Watching the solar eclipse was on our calendar well before the event. My husband Sergey who is an atmospheric research scientist wouldn’t miss it for the world. The question was whether to watch a 93% of obscuration of the Sun in Boulder, Colorado where we live or to drive to the neighboring state of Wyoming to see the total eclipse. It was not a great distance to drive and could be done in one day, but we suspected that we would not be the only people who decided to set off from Colorado in this direction and therefore the traffic was going to be horrible.
From news reports we knew that some got to the path of totality as early as Friday night. More people came during the weekend. Accommodation of all possible types was booked. We worried about getting there and even more about going home when all these crowds that gathered over 3 days would leave at once. Wyoming expected to see as many as 600,000 visitors for the eclipse which is about the population of the state itself.
The weather was another important factor to consider. Cloudy skies meant that we would have spent hours on the road and not seen a thing.
On Monday we got up at 4 am and put into the car a tent, two sleeping bags, a change of clothes, eclipse viewing glasses, water and some food. We were prepared to spend the night on the road in case we’d be stuck in the traffic. We left at 4.50 am and quickly got out of Boulder. The situation changed once we were on highway I-25. Sometimes we crawled at 10 miles/hour (16 km/h), sometimes we did up to 60 (96 km/h), but we never stopped moving.
Our immediate goal was to get to Wheatland, WY which was inside the path of totality and where the total eclipse would be around 1 minute. If we were lucky Sergey wanted to go a little farther to Guernsey and watched the eclipse a little longer. Casper, the second largest city on Wyoming, was in the middle of the path of totality and the duration of the eclipse was going to be 2 min 26 sec. We did not dream of getting to Casper knowing that we’d not be able to get out of it the same day.
The uneven speed on the highway made it difficult to estimate when we were going to reach our destination. Our state and plans changed with the speed. We went into despair that we’d miss the total eclipse when the traffic slowed down and rejoiced when it improved.
When we passed Fort Collins somehow the number of cars on the road noticeably decreased. We drove faster. In Wyoming it became even better. The speed limit there is 80 miles/hour (128 km/h) and sometimes we were driving at the speed limit. We wondered where other cars disappeared to. It was too early to stop at Wheatland and we kept going until we reached the rest area near the intersection of I-25 and US-26 (Exit 92).
It was packed with cars parked anywhere where people could fit in their cars. We found a spot too, probably the last available. It was in a no parking area. A number of cars already stood there and nobody cared about that. The car right next to ours looked like it was in a bad accident and barely made it to the rest area.
The line to the men’s room was 40 minutes and much longer for the ladies to give you an idea of how many cars were at the rest area.
We arrived at 9.50 am, less than an hour before the eclipse. The drive to the path of totality from home took exactly 5 hours. The eclipse began and we could see through the glasses how the moon slowly was blocking more and more of the Sun’s disk. I did not notice visible changes around us without the glasses although Sergey said the sunlight dimmed slightly. Things started to happen quickly only when the Sun was covered almost 100%. It grew dark and colder as at night; the Sun was gone and stars appeared on the sky. It was unreal. The time was 11.47 am (midday) and there was no Sun.
That explained myths and superstitious beliefs associated with the eclipse. Its reason and graduality cannot be seen by a naked eye. It looks like it happened all of the sudden. One moment the Sun was where it supposed to be during the day, the next moment it was not there. An eclipse lasts from seconds to a few minutes, enough time to scare people stiff, and then everything goes back to normal. Was it a sign of angry gods or was the Sun eaten by a giant animal? To these days in many cultures an eclipse is considered a bad omen. We shall see what this eclipse will bring to us.
Our two minutes of the total eclipse went by fast. We took pictures of course, but we did not have any special equipment, so the quality is not that good.
When the total eclipse was over, everyone jumped into their cars eager to start driving home. The rest area had only one exit. Naturally hundreds of cars could not leave at the same time. We sat in the parking lot 40 minutes before we could get out of it.
The highway was congested, but again we never stopped moving. We got home at 5.50 pm which means that the trip took 13 hours. All this for the two-minute event!
I was glad that everything went well; we did not have an accident despite the heavy traffic and returned home at a reasonable time. My husband’s colleague drove only 19 miles farther than we did. He spent 2 hours before he could leave his viewing area and returned to Boulder at 1.30 am.
Great story!
Vio