The Race to Totality, 0 Dark Thirty

It’s 3:30 A.M. August 21, 2017 and I’m loading stuff into the car at the Hotel in Walla Walla, Washington. Others were leaving or loading their stuff along side us. The hotel made a bag lunch/breakfast for us early checkouts.

Since we surveyed the route the day before getting out of town was painless. Next stop was Pendleton, WA on the boarder of Oregon. There is no direct connection between 11 the road we were on from Walla Walla and 395 the road we wanted. The  11 ends at Pendleton and the 395 starts there. Took a short hop on freeway 84 and made it to 395. The freeway was not jammed or packed with last minute travelers headed for the eclipse like was worried about.

I’m on the look out for deer, but a short distance down the road a five ton box truck is pulled off to the right side of the road. The truck pulls across the road in front of me blocking both lanes. I lean on the brakes and make it around the truck on the gravel along the road side. I am now more awake than I wanted to be.

Traffic gets thicker and we become part of a long line of cars on a two lane road. There were mountains ahead and I don’t drive mountain roads often. It’s flat where I live. Driving twisting narrow roads in the dark (eclipse equals new moon or no moon at night) is not fun.

Thankfully those in line with me were taking the turn at a decent speed. There was some small rocks on the road but not enough to make driving bad.

Day break on the mountain side. The drive is good. It’s clean clear weather and no smoke. Things are looking up.

We start passing people pulled off or camping along side the road waiting for the eclipse.

We get to Long Creek and the place we are going to is well marked.

So we parked in a freshly mowed field. The grain or whatever is still a couple of inches high and made a crunching sound as you walked on it.

The first thing I did was run to the bathroom. I had a soda on the way for the caffeine. Unfortunately the bathroom was plugged up. As I was coming back the people that were running the place were unloading Porta-potties. An instant line formed.

Unloaded the equipment. We had packed the car with telescopes and camping equipment before leaving for the trip. If we had to, we could have camped instead of getting hotel rooms. We had enough stuff for four people.

Right after we got to the parking place the traffic on 395 died down. Seems like everyone had the same time table as I had.

As I unpacked I found that I was missing one piece for the telescope. Luckily my friend had a spare and I was in business.

With the sun filter on the scope I got a look at the sun. There were sunspots. I had something to focus on.

We ended up parked between a welder from Washington state and some people that worked for Microsoft on the other side. Nice people. The Welder had a sextant from his father. Classy looking instrument.

Got the cameras set up. Took pictures, then in the middle of totality I stopped and looked at the totality with my eyes.

Totality lasted less than two minutes, but it was worth it.

Stay Strong, Write On       Professor Hyram Voltage