared and not crabby. There are 14 markers on the trail, and at each one there’s a photo on a website that you match up and assign a number to. At the end of the hike you add up the numbers and that’s the address of the cache. We took the side trail to the lighthouse viewpoint as well, which was fantastic. It was a good hike, we didn’t get rained on, and we got to do a treasure hunt as well. We also discovered that there’s a trail from Seaside to Ecola that’s on our to-do list.

When we got back it was time for lunch, and because Dave skipped breakfast he was very hungry. It was time for Bill’s, where we got some scoop on the relationship between Bill’s and the Smokehouse, and why there was molasses stout (the assistant brewmaster ordered it just before he was let go). We had reservations for Castaways for dinner, which the food and drinks are great but the desserts are not, so we shared a phenomenal pumpkin cheesecake with a molasses-gingersnap crust. I will remember it forever.

After lunch we did a little wandering through town, then back to the hotel for some Scrooge (Alistair Sim version), napping, reading and knitting. We also played 2 games of Fluxx, which is more fun with more people, and made our 7Cs reservations for next year. Then it was time to eat again. Dinner at Castaways was a little slow – they were shortstaffed – but very good. I also had their strawberry-hibiscus lemonade without the vodka, and it was really, really good.

When we got back it was clearing up and feeling warm, so we went for a walk on the beach. The moon’s about ¼, and was making enough light that walking on the beach was easy. It was also very very windy, so we shouldered our way down the beach towards Haystack. The sand was blowing across the beach in ghostly waves and it was exhilarating (and tiring). We turned around at the creek at Midtown, and it was very fun being blown back up the beach.

We finished off the evening with pie (for Dave, making up for his lack of breakfast) and more seasonal videos. It was another good day.

Friday, with a video

I’m not really in the mood to write, but I also want to remember all the fun things today. I started with yoga with Christen, lots of planks. Also a twisted pigeon at which I failed so badly that she and I both started laughing in the middle. Dave read on the porch. It was a beautiful morning so when I got back we had a little breakfast (carrs whole wheat biscuits in milk for me!)  and went for a walk on the beach. We made it most of the way to Haystack before the sky turned threatening and we headed back. On the beach were many of the weirdest looking things, like tubes. When you step on them the squirt! Thanks to Sally we think they are pyrosomes  (http://www.opb.org/news/article/massive-bloom-of-pickle-shaped-sea-creatures-fills-the-pacific/).

We walked back through town and discovered that there was no line at Cannon Beach Distillery, so we stopped in and bought their new whiskey. As we were headed back to the hotel Dave got a text from Kevin and Julia saying they were at the distillery, so we went back and did some tasting with them, then off to lunch at the new Cannon Beach Smokehouse restaurant. It was fun but no need to go back.

Many people out to see the sunset!

They headed off and we did a little shopping, then back to the room for naptime (Dave) and knitting (me). When Dave woke up we went for a short walk to see the sunset, then came back and got ready for dinner at the Bistro, where the food is always better than we expect it to be. Except now they do this weird thing where they kneel down by your table to talk to you, which is kind of creepy.

After dinner we headed to the Coaster Theater for a strange but wonderful adaptation of a Christmas Carol. The singing and dancing were worse than ever, but the overall effect was magnificent.  Particularly Marley’s ghost, whose makeup and demeanor were an all-out homage to David Bowie in Labyrinth.

We’re hoping for more downtime tomorrow.

Thanksgiving at the coast

6 years ago (it was a Wednesday) I tried a new class at the local gym. I wrote that it was a weird kind of dance class but I liked it. Today, I celebrated my 6^th Niaversary by team teaching in that same room. Tripti has gathered a great group of folks -  it was super fun teaching and dancing with a large group of enthusiastic people. Also today was my first day with my fitbit flex 2, which said I took about 4,000 steps during the class.

Usually we make reservations far in advance for Thanksgiving dinner, but for some reason this year we didn’t. By the time we got around to it nobody had any room. So Tuesday I stopped at Zupan’s and stocked up on cheese and charcuterie, and we brought a wonderful bottle of Domaine Drouhin Chardonnay.  It occurred to me when I got home that I should also have picked up some pre-made thanksgiving food, but it was too late. So instead we had a traditional thanksgiving meal of jumbo Hebrew National hotdogs, baked beans, and sauerkraut. Then we finished packing up (there are families who go away for a month who take less than the two of us packed for the weekend) and headed out to the Waves Motel.

When we got there it was mostly sunny, so we went for a walk on the beach down to Haystack rock and back through town. There was a lot of kelp. Town was deserted, but beautifully decorated. Once we got back we unpacked and had our dinner. It was wonderful! The sun set as we were eating dinner and we think we saw a green flash.

After dinner we watched the movie Coraline, which was weird. And I did much knitting on the front of my second pillow. Then we went for another short walk, on the beach and back through town. The folks at EVOO had been sitting down for dinner at 4:00 when we went out for our first walk, and they were still eating at almost 9:00. We think our way was better.

Back to the hotel for pie and A Garfield Thanksgiving and knitting.

Sorry about no photos. Too full of pie.

Day 9 - caches and wine

Last night we’d decided to go out geocaching before Tabs & Jen headed back to Portland for another day of Comic Con, so we were up and out relatively early (9:15) heading in to Cannon Beach for one of our favorite caches, the downtown Cannon Beach Photo Mystery cache.  Basically this takes you from the whale north of town to just north of midtown, trying to find a series of things. Once you find them you decode the location of the cache, which used to be in a marshy bit of forest but is now along a nice paved trail. We’ve done this cache several times but it’s a fun one for first timers, and the girls had a good time finding the things.

Then we sent them off to own and went to Indian Beach, to see if the walk from Indian Beach to town would be accessible for Dave tomorrow while I’m at yoga. What’s funny is that before we even got to Ecola State Park there was a sign saying it would be closed tomorrow and Tuesday, which didn’t cause either of us to realize that whether the walk was doable or not, the park would be closed so he wouldn’t be able to get there. It’s just as well that we didn’t realize it, because we had a really fun time scrambling around the boulders at the south end of the beach. We also saw some starfish, which are very rare this summer.

Once we got back to town it was perfect timing to go to Bill’s, so we did. Town was very crowded but we had no trouble finding parking or a table. After lunch we walked down to the bookstore, then came back to the house and got thing straightened up for wine tasting. It was a beautiful day and the front room did a very good job of looking like the most perfect place on earth. We’d had quite a few last minute cancellations, so ended up with Amber, Thomas, Jen & Kirk for a very fun afternoon of sipping wine and chatting.

Dinner was at the Stephanie Inn, where the food is excellent and the ambience is… not. We always split our time there between marveling at how good the food is and trying to figure out why the overall experience feels uncomfortable. Some thoughts this time – the lights are too bright, the waitstaff aren’t very professional looking, and not very welcoming. It’s a little like dining at the home of a fussy grandma – one who is an excellent cook.

After dinner we did our new favorite thing of sitting on the deck watching it get darker. A disadvantage of being here so late in the summer is that the sun sets while we’re at dinner, and although the Stephanie Inn is on the beach the dining room looks east. So we may have missed the only green flash of the trip. It is a chilly evening and Dave has made a nice fire.

Tomorrow we head home, although I’m hoping to get in one more yoga class tomorrow morning. Then maybe a yoga class at Willamette View in the afternoon, and Nia with Debbie & the black belt trainees in the evening.  This is the end of the blog, thanks for riding along.

We should remember to bring a tea mug for me.

Day 8 - influxx

First off, a little more about the wine tasting we did yesterday. The winery is called Westport Winery, and the actual winery is on the Washington coast, although they get their grapes from eastern Washington. It’s one of those places where all the wines have cute name, and they have many many wines on the menu – fortified and sparkling Rieslings, fruit wines, and so on. It reminded me strongly of Nehalem Bay winery, and we don’t need to go back.

I went to be early last night and slept in this morning. Dave got up and went for a walk on the beach. At about 9 I decided it was time to get up and thought it would be fun to go beach biking. So I texted Dave to make a plan, and he came back up and we got ready to go. The weather forecast was promising showers, but I was convinced they wouldn’t happen. Dave is not a fan of the beach bikes, but he said he was willing to go. He was pretty grim during the getting ready and driving to midtown though.

When we got to midtown it turned out the funcycle place was closed, even though they were supposed to have opened at 9:30. Dave’s mood immediately improved, and it improved even more when we discovered that there was a puzzle geocache that started right about where we were. It was a very fun one that took us on the beach past haystack rock and then back into town and onto a little walking trail neither of us had been on.  The way this one worked was that there was a photo of a place that you’d walk to, and then 4 little photos one of which was nearby, which had a number that you used to find the coordinates of the final point. After we’d found the 3 photo places and were on our way to the decoded final point, we were walking by icefire and I decided to go in – I’d completely forgotten that we hadn’t finished the puzzle. I was glad we did though because we ran into Ann Kramer, one of the Willamette View residents, which was fun.

Once we got back on track it was time for lunch, and it was Pelican day. Pelican is a brewpub originally out of Tillamook, and they built a big new place where Doogers used to be. Going to Doogers  always made me crabby because there was always a huge line and the food was overpriced and not very good. Dave feels the same way about Pelican, although it’s the prices and the beer that make him crabby. But they make MacPelican, which is one of my favorites, so we went there and although the beer was mediocre, my kale and farro salad was very tasty (order dressing on the side though). After lunch we went to town and got a space in the secret back lot. We went to Maggie & Henry’s to replace Dave’s sweatshirt, and I found a corduroy shirt and purse that I liked. Then we walked to the cupcake store, but all they had was giant Costco muffin sized ones. Why don’t they make little ones? Instead we went to Osburns and split a haystack sundae, which was yummy. Then we went back to the house for naps. Dave’s deck nap was interrupted by rain.

Once we were both up it was chilly enough to have an afternoon fire and play some Fluxx. It is a game where the end goal – who wins – and how each turn is played changes as you play the game. I like it because it’s mostly just luck, but there’s some strategy but no thinking ahead. About the time wit finished Jen and Tabetha got here and it was pretty much time to head to the Bistro, where the food was excellent but almost all the drinks were way too sweet. Also we ate too much.

Back to the house for more Fluxx and two games of trouble.  The second game was very hotly contested and full of reversals of fortune. Much honking and shrieking. It’s fun to have young persons come to visit!

Day 7 – my phone knows.

Started with yoga while Dave took a walk. I was more prepared for the speed of the class. There’s still one move I’m having trouble with – kneepads would help. As I left class I got a text from Dave saying he was at midtown. It was still very foggy and wet, so we went home and did some relaxing.  Dave also talked to Gordon Church, one of the owners, about the ants. Apparently the exterminator came yesterday while Dave was out of the house. Dave also sprayed the perimeter with the smelly stuff before he left for his walk, and the ants do seem much diminished.

 Lunch was Pig’n,  and we had our usual. It’s one of my favorite lunches, but once per visit is enough. After lunch we did some shopping, picking up a sparkling gewürztraminer for our Sunday wine tasting, an interesting spiced rum, and a new game called Fluxx. We also purchased and mailed a postcard for Wyoming – hope it gets there!

After the shopping we did two very fun puzzle geocaches. The first involved finding clues in a new mural that’s on the side of Whitebird gallery, then using those clues to find the cache. The second was a super fun way to see one of Cannon Beach’s real treasures – the trashcans. There were coordinates for 8 trash cans, and the information on the top was used to solve the cache, which was out by the sewage lagoons.  A sample trash can rhyme was something like Tillamook has cows/ Seaside has rides/but Cannon Beach has cans/in which we take pride. One of the trash cans had an egregious grammatical error, but fortunately it was not one of the cans in the actual puzzle. Also some of the can slogans were adapted from songs, which would make me go around humming for a while.

By the time we finished it was starting to clear up, so we went home for some relaxing. Dinner tonight was the dinner show at EVOO, which was fun as usual. The first two courses – rockfish with pasta and duck breast with succotash and a peach salsa – were standouts, as were the wines they were paired with, a prosecco rose and a LuJon Syrah from Walla Walla. Also the lemon shortbread cookie.  Then home for sitting in front of the fire. A good day.

Part 2 Begins

Now it’s Thursday and I’m back. I had a good day at work and got cheese at lunch for the wine tasting, so I was able to leave right after work and got out just as traffic was starting to build. I had an easy and traffic-free drive. When I got here it was cool and cloudy – nice to be out of the smoke and heat. While I was gone Dave was so lonely that he invited the ants to join him in the house and wow did they ever take him up on it. I have never seen so many! There were 4 in the tub when I went to take my shower!  Dinner was Castaways, where the menu has gotten much smaller and the blueberry-lavender cocktail doesn’t compare AT ALL to the blueberry-lavender rickey I had in Pendleton on the way to the eclipse, but overall the food and service were both good. After dinner it was raining, which made us do the dance of joy. We stopped at the Mariner market and got some eco-friendly ant killing spray made of peppermint and rosemary oils. I’m not sure which I’d rather have, the ants or the smell of the oils – wow, is it smelly! We played one game of trouble which I won so decisively it wasn’t even fun, and then we had two very close games of farkle. Each of us sparkled. Now we are sitting by the fire, listening to the waves and killing ants.

A note on the swivel chairs. They are still ugly, but a great addition. You can swivel and look out the window, or look at the fire, or put a table between them for games.

Things I forgot: my glasses, my kindle (this trip), and a mug, because the mugs here are too small. We saw one I really liked at Imprint Gallery, but I didn’t like it $38 worth.

Day 3 -Yoga and Walking

Unlike yesterday, this morning was up-and-out – me to 8 am yoga class, and Dave for a walk. Yoga was good, faster and more difficult strengthwise than I’m used to. When I came out, Dave was sitting on the bench – he’d walked all the way from the house into town, about 5.5 miles. I drove us home and we hung out until lunchtime.

For lunch we headed to Warren House, getting there just after it opened. One couple got in before us and sat in our usual table, so we sat in a north-facing table which turned out to be pretty nice. Another couple sat in the table next to us, and we ended up chatting with them for most of the meal, which was fun. We told them about geocaching and the husband downloaded the app right then. Dave had a sausage sandwich from a local smokehouse that is supposed to be opening up next to my favorite show store, and it was very good. As we were leaving, we ran into Cindy Sirianni and her family – she used to work with Dave and they have a place here.

We stopped at the house & then headed to Nehalem Bay State Park for some geocaching. There were some around the campsite and some on the spit of land that goes between the bay and the ocean. We chose to look for the ones on the spit, which was the wrong choice. Dave found the first one, and we should have headed back to the campsites at that point. Instead we continued on, and then it was sandy, and the cache wasn’t on the main trail, and

then we’d gone so far that we were almost to the end of the spit and I’ve always wanted to go there. So we did. We didn’t bring water and I had the wrong shoes, but we made it to the beach. We stopped there for me to empty my shoes and Dave to do a little research, and we decided to skip the cache and walk back on the beach. It was very hot on the path but cool on the beach, and the sand was firmer, so it was a better walk. But it was a bit long for Dave who’d already put in all that beach walking in the morning. The climb over the dunes from beach to parking lot was a bit too far for both of us, and we were glad to get in the car and go home.  We’ll try for the other caches some other time. Dave was excited to announce that he had over 20,000 steps.

It’s an interesting day weatherwise, there’s a thick high cloud/smoke cover. So it’s not as hot as it could be, but quite humid on the beach. We have avoided downtown entirely so far, but the parking lots for Hug Point, Arcadia, and Oswald West have all been very full and overflowing. Probably not going to do Labor Day weekend at the coast again.

Dinner tonight was at Newman’s. We considered trying Restaurant Don’t, but things are still very crowded. So we went to Newman’s and had the chef’s Prix Fixe menu with wine pourings, which exceeded expectations.  Once again it’s too warm to sit indoors and have a fire, so we’re sitting outside smelling the smoke and watching the horizon slowly darken. I go back to work tomorrow, so tomorrow night’s blog, if there is one, will be by guest blogger Dave.

Day 2, lounging

What Oregonians think is a crowded beach

Woke up, ate breakfast, drank tea. Spent some time with Samsung support trying to figure out how to schedule multiple times for do not disturb, and eventually got referred to the next level of support. I suspect they can’t help either, but when I have a couple of hours to spend getting nowhere, I’ll give them a call. I also discovered that the old geocaching app has been superseded by a new one, so  we both installed it. Don’t worry BOS, no geocaching occurred today.

Usually Dave is champing at the bit to go for a hike or some activity, but after two weeks on the road he has a major lounging deficit. So we hung out around the house until 10, then headed to town for some shopping (quite successful) and lunch at Bill’s (ditto). Town was quite reasonable when we got there, and now that we have no minors and can sit in the over 21 section at Bill’s, we really only need to be sure to get there before noon, not right when they open. It’s possible that the two other brewpubs opening – Pelican and Public Coast – have also taken some of the pressure off. Speaking of things opening, a new restaurant has opened at the north end of town called Harding Trading Company. I tried calling them on the way home last night and got their answering machine which says they don’t take reservations and they don’t seat groups larger than 6 people and they don’t answer their phone during business hours. It gets great yelp reviews but it may take a while for me to get over the don’ts.

Also just before lunch we were at Dragonfire and suddenly a woman looks at me and says “are you following us?” Turns out they were two of the people from the big table last night and we had a very nice chat. I was surprised that they recognized me, but I was made memorable by having left my sunglasses on the table (I realized it moments after we got in the car and we went back and got them).

After lunch we went to Bruce’s and Mariner and then came home for major napping and reading. I suspect that will be the big activity this trip. After my nap I headed down to the beach as it was halfway to low tide, and the high sands make the tide seem even lower. I didn’t see any starfish, even though I walked all the way around hug point in the water – sandbars are very handy.  The waterfall at Hug Point and the little stream that runs by our path are the lowest I think I’ve ever seen them.  Another consequence of the high sands is that our cove doesn’t get cut off, and with the high temps in Portland the beach is very crowded. Some of them are even on our beach – in fact, one family set up a shelter in the cave to the south.

When I got back Dave was still reading on the deck, although I know he’d moved around a couple of times. We got ready to go to dinner at Blackbird in Manzanita. Dinner was wonderful – the green chickpea/quinoa/barley salad and the radicchio Caesar were standouts; the cauliflower which last year was so good that Tim had to have a second plate of it for dessert was slightly undercooked so not as overwhelmingly good. One thing they do especially well there is use finishing salt – both the flavor and the crunch elevate the dishes. A worry is that the menu really hasn’t changed in the 3 years we’ve been going there, which might eventually lead to Newman’s at 988 syndrome, where the dishes, while still well prepared, have a certain tiredness.

 

The floor to ceiling windows in the house are wonderful, but it does get really hot in the afternoon, even with the shades drawn. When we got back from dinner it was too hot in the house for a fire, so we sat on the deck and had some tea while the stars came out. It was fun to find the big dipper by arcing from Arcturus, and things like that. I made a pot of tea and we stayed on the deck while the sunset faded from the sky and the moon slowly rose over the house. Eventually it was cool enough in the house to come in and have a fire.

Last night after I finished the blog we went into the bedroom and watched our eclipse video (of the 1991 eclipse over Mexico) – well, Dave watched, and I dozed until totality. Who knows what will happen tonight?

On The Road Again

Dave just got back from the eclipse trip the day before yesterday in the new-to-us Lincoln Navigator, a very nice vehicle of extraordinary ugliness. We all know cars say something about their owners –according to Tim this one says “I’d like to talk to the manager”. While we were packing this morning Dave said it felt like he was just repacking all the things he put away yesterday. Meanwhile it was the first day of Nia after summer vacation, so I had a waffle for breakfast and gentle Nia to start my vacation. Packing went very smoothly and once again after folding down the rear seatbacks my car swallowed an enormous amount of stuff. There was even time for a nap.

Normally the short rocks behind Dave are as tall as he is

Not as much stuff as usual, though. This is later than we usually come, and Tim is staying in Santa Cruz to get ready for school. Josh is in Brookings on the fire lines with his National Guard unit, and Jen is back in Kansas for her grandpa’s funeral. So it is just us, which has good and bad sides.

Newness report: New swiveling club chairs, one replacing the old swiveling chair and one replacing the creaky rocking chair by the fire. Very comfortable, but too dark and heavy looking for this house. Sand report: sand is exceptionally high. Cave floor to the south completely covered; rocks in the passageway to the north completely covered.

We got here at about 4:15 – traffic was very heavy, and even completely stopped about 2 miles out from the 26/101 junction. Both Arcadia and Hug Point had cars parked on both sides of the road. Like I said, this is the latest in the summer we’ve come, and we were both a little nervous about dinner. When we did our dinner planning we’d though Josh & Jen would be here, so we’d made reservations at Irish Table. But Irish Table only takes reservations for groups of 4 or more, so we had to cancel the reservation. Saturday night of Labor Day weekend on a day when Portland temps were over 100 is maybe not the best time to hope to get a table. So we headed to town as soon as we were done unpacking, and got to the restaurant at 5:15, about 15 minutes before they opened. We were both nervous that we wouldn’t make the first wave, but we did, and ended up in the front room at a little table next to the big round table. 

The people at the big round table were an interesting group – almost like a cruise ship table. We never figured out if they’d just met (although some of them were sharing a house) or what the relationships were, but they were fascinating people. One had been a beer and wine distributor, one couple had a hazelnut orchard (did you know 99% of the hazelnuts grown in the US are grown in Oregon, and that Oregon State University developed the blight resistant Jefferson variety after the Barcelona variety was nearly wiped out?). And many other fascinating topics.  The food was excellent, as always, and our table was right next to an open door so the temperature was perfect.

After dinner we drove through town (nothing new to report) and got home in time to go down to the  beach and get back up for the sunset, which was beautiful. We were able to see the sun go down right into the ocean, but there were too many clouds for a green flash.

Then it was time for Dave to make a fire and me to start writing. It’s good to be here. 

Here we are!

Total Solar Eclipse - Afterwards

After the eclipse there’s the letdown, for me at least. Post-eclipse disappointment – can’t we do it

again? Packing up the scopes and slowly taking off layers as it warmed up. Josh and Jen headed out almost immediately, which turned out to put them in 2 hours of traffic delay. The rest of us ate sandwiches and chatted, heading back down to the cabin just before the sun came completely out from behind the moon. The clouds had thickened and covered the sun. It was only 1:00.

Back at the cabin we napped, read, showered, and chatted. Dave and I rearranged the suitcases. We went down to Casper and had pizza for dinner. Back at the cabin, Bill made a fire ad we sat and chatted and eventually it was bedtime. The next morning we got up and re-rearranged the suitcases when I remembered the weight limit. We had breakfast and chatted some more, then headed out at about 9:20.

That turned out to be about an hour later than we should have, since there was still plenty of eclipse traffic. We stopped at one exit in Cheyenne and spent a long time waiting to turn left, only to discover long lines at the one gas station. We stopped at another and got McDonald’s for lunch, but that gas station had even longer lines. Finally we found a good gas station on the third try. Meanwhile traffic was crawling through Ft. Collins, and I was trying not to panic about my flight. In the meantime I was on my phone looking for a hotel for Dave in Denver, and not having any luck finding one in the Hilton family – and also being appalled at the prices – nearly double what they’d be the next week  in most cases. As we got closer to Denver we were mentally going through checklists of what was in my suitcase, because if bag drop was a mess I was going to have to leave it in the truck in order to make my plane. While all this was happening Jen and Josh arrived at home, and then Josh called to tell us that his National Guard unit was being called up to go do fire duty. (They eventually left for Brookings on Friday morning) Jen and I made a plan for her to come over Saturday and we’ll do laundry and camping cleanup so she doesn’t have to do it all by herself.

Finally we got through Ft Collins and to the airport, and thankfully United’s bag drop was well organized, easy to understand, and not a zoo. Thanks to TSA precheck I zipped through security, and even had time to get a pretzel before boarding the plane. Meanwhile Dave had found a hotel and made a reservation, so all was well. I had an easy flight to Portland, had dinner there to wait out the traffic, and had no traffic on the drive home.

And that would be then end, until Dave texted from Grand Junction, CO, telling me the Expedition had died. Which leads to my last photo…

I like this person's writing about the eclipse, so if you're up for one more blog, here it is.

Total Solar Eclipse

Eclipse morning dawned cold and clear! There’s a fair amount of smoke in the air from the fires in Montana, but at 7,600 feet it’s not much of a problem for us. We ate breakfast and all the Sandages packed up their tents. Dave set up his eclipse telescope while Bill and Jen set up their cameras, and talked about eclipse photography things while the rest of us hung out. We had plenty of signal for our phones, so we saw people in Oregon post about first contact – when the moon first starts to cover the sun. Oddly, the eclipse traveled west-to-east, which Dave tried to explain to me but I was unable to get my head around without making the moon go backwards which is doesn’t.

Finally it was time for first contact on the mountain. Dave could see it first through the telescope, while the rest of us kept checking and checking through our eclipse glasses. Finally we could see it too. Hooray! Now we had nothing to do but wait. We played a game - first Josh and Jen (Jen won) and t
hen Josh and I (I won! Amazing!) We also worried, because clouds were starting to form – the high, wispy kind that turn into real, sky filling clouds. To take our minds off worrying, Sally and Bill and I walked over to her favorite rocks, which are jasper and quartz and sandstone and other things, all different colors. I found a shell fossil! She has a pile of special rocks on the picnic table and it is now displayed there. When we got back Josh joined us for a game of 99, which I was doing very well at until I suddenly lost. By then it was getting close to eclipse time, and I was wishing I had my straw hat – there aren’t leafy trees to make crescents on the top of Casper Mountain.

We had been taking breaks to check on the progress of the moon (satisfactory) and the clouds (worrisome), but as the eclipse got closer the clouds started to look less threatening. We also paused several times to get warm clothes and be awed by the quality of the light, which is somehow different from twilight and yet the same. One thing I noticed more than I had on the ships (this is my third total eclipse, but my first on land) was the sharpness of the shadows and the crispness of objects in the distance.  Dave had his camera attached to the back of the telescope, but had gotten a special doohickey that let us also look through the telescope, where we could watch the moon gobbling up the sunspots.  With under 3 minutes left to totality Josh suddenly sprinted towards the trucks – he’d forgotten to pour himself a shot of Wyoming Whiskey’s special Eclipse Whiskey.

The last minute ticked down and we all watched the sliver of sun get smaller and smaller. I remembered to look away in time to see the moon’s shadow race across the mountains behind us, and even had the presence of mind to yell “look, look at the shadow!” It was way more intense and obvious than at sea, almost frightening to see this great darkness racing towards you. And then it was total.

What to say? There was a hole in the sky with a bright jagged corona. As the eclipse progressed, we all took turns looking through binoculars at the bright red prominences – solar flares. One could even be seen with the naked eye. We saw Regulus (at the time, we thought it was Mercury) and Venus (misidentified as Jupiter). We saw the sunset all around the horizon.

The wind died, the crickets were quiet. All these things are easy to describe. What’s harder to describe is the excitement of it, the thrill, and the mysteriousness. Scientifically it’s easy to explain. Emotionally, spiritually, not so easy to explain the impact. Then suddenly Dave was yelling “20 seconds! Binoculars down!” And then it was over.

Then there’s the letdown, for me at least. Post-eclipse disappointment – can’t we do it again? Packing up the scopes and slowly taking off layers as it warmed up. Josh and Jen headed out almost immediately, which turned out to put them in 2 hours of traffic delay. The rest of us ate sandwiches and chatted, heading back down to the cabin just before the sun came completely out from behind the moon. The clouds had thickened and covered the sun. It was only 1:00.

Solar Eclipse - The Day Before

We woke up the next morning with the sun shining in the window – what a great way to wake up. Josh and Jen did some circuit training (interesting at altitude!) and Bill, Sally and I headed down to the Nerd YMCA for Nia. I got to meet Kelly their teacher and some of their tribe, and then I taught Cell-ebrate. They were a great group to teach to and I did fine with breathing and teaching at altitude. Afterwards Kelly invited the class to her house for pre-eclipse mimosas and pastries.

Meanwhile Dave and the kids went down to Casper for miniature golf (Josh won) and lunch. We ended up all getting back to the cabin at the same time. We spent the afternoon napping and getting ready to head up to the viewing site. We loaded up our trucks and left the cabin around 4. The road to the site, Bill and Sally’s land on Casper Mt, is quite interesting! Our expedition had the lowest clearance, but we all made it just fine. There was so much rocking and rolling that Telly, the collapsible 10” telescope, almost broke free of his seatbelt, so I spent the last 100 yards or so hanging on to him. It’s possible that at some point on the drive in, the expedition suffered an injury that would prove fatal.

Once we arrived we got to meet the famous potty shed and wow, is it worth meeting! It even has windows with curtains. Later on, however, Sally discovered that women should not use the potty shed with phones in their pockets.

No lasting ill-effects for the phone, fortunately, and Sally didn’t seem to traumatized either. We spent a while setting up our tent, then went for a walk to the “front porch”, an overlook. It has lots of “measles rocks”, aka rocks with concretions, and tilted rock beds, and a great view. Altogether satisfactory.

Meanwhile, thunderclouds were building up all around. Bill & Sally had brought a sun shelter, so we set it up over the picnic table (that Bill built) and started to have dinner. It was getting wetter and windier, so we tied the shelter down to four cinderblocks. And then a giant wind came! It blew over the wine glass and the wine bottle and the container with the salad in it! We’d all leapt up to hold onto the poles, so the shelter didn’t blow away, but I did have a momentary vision of myself clinging to the pole as I sailed up and over the landscape. All the tents survived, although I watched ours get pretty flat. Then the gust subsided and everything was back to normal, and the rain moved off and we opened another bottle of wine. We ate cookies and gummy things and drank wine and chatted as it got darker and slowly began to clear up.

Once it was dark we noticed an amazing sight – the line ofcars heading for Muddy Gap and Casper. They were still coming in when we went to bed after 10, and Sally said they were still coming in when she got up at 6. Eventually some big enough holes opened up the clouds, and Dave introduced Bill and Sally to observing.  It was a great night for it, with no moon (of course!) and both Saturn and Jupiter visible. Josh and Dave enjoyed tour guiding through their favorite objects. Then it was bedtime, and after discovering the that slope was sloppier than we thought and there was a bad lump on Dave’s side, we swapped all of the setup to the other sides (the lump wasn’t in a place that bothered me) and unzipped our sleeping bags to sleep directly on the pads (less slidy that having the sleeping bags on the pads). We both slept surprisingly well, except for the part where I woke up thinking it was raining and something was trying to eat the tent.

Total Solar Eclipse - Arrival

Up and out even earlier – 7:00. Already lines at McDonalds and the entrance to Yellowstone. Yellowstone was very impressive – the plumes of mist from the geysers and hot springs even more visible in the cold (40 degree!) air.  Traffic was light and pleasant and the scenery beautiful all the way through Yellowstone and into Grand Teton National Monument, which are barely separated. I’ve never been out this way and the Tetons just blew me away, especially placed next to the lake the way they are. I made Dave stop at several overlooks so I could take pictures.



When we got out of the park there kept being different rock formations, first painted desert sort of rock, then all red, then twisted tan sandstone.

We had bad philly steaks in Shoshoni so I had ice cream for dessert to make up for it. Then after Shoshoni it turns into total flat prairie forever and ever. We got to Bill and Sally’s about 4, and Josh and Jen got here about 5:30. We had a yummy dinner with lots of corn. The cabin is wonderful, full of mementos and perfect for guests. We did much sitting and chatting.

This photo is from the next day and is a spoiler alert: there's Nia in Casper!

Total Solar Eclipse - National Parks

First thing. I forgot to mention a highlight of yesterday, driving by beautiful Lake Bob in Idaho. It’s tiny and ugly, but the sign says otherwise.

Up and out this morning by 8, heading out US 20 to Yellowstone. Many, many, many electronic signs telling us there is a solar eclipse on Monday and that we should expect heavy traffic. The traffic wasn’t bad, but Craters of the Moon was a zoo – 2 huge busses in the parking lot (one more pulled up as we were leaving) and a long wait for the bathroom. They have a loop road through the park and it is a showcase of lava features. We love lava and I am so jealous that Dave gets to come back after the eclipse. We’ll be back though.

 

About driving through Idaho on US 20. They have the signs that tell you how far to the next city every 3-5 miles, I kid you not. Also historical markers about the same distance apart. Maybe because much of it is FLAT and BORING. Then other parts of it are mountainy and beautiful. We stopped at a rest area at the intersection of Hwys 20 and 75, which is a place that if I were not a total city slicker I would like to live. Not actually at the rest area, but near there.

We stopped for lunch in Idaho Falls, which is a very big city. Here’s what I learned:  4.5 yelp stars notwithstanding, do not eat at a gastropub in a Mormon city. 3 stars at most. After Idaho Falls there’s more flat part, and then you got through some mountains, and then you’re in Montana and the totally tourist town of West Yellowstone, where we are staying at the Tao’s Inn, a hotel catering to the very large Chinese tourist trade.  Since we couldn’t check in until 4, we went to Yellowstone. I’d never been there. It’s worth going to. So much hot water! Boiling out of the ground! Shooting into the air!

The first geyser place we drove by was so crowded that people were waiting to get in to the parking lot. Our goal was Old Faithful, and I was worried that we wouldn’t be able to get in that parking lot either. And then we got into the parking lot which was surrounded by and full of signs for the Inn, the Lodge, the Snow Lodge, the visitors center, the restaurant, the grill… but no signs at all for the actual geyser. Also the parking lot was huge. And we’d been driving all day. Suffice it to say I had a Moment of Crabby. Then we found out that Old Faithful wasn’t due to erupt for an hour, and I was ready to leave right then. Fortunately Dave kept his head, so we went for a walk on the boardwalk around the geysers and hot springs, including a .6 mile round trip up the path to Solitary Geyser, which was completely deserted and even spouted off for us. Dave got a video of it. We completed the walk and got to Old Faithful in plenty of time to see it put on a show. Worth the wait.

Back to our hotel, and then off to Café Madriz for tapas. In West Yellowstone. It was about a 15 minute walk, all the way at the other end of town. So yummy. Standouts were the calamares and the wines, especially my Camino Roca. Quite an unexpected find and a wonderful reminder of our trip to Spain.

We walked back more slowly through town, stopping at only half of the souvenir stores. They were pretty much all still open and the town still hopping at almost 9:00. 355 miles to go tomorrow. We’ll be glad to stay put for a few days.

Total Solar Eclipse - First Day on the Road

We left FG at 8, knowing we’d hit PDX traffic, but actually it wasn’t that bad. It was a cool, cloudy morning, but as we got into the gorge it cleared up into a bright, sunny day.

We’re driving to Casper, Wyoming, to see the total solar eclipse. Tonight we’re staying in The Hotel at the End of the Universe.

We stopped for lunch in Pendleton at Prodigal Son brewing, which was very good. I ordered the krautburger, which I thought would be kielbasa with cheese, sauerkraut, and apples. It was, but they were on top of a burger. At dinner tonight we noticed that the restaurant had a chicken burger and pulled pork burger, both of which came with both the aforementioned meats on top of a hamburger. What’s with that? However, sliced apples on a burger are fabulous, Dave’s reuben was one of the best he’s ever had, they had many interesting beers and I had a lavender-blueberry rickey (no alcohol) which was absolutely amazing. I’m still kicking myself for not getting my travel mug out of the car and having them make me one to go. 

On the way to Pendleton we passed a weigh station. It was closed, but had an electronic sign displaying a helpful message: Solar Eclipse Monday 8/21. When we got to Idaho we stopped at the rest area just across the border, where they had a whole display about the eclipse and were selling or giving away eclipse glasses. 

We got to Boise at rush hour, and all their highway signs, instead of having helpful information explaining why the traffic was so bad (the middle lanes were closed because  of a breakdown) just cycled between “Solar Eclipse Monday” and “Read Idaho 511 Website at home”

 

We also passed by what we think was our first Eclipse trailer park – basically a field by the side of the road full of trailers.

Dave says Highway 26 outside Prineville is backed up for 15 miles. I’m glad we’re here instead. I did enjoy these signs at the rest area, telling me not to do things it wouldn't have occurred to me to do. I hope you enjoy them too.