So we have tamed down our adventures for the month of August, quite to my liking. Over the eclipse weekend, we rediscovered the joys of car camping. Car camping so lazy that on Sunday we only roamed a few hundred feet the entire day –down to the river and back to cool off. We had a sweet set-up along the John Day River beside a giant juniper that provided shade, along with a tarp, to just relax all day in this no-cell-service-no-internet zone, with some friends, whose gourmet car-camp cooking put ours to shame.

Jason had an in with this rancher in the middle of nowhere Eastern Oregon (Twickenham, to be exact), beautiful canyonlands and ranch country near the Painted Hills, that has a similar feel to the Southwest.

It was definitely a working ranch. As we were greeted by our host, complete with cowboy hat and handlebar mustache, a threesome of donkeys greeted us in the middle of the road as well.

Some photos of the ranch:

Then, for the eclipse we drove up to a part of the ranch on the height of land with amazing views of hillsides, valleys, and Mt. Jefferson and Hood in the distance. It was a perfect morning –just enough clouds in the bright blue sky to make it interesting. Before the event, I wasn’t quite convinced it was necessary to drive four hours away, brave the traffic (which was mostly hype –there was no traffic getting there and mostly minimal coming back), all for an extra 3% of coverage. (Walla Walla was at 97%) But man, Jason was right, that 3% made all the difference.

He described the difference like this –what was something you looked at in the sky all of a sudden became an event all around you. And that’s how it felt. As the moon overtook the sun, the air slowly became colder and colder, even though it was still bright. The quality of the light changed so that everything looked different, a sunset orangey tint to the air. Then during the two minutes of totality, you could whip off your glasses and look around. The sky became night, even a few stars were visible. A 360 degree sunset spanned the purple clouded horizon. And the moon! It was total black with a crisp thin bright white line of light all around it that twinkled. It was amazing. I would definitely drive even further to experience it again. (2024?)

I hesitate to post photos because I did not have the lenses nor the skills to do it justice, but here’s a pale hint of what it was like:

Over and out,

Comet