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| A knitter's gotta knit no matter what's happening |
Early last spring I caught wind of the up coming eclipse crossing the continent on August 21st. I immediately began trying to reserve first a hotel room ($1,000 a night/3 night minimum), then a state camping site (all full), and finally a private campground in Glenrock, Wyoming ($60 per night two night minimum). Things later went crazy, hotels reportedly went for $3,000 per night. People rented out their front lawns with household bathroom privileges for $300 a night but then called the original renters to say they had a waiting list of people who would rent from them for $500 a night and the original renters needed to send more money or cancel - an eclipse ransom.
We rented our campsite, bought our special glasses, invited The Chick, The NorDak Family, and the California Dreamin' families to come along. Only The Chick was able to accept, the beginning of school getting in the way for the others.
Months went by, the excitement and buzz began to mount. The NorDak Family called just last week to see if we could locate eclipse glasses. There were no glasses in Jamestown, the store they are forced to rely on, Walmart, had sent their stock of glasses to California, say what?? In the end the family were able to find four pair in a small convenience store forty miles away.
On Friday The California Dreamin' Gurl sent out a text asking if there was room for her on the eclipse adventure and within the hour she had a flight from San Francisco to Billings for Saturday night. She'd caught the fever!
Sunday morning we packed the trailer and were on our way to Wyoming by 8:30 am. The news had reported traffic due to "totality" travel could be delay travel time to the point of doubling it. We, however, arrived at our destination five and a half hours later without delay. The campground owners had spent many hours in preparation for this event and their hardwork was evident. Five hundred RV's and 2,000 people at the campgrounds and everything went off without a hitch, from being escorted to our site, entertainment for the children and bands for the adults in the evening, they had thought of everything. The campground is located along the Platte River and kids and adults played in the water during the hot afternoons. License plates from all over the US were seen. Our closest campers were from Nebraska (it was cloud covered there), Minnesota, and Colorado.
Monday everyone woke and quietly sipped coffee, and got their cameras set up. The eclipse began slowly at 10:22. We would glance through our glasses every few minutes and at one point heard a little girl ask her dad why the sun was taking so long.
When it hit totality the two minutes forty seconds FLEW by... Baily's Beads and the Diamond Ring made the viewing spectacular!
At 1:09 it was all over. Campers chatted about the eclipse and were in awe of what they had just experienced. It just couldn't have been the same if you weren't in "totality,"
We're already planning Eclipse 2024!
It'll be another...
TOTALITY AWESOME ADVENTURE!
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