Awesome Eclipse and Family Vacation

In the last blog, we were headed to the Denver area to visit our good buddy Kelly and her husband Todd, who live in Lakewood, Colorado. We arrived at their home on Saturday morning (Aug 12) and had a joyful reunion--we had a LOT to catch up on! Kelly took us out for a brief shopping expedition and we stopped at a municipal park for a walk around a small lake--from the name of her town, it makes sense that they have a lot of lakes. She wanted to show us a bronze sculpture in the park that she had read about--it is Michael Jackson as a kid with a bunch of other kids, some of which are his celebrity buddies, like Macauley Culkin, and family, like his sister Janet, and other friends of his. He apparently liked the work of a local artist that he saw at an arts festival and commissioned the statue from her, sending her photographs to work from. The original belonged to him and was in his sculpture garden at Neverland but the city purchased this copy in 1994. Nothing on the sculpture identifies it as being of Michael Jackson and many people in Lakewood had/have no idea it has any relation to Michael (Kelly didn't know until she read the newspaper article in the local paper).

Jack and Kelly with statue of Michael Jackson and friends. Michael is the child between them, with baseball glove on his left hand, a nice touch.

Close-up of sculpture, called "Snapshot" by Lakewood artist Janet DeDecker.

One exciting thing about this visit was Carol getting to dress up in Kelly's "motorcycle mama" outfit and ride behind Todd on his Harley to a local restaurant for dinner. Awesome!

Motorcycle Mama: Carol, Todd, and his Harley.

We spent the night in their comfy guest room and got on the road in the morning. We were seeing a lot of publicity about eclipse traffic and crowds and were a little worried about camping along the way to Idaho, as we got closer to the path of totality. In fact a couple of campgrounds that we called were full. However, we found a beautiful first come-first serve BLM campground on the Green River (near Pinedale, Wyoming) that still had room when we got there (it was only $5 a night with our Senior National Park pass). It did fill up after we claimed our space. Nice place, with a very friendly and helpful campground host.

As we drove through Wyoming mountains next to the Hoback River, we spotted some rafts in the river; the rafters were doing something with weird equipment on poles. We pulled over and watched them float down, and realized that the weird equipment consisted of shocking devices. They were shocking the fish in the water to stun them, so they could count them. As they came down the river, you could see big trout turned belly up and floating down. They pulled over to the side, and I (Carol) hollered down to them if the shocking killed the fish or just stunned them. A woman in the raft said they were just stunned and would be OK shortly. They were with one of the government wildlife agencies.

The fish stunning/shocking contraption hanging off the raft to the left. Note big fish floating upside down toward center of photo.

We arrived on Tuesday in Idaho Falls, driving through the busy, trendy town of Jackson, WY and over a stunning mountain pass, and found a spot at a campground on the Snake River. We did some sightseeing there. It's primarily a Mormon town (about 50,000 people), and therefore most everyone is very friendly and helpful. They obviously take a lot of pride in the appearance of the town. The heart is the falls. A long, low dam has been built behind the real falls, but the appearance of the natural falls is well preserved. A paved greenbelt area about 5 miles long surrounds the falls area crossing the river and going along both sides, with lovely gardens and quirky sculptures, and a pretty Japanese garden. Beautiful spot. We had sushi at a nearby restaurant/brewery, and it was delicious, somewhat surprisingly.

Section of the dam and natural falls, with Mormon temple in background.

We had a quiet night at the campground and ate their pancakes for breakfast (which were served on the patio practically at our doorstep), and then we drove out to our farmhouse rental for the next week, where we plan to view the total eclipse. It's in Sugar City, an agricultural suburb of Rexburg, which is a suburb of Idaho Falls. (Rexburg, home of BYU-Idaho, is supposed to be one of the best places in the country to view the eclipse, based on typical weather conditions and length of totality. NASA has a big presence here for the eclipse.)

Our Sugar City 1930s era farmhouse, recently renovated by the original builder's daughter and her husband. Our apartment is upstairs. The owners, Scott and Neva, live in the front part of the house.

My brother and all his kids and various spouses and significant others will be flying in during the week, intermittently, with everyone (10 people) here on Monday for the Big Eclipse. We have rented The Loft of the farmhouse (sleeps 7) and also a camper that supposedly sleeps 6, which is being delivered on Wednesday, 2 days earlier than we ordered it, but the rental company is very busy and wants to get it delivered before Friday, their busiest day.

When we arrived at the little farm, we talked to Scott, the owner who Carol has been dealing with for the past year and a half since she booked the place, and he was OK with them bringing the camper early. We enjoyed watching the three turkeys, numerous hens, little family of ducks, and various rabbits and kitties running around the yard.

Carol's brother Jim, his wife Linda, daughter Lauren, and daughter Christin and her BF Tyler are to arrive Thursday around noon. Carol has also rented a 15-passenger van in Rexburg, to haul everyone around in. Big plans!

We got the camper set up with clean sheets/towels and then Carol went to the nearby Walmart to buy a load of groceries. Thursday morning, Jack and Carol went to pick up the rental van in Rexburg and left the RoadTrek there while we went to meet the crowd coming into the Idaho Falls airport. Their plane arrived on time and they were hungry, so we took them back to the same Idaho Falls restaurant where we had sushi the day before (it had hamburgers and other stuff too--Jack complained about the "$12 hamburgers" everywhere, as we're used to $3 burgers in New Castle, not city prices!). After lunch we toured around a little bit of Idaho Falls and bought some souvenirs at the Visitor Center. Lots of eclipse posters, glasses and mementos!

Part of our gang arrives: Linda, Lauren, and Jim! (Christin and Tyler were behind them.)

Since the day was still young, we decided to see one of the Rexburg tourist attractions, Yellowstone Bear World, a drive-through wildlife park with lots of bears (mostly black bears but a few grizzlies), bison, elk and a few moose. It had kind of a fifties feel but it was pretty cool seeing the bears close up. One was lying right in the road all stretched out and snoring. Driving by one foot away from it didn't seem to disturb it in the least. Others were wrestling, cooling off in ponds, or just sitting and watching us go by. (These are all either "rescue bears" from zoos and carnivals, or else born and raised there.) They also had a petting zoo and a collection of very active bear cubs.

Yellowstone Bear World resident takes a dip.

After that, we drove back to the van rental place to pick up the Roadtrek. That's when the real adventure of the day took place. Jack was going to drive the Roadtrek and follow us back to the farm. We had our only GPS system in the 15-passenger van, but as it was only about 5 miles or so to the farm, we figured it would be OK for Jack to just follow us there. However, we lost Jack immediately. There was a roundabout next to the van rental company and apparently (because there were LOTS of white vans around) Jack followed the wrong one out of the roundabout. When we realized he wasn't behind us, we stopped and waited, but no Roadtrek was in sight! I tried to call him, but just got his message. We sat there a while trying to figure out what to do, then drove back through the roundabout looking for him, but no Jack. Carol was starting to panic. We decided to drive back to the farm, just in case he somehow magically got ahead of us, but when we got there, there was no Jack and no RoadTrek. And Carol discovered that he had left his cellphone behind in the camper!! Arghh!!! A search party was assembled to try to find him, but just as we got started back on the road, a call came through. It was Jack, at a service station somewhere in Sugar City, using their phone. We found our way to the Exxon station and were finally reunited. What a relief!! That was the most helpless feeling!

When everyone finally got settled into the Loft of the farmhouse, they enjoyed chasing and photographing the turkeys and chickens and ducks running around. Christin in particular had a thing for chasing the turkeys, as she wanted to hold one. (Christin has chickens back in Greensboro.)

Christin trying to catch a turkey. They would approach you looking for a handout, but didn't like to be touched.

We planned to go to Yellowstone on Friday; the west entrance is about an hour and twenty minutes from Sugar City. Jack decided to stay behind and work on the next novel of the trilogy he's writing. (He's been to Yellowstone many times, already fished all the rivers, and doesn't like crowds.) We got an early start and just cruised right on in the gate--no backups. My brother purchased his Senior National Park Pass--lifetime for $10, the last of the great deals. (The price is going up to $80 on August 28. Oops, that's tomorrow. Guess it's too late for those of you 62 and over who haven't bought yours yet...) Yellowstone National Park is HUGE--the size of Rhode Island and Delaware put together--so we could only see a tiny part of it in one day, but we crammed a lot in. First we made our way to Old Faithful and saw it erupt almost immediately, and then hiked the nearby geyser basin, seeing lots of other geysers, fumaroles, steam vents, and hot springs bubbling away. Such a crazy piece of the planet! We had a picnic lunch next to the Firehole River, where yet another geyser was erupting when we pulled in. Then we hiked out to see the Grand Prismatic, a huge hot spring pool that displays layers of vivid colors, like turquoise, yellow, green, deep blue. Looked like it's from another planet! We didn't see much wildlife that day, just a few bison from a distance, but it was a good day nevertheless. Jim and I were the only ones that had seen Yellowstone before, so it was a good introduction for the others.

Carol and Old Faithful.

We had to pick up Eric from the airport, so we headed back to Idaho Falls--he actually took a bus from Salt Lake City that was dropping him off at the airport, because it saved a lot of money and he wanted to see more of the countryside. He arrived safely and we headed to a restaurant for supper. Lauren found The Bee's Knees online. It didn't look like much when we got there, but it turned out to be a great find. The food was terrific and innovative. (The gang returned there later for another fabulous meal.)

Since Eric was only going to be with us for essentially a long weekend, the gang decided to drive to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and see the Tetons on Saturday. (Sugar City is about the same distance from Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks.) Carol and Jack both stayed home, to catch up on some paperwork and generally rest up. The Jackson travelers had a great day, going up on the tram/ski lift for stunning mountain views and doing some marathon souvenir shopping.

Sunday was another full day of varied activities. Carol, along with Christin and Tyler, went on a daylong horseback ride into the Tetons. The rest of the gang, minus Jack, went back to Yellowstone, where they had another good day and saw some different sights--although it was more crowded than on Friday. Our horseback ride was phenomenal! Great horses, all Morgans or Morgan crosses. Our guide was Dave, a quintessential mountain man with lots of stories from his many years guiding hunting parties, packing mules into back country, etc. It was incredibly beautiful country, as you can see in the photo. Our goal was Green Lake, a natural high-altitude lake filled with trout. The wildflowers were profuse and pockets of snow were still around as we moved higher. It was a steep ride and my joints were screaming by the last hour, but it was fabulous. The last members of our crew, nephew Craig and his wife Alex, arrived safely on Sunday evening, just in time for the eclipse on Monday.

On the ride to Green Lake, Wyoming.

Ah, finally, the eclipse! The centerpiece of this family trip out West. Well, words can't do it justice! Nevertheless, following are two eyewitness reports, one from Carol and one from Jack.

Carol's Eclipse Report
We had a downright PERFECT view of the total eclipse here on our little farm in Idaho. Huge, perfectly clear blue sky--we watched the whole thing from start to finish (using our eclipse glasses, of course, until the 2 minutes or so of totality). I've seen several partial eclipses through the years and even one total eclipse in which totality was completely clouded out (long, sad story), and I thought I pretty much knew what to expect today with the total eclipse, but it came as a big surprise--it's like a switch flips and suddenly a black hole appears in the sky surrounded by INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL wispy strands of white sparkly light streaming around it, with the dark sky behind it. All 10 of us (see photo) were together with our glasses and our eclipse tee shirts, and most of us started screaming when we removed our eclipse glasses and saw the total eclipse--it seems like the only sane reaction to what you're seeing. Jack and my brother Jim just sat there stoically watching the whole thing, but their jaws were dropping I noticed. (Note in the photo that Jack is the only nonconformist not wearing the obligatory family eclipse tee shirt. We teased him about it, but the truth is that I, Carol, stole his shirt because mine was missing at the time. It's complicated.)

It's starting!!

Jim and Jack in their eclipse poses. (Jack finally got his shirt back when Carol's turned up!)

At any rate, back to the total eclipse: you literally can't believe your eyes. We only had smartphone cameras and they weren't able to take many meaningful photos, but I've included the online photo I found that matches the closest to what we saw here. But it doesn't in ANY way do it justice. None of the photos do. You have to see it hanging in the sky to get the full impact.

This is NOT what a total solar eclipse really looks like, but is the closest we found to what we saw in the sky.

Other highlights included how crazy the shadows got as darkness advanced--they got much sharper, so you could see every individual hair sticking out from your head in your shadow, whereas usually it's blurry. (Should have taken a picture of that but forgot to.) As the partial eclipse progressed, images of the crescent-shaped sun appeared on the ground and other objects, including the rug in the house we're staying in (see photo). About 15 minutes or so before totality, the light got so weird--both of my nieces here said they felt like they were going to pass out, like they weren't getting enough oxygen to their brain and their vision was darkening. I kept reaching up to take off my sunglasses, but realized I wasn't wearing them--it was the light itself that was so dark and strange. And it got VERY cold. Went from a warm sunny morning to a very chilly dusk--we had to put our jackets and hoodies on. The farm where we're staying has a bunch of chickens, turkeys and ducks running around the yard, and they all went to roost as it got darker. As the crescent of the sun turned skinnier and skinnier, the sky got really dark and two planets (Venus and Mars, I think) appeared. We were up high on an open porch and could then see a 360-degree sunset color all around the entire horizon, backlighting the Grand Teton mountain in the distance! 

The shape of the partially eclipsed sun shining through the window blinds onto the rug.

At the moment of totality, we pulled off our eclipse glasses and went into--something like communal shock, is the best way I can describe it. Suddenly we're transported to another planet where the sky and the colors and where the sun used to be are completely different. As I said, the photos of a total eclipse don't do it justice in any way whatsoever. You can't take your eyes off the sun's huge looping, shimmering corona and the "black hole" but we're all jumping up and down and hollering, teary, shouting "I can't BELIEVE this!" "This is incredible!" "It's so BEAUTIFUL!", etc. (My sister-in-law had a video running through the whole experience so we can relive the emotion of it.) I think the emotional part of it is really weird, because it's been so hyped lately and I've spent the last year and a half waiting for this and reading about it and seeing photos of other total eclipses--but it's a shock to your system no matter how much you know about it or how many images of the eclipsed sun you've looked at. Seeing it hanging in the big dark sky is like nothing else you've ever seen. It hits you in the heart, for some reason.

Our niece Lauren's photo of totality. The sky colors were much darker and stranger, and the black orb and huge corona looked so much larger to the eye and the 360-degree sunset was much more vivid. Again, photos don't come close!

It was all too short. And then the "diamond ring" happened--a burst of brilliant light from one little point along the edge of the black moon that had everyone screaming again, and it was time to put the eclipse glasses back on. And everything happened in reverse. Everyone agreed that it was the most incredible, otherworldly thing we've ever seen. I'm hooked. I think I'm going to turn into one of those total eclipse chasing people.

All my family is having a blast--the first time in the West for most of them. We've seen Yellowstone, the Tetons, Jackson Hole, and lots of other great stuff. Tomorrow we're rafting down the Snake River.

But nothing is going to eclipse the eclipse.

Jack's Eclipse Report
I saw for the first time the total eclipse of the Sun in a field sitting in a lawn chair near Rexburg, Idaho. It was an awesome experience and I realize pictures can never come even close to showing what I saw. Our eyes are incredible devices which allow us to see in color and in 3-D all around us at the same time. Every camera we had AND all the photos on TV and elsewhere did not even come close to showing what I saw. Here are a few of the differences between the black and white and/or two-dimensional pictures of the total eclipse and what I saw and experienced:

(1) because the Rexburg area is desert-like with no humidity, I noticed the temperature decreasing as the sun approached total eclipse. It was as if the nighttime desert temperature suddenly got turned on.

(2) I tracked the progress of the moon with dark glasses, watching the sliver of the sun get smaller and smaller. Suddenly everything went black in my dark glasses. I quickly took them off and saw in brilliant technicolor a very large corona around a "black hole" hanging in a dark indigo blue sky. The corona was a very bright green-yellow to me and about the width of the black hole. Inside the corona I saw bright red beads flashing on and off leaving bright red streaks (caused by the sun flares I think). I saw stars appearing in the indigo sky and a reddish horizon all around me.

The 360-degree sunset colors show up a little better in this photo. Still partial eclipse here. Note sharp shadows.

(3) the great roar from the people around me rises and ebbs.

(4) pigeons fly to the barn, looking for their nighttime roost. Farm animals get weird and are nervous.

(5) at the end, a very bright diamond flash appears at the edge of the "black hole." People around me scream with joy.

(6) then I put my dark glasses back on and see the sliver of the sun getting bigger and bigger, and I wish my brain had a replay button so I could watch the total eclipse all over again.

Carol again. It was totally incredible. All of us expressed the wish to see it again, as the wonderful vivid memory of it fades from our brains. I have a feeling we'll be going to see some other total eclipses. Only 7 years till we get another one in the US!

After the excitement died down and we talked about what we'd experienced, we decided to head out to a local hot spring. I was especially eager to soak the aches away from our horseback ride. We went to Green Canyon Hot Spring, a family-owned facility that's been in business in one form or another since 1902. The place was rustic and the people were friendly. Only $8 to soak as long as you like. The main, big pool was 92 degrees, a smaller hot pool was about 106, and they also had a tiny cold plunge pool at 57 degrees, that you couldn't really handle for more than a minute or so. I think the soak worked, since I never really got too sore from the ride. Idaho is filled with all kinds of different hot springs, one of the things that Jack and I love about it.

Our gang tries out the hot pool, at 106 degrees. (Took a while to get used to it.)

Never a dull moment for this crowd. My brother had scheduled a raft trip down the Snake River for Tuesday (for everyone minus Jack, who's still working on his book and, yes, had already rafted down the Snake River). First we had to drop Eric off to meet his bus at the airport--so long, Eric! So it was back over the high mountain pass to Jackson, Wyoming, and a bus ride to the put-in site. Some of us spotted a bald eagle and its nest from the bus. The water was cold and clear, about 55 degrees. We were all in the same raft. It's a beautiful, powerful river and it was lots of fun getting thrown around and soaked by the standing waves, like a carnival roller coaster where someone is constantly dousing you with buckets of cold water! Fortunately it was warm and sunny and dry, so after each soaking we dried off almost immediately. Lots of laughs.

After the rafting trip, we had some lunch and headed to the nearby Grand Teton National Park, for sunset. We toured one of the visitor centers and drove around looking for the best views to photograph. Got a few good pics. These are some jagged, craggy, tall mountain peaks! We saw a glacier too.

Carol, Linda and Jim, sunset in the Tetons. That's a glacier above Jim/Linda's heads.

Wednesday was a more low-key day--we had to take Lauren to the airport in the morning, and then we drove to Blackfoot to visit the Idaho Potato Museum. It was actually a very cute and informative museum with a great photo-op of a giant baked potato, and "free taters for out-of-staters"! Learned way more about potatoes than I ever wanted to know. I (Carol) have been desperately wanting the gang to see a pronghorn antelope, because they're a unique animal and usually Jack and I see lots of them in this neck of the woods, but no antelopes have shown up. We went to a gun shop (Craig and Tyler's instigation) across the street from the potato museum and I asked the proprietor where to see antelope. He instructed us to drive 15 miles or so down the road toward the more desert-y area and guaranteed that we'd see some antelopes. But no dice. Long, long drive through volcanic sagebrush, with cinder cones in the distance--perfect antelope territory, but no antelope. I gave up on the antelope mission after that. (We actually did see a distant herd on the last day.)

Craig, Alex, Carol, Christin, Linda, Tyler at the Idaho Potato Museum.

The "kids" in our group decided to drive back to Jackson in the evening to see a rodeo. As we heard later, they all really enjoyed the experience. They won the prize for being the loudest fans in the crowd--a Yeti water bottle! Craig and Tyler both rode a mechanical bucking bison (Craig ended up with a black eye.) Yeah, lots of fun!

Our last day was a final return to Yellowstone, so Craig and Alex could see it. Again, we did some of the same things and some different things. We spent some time hiking the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, viewing the Upper and Lower Yellowstone Falls, which are spectacular. Some of our group hiked down the steep trail to the very brim of the Lower Falls, right where the water drops off and falls 308 ft to the Canyon (twice as high as Niagara Falls). And of course we had to see Old Faithful spout off again!

The amazing Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone!

We returned to our little Idaho home about 6:30 pm and heated up the grill for last-night hamburgers and brats, and reminisced about the great week we'd had. Then Linda remembered (or was reminded) about the Potato Museum fake tattoos she had, so she got them out and everyone was tattooed with a little Idaho Potato cartoon. Jack's tattoo was placed on top of his bald head! A little hilarity to close our time together.

Showing potato tats!

Everyone except us left on Friday to return home. (Jack and I stayed another night to get everything squared away.) We all agreed that it had been a fabulous trip, exceeding all expectations. After dropping them off at the airport, we turned in the 15-passenger van (no mishaps this time!), straightened up the camper and got it ready to be picked up on Saturday morning, and did some last-minute washing and cleaning out of the refrigerator in the farmhouse. Hate to leave--we made a lot of memories in this week.

Now we're on our way to Washington State, to see some more family members and to catch some trout.