Coolest of nights on Casper Mountain – awesome sleeping weather [sadly, missed sunrise].  Quiet excitement/anticipation/buzz around camp – ECLIPSE day!

Listened to a group of NASA scientists speak last night at the Lodge.  Crowd was a weird mix of ‘super smart’ & ‘super quirky’.  My tent neighbor spoke of geothermal pulse dangers generated by nuclear weapons exploding high in the atmosphere – but able to knock out all transformers in the Midwest, which would result in hundreds of thousands of people dying from lack of electricity.  Hmm…  Somehow our forefathers survived without air conditioning, right?  Guy passed out Homeland Security business cards with a personal gmail address.  Double, hmm…  Let’s imagine he was completely legit & this was Homeland Security’s new way of reaching out/disseminating National Security threats to the General Public [in a Casper WY campground] – what could I personally do about preventing a nuclear explosion 400 miles above Earth’s atmosphere?  Like I said: missed this morning’s sunrise, slept like a baby.  Guess ignorance is bliss 🙂

Walked/fed the Pup, broke down my tent, Jeep all packed.  Horizon gazed.  Sunshiny day.

Short hike over to ‘the viewing area’ – large swath of meadow high on Casper Mountain.  Roadside concession stand sold hot dogs & soft drinks.  A&W root beer for a buck.  Heck of a deal.

10:25am: Planted my chair, sat & watched ‘1^st contact’ thru a pair of ISO-approved solar shades purchased online thru Walmart.  Double-checked my paper glasses were not ‘fake’.  Still, fingers-crossed this wasn’t a mass plot by China to leave half our country blind.

Hour-20 ‘til TOTALITY.  Ro?  Chased grasshoppers, caught a morning nap in the high grass.  Happy dog.

Group of CU (U of Colorado) students showed, hijacked my solitude.  In hindsight, they made the experience light/super FUN.  Typical university kids, excitement/laughter/lotta noise.  Two were talking plasma & NASA measuring the Sun’s corona, while another plotted to conceive an ‘eclipse’ child during the 2 minute-29 second event.  Super smart, super young – LOL>

FELT a noticeable temperature change.  Wind gusted.  Everything happened at once.

TOTALITY.

Skies darkened, white light glowed around our extinguished Sun.

Glasses no longer necessary [next 2 minutes] –  ‘diamond ring’ visible to the naked eye.  Surrounded by sunset & stars, soaked up the cityscape lights of Casper below (street-lamps triggered by the mid-day eclipse).  WOW, WOW, WOW!

Just the slightest of slivers & our 2 minutes of darkness, history/a memory.  Day again.  Bright light – piercing white light – escaped the Sun’s upper right corner.  Not daybreak but insta-day, NOON.  Still chilly (58 degrees), but surrounded once again by Sun.

Like nothing I’ve EVER experienced.

 

Great American Exodus

• Departed at 12:30pm, arrived home at 12:45am.  Hundreds of thousands of cars on ONE highway.

 

Tag, Arkansas family – you’re up next.  TOTALITY!

The next total solar eclipse in the Americas comes on April 8, 2024.  Totality first touches Mexico, enters the United States at Texas, cuts a diagonal to Maine, and visits the maritime provinces of Canada.

 

Although it has been a long 38 years since the last U.S. total solar eclipse before 2017, it is a relatively short 7 years to the succeeding total solar eclipse in North America.  Perhaps we should call this the Great North American Eclipse.

 

 

 

Great American Eclipse

 

Great American Exodus