Never having seen a solar eclipse as an adult, and not really remembering ones from the 60's and 70's (or much of anything really) it seemed that since this celestial event was relatively close (hey only a 1200 mile drive one way) why not do a road trip and have a look. A good excuse to keep the Chinese economy rolling with purchase of telescope and binoculars etc as well as supporting the gasoline business in the US. To complicate the situation, Bashaw spud a well that will need my attention during the trip. We get the Van loaded and fueled up and leave Calgary on a Thursday afternoon. A relatively short 240 kms gets us to Payne Lake and a delightful night at the cabin to start the adventure.....
Up early and on the road by 6:30 so as to get to the Carway border just after the 7:00 AM opening. A sign on the road in Cardston sets the bar high for silly things to see... The US border crossing is uneventful .... nothing to see there....
We found a new way from Babb to Browning that is much more pleasant than the winding slow going highway US 89. The Duck Lake road (Montana 464) bypasses the difficult hills on the north and east and gets you to the east side of Browning somewhat faster and a whole lot easier drive.
From Browning we head west on US 2 to Kalispell and stop at McDonalds to sample the free wi-fi, the update from the well is very good, drilling ahead at a high rate of penetration.... its very nice that there are over 11000 free wi-fi hotspots in the US located at McDonalds.. too bad their coffee and food wasn't better.... Continuing on, we go south on US 93 and find the REI in Missoula, but are not able to buy anything as a power outage has created long lineups to the checkouts....not that we really need more stuff...
We get some groceries at a nearby Rosauers supermarket, including a delicious roast chicken that we will call dinner. In the parking lot a car shows signs of being close to Idaho survivalist country even though it has a Montana plate, probably just a decoy... Roads have been pretty fast to this point, but south of Missoula we turn west on US 12 into the wilderness of Idaho. US 12 follows the Lochsa River across Idaho, its a major tributary to the Snake River, the economic lifeline of Idaho. US 12 is not exactly a high speed road, it wanders its way downstream through largely uninhabited forested area, winding with the river. There are a lot of folks rafting and kayaking various parts of the river. Looks to be an interesting area for water adventure activities...We leave US 12 and head south toward the Boise area. A fairly large grouse standing on the highway decides to jump in front of the Van and alter the grille, leaving a large hole in grille and a few feathers, sacrificing itself in the process.... so it goes... After 14 hours on the road we find a cozy spot in the Walmart parking lot at Ontario, Oregon... who knew they would be paving the adjacent road overnight?
May 19 2012
Up early again and on the road back across the Snake into Idaho, looking for coffee by 7:30.... we don't find it... the drilling engineer updates the status on the Ghost Pine well, the deviation from vertical has become serious, we need to trip the bit and apply some interesting bit technology to get back on track... We head south and west into Southeast Oregon.... At Jordon Valley, Oregon we happen across their 53rd annual rodeo, the town is full of horse trailers, tent camps and folks walking aimlessly, chasing the $6 breakfasts... we find a wonderful Espresso shop there and get a caffeine fix for the next 8 hours of driving to Reno-Tahoe. Southeastern Oregon is pretty much scrub brush and desert. Easy driving with long vistas, time passes reasonably fast. Soon we get into Nevada and onto lunch at Winnemucca and another wi-fi and grease fix at Mcdonalds... Its still nearly 3 hours to Reno so we move on... Finally the poormans/geriatric Las Vegas comes in view. A nice setting at the base of the Tahoe basin....
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| Mark Twain, Galena Market Mt. Rose Highway Reno |
We stop long enough to get gasoline before heading to the Tahoe area, at the gas station we find a statue of one of my favourite authors, Mark Twain, and he's reading a book.... probably "Roughing It" his delightful tale of travels in Utah, Nevada, California and Hawaii more than 150 years ago... Apparently someone still loves him here in Reno....
From Reno to Lake Tahoe, Hwy 431 takes us up many switchbacks to a high pass at nearly 9000 feet. A trail starts at the pass to Mt Rose Summit, we had considered this as a day trip for Sunday, but lots of snow, not in shape yet.... onto Lake Tahoe, a descent of almost 3000 feet. The brakes on the Van are complaining.
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| Crystal clear Tahoe waters |
Tahoe is a huge lake in a spectacular setting. Crystal clear waters, rugged , snow covered mountain peaks, a beauty to behold. Its said to be one of the clearest lakes in the world with visibility once over 100 feet. Has been getting less clear, now at a reported 60 feet, but still pretty amazing. We drive around the east side of Lake Tahoe to the big city at South Lake Tahoe, many casinos on Nevada side and much development everywhere. We find a wonderful campground at Nevada Beach State Park and get a plot of ground for the night. The sky is clear and I get the telescope out and 
test it out for sun viewing.... the eclipse is only 24 hours away... The charcoal bbq serves up excellent beef to go with the stir fry.... it is a wonderful quiet evening and night on the shores of Lake Tahoe. We take walks along the shore in the evening and again in the morning, it is truly a spectacular place....
Being that we had not been driving in nearly 12 hours, we got on the road again, Tahoe is still a huge lake, almost 70 miles to drive around it, we had done about 30 miles of it on Saturday, and now drove the remainder of the scenic route from South Lake Tahoe to Tahoe City.
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| Emerald Bay |
We leave the Tahoe basin and head to Truckee, what a great name for a city. We pass Squaw Valley on the way, like Calgary still flaunting the past Olympic glories, they had the games in 1960.....
The big event is closing in, we decide to drive up to Susanville California to watch the Eclipse, it is in the centre of the path and is also about 100 miles closer to home, giving us a jump on Monday's drive. About 30 miles north of Reno, a few clouds appear, it looks like could be some risk heading north.... we backtrack and find a spot outside a Walmart at Silver Lake on the North side of Reno, a forest fire nearby obscures the sky a bit... we move again, this time outside a Fire Hall and across from a prison a little closer to downtown Reno... the sky is clear here for now... we set up the Telescope, the viewfinder battery is dead, Eclipse is 30 minutes away, back to Silver Valley Walgreens and get a 2032 battery.
Back to the Firehall parking area and get the scope out and restart the viewfinder... works now.... The binoculars are on the tripod, the telescope is pointed at the sun, solar filters are in place... And amazingly the equipment works, we can see the sun slowly gobbled up in 70's packman video game style, an awesome event elapsed time about 1:15 minutes from start to maximum eclipse. I had difficulty getting a clear picture with the EOS Rebel through the telescope, later figure out I needed to focus differently.... oh well... another time.... I do get a few pics with the Olympus and EOS sans telescope with a filter, magnification not spectacular but sufficient... Clouds obscured the view just after maximum so we packed up and headed north to Susanville, ironically the skies were clearer there, at least later.... who knows... Another Walmart parking lot camp.... |
| Typical Storage Lockers |
The Onion described them as "Museums of Personal Failure" a bit troubling.... Maybe they are full of stuff belonging to all the inmates of the correction facilities who are away from their stuff providing much needed jobs to other Americans who, in turn, need more stuff....
A couple interesting storage links(well not really)....
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2005/07/selfstorage_nation.html
http://www.selfstorage.org/ssa/Content/NavigationMenu/AboutSSA/FactSheet/default.htm
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| Bird attacks |
Early Monday the Ghost Pine Well reaches TD, I get logs on my Iphone at 6:00AM.... these devices are magical. We decide to run pipe, almost done this phase of the project.... can we get a good cement job?
Morning coffee is found at a local espresso place, triple shot please (that's standard she tells me)...Its a long drive across the high desert of Oregon to the Columbia Basin. The roads are steep and windy in places, the idiot light telling me the front brake pads need replacement comes on midway (who knew there even was one?) I see a brake job in my future... Another suicidal bird attacks the Van south of Pendleton, this swallow stayed on for the ride and was pried out in Tri-City, too late to save it.... not a good weekend for birds.... We reach Spokane at 9:00PM and decide to splurge and get a hotel room, the Holiday Inn Express at Spokane Valley is very nice...
May 22 2012
The 6:30 breakfast at the hotel is delicious and puts the diet back a couple weeks.... The weather forecast at the cabin is crappy so we head home up 95/93. It still takes some 10 hours to get home, what with buying cheap beer, crossing borders and Skyping Edinburgh.... Some 2500 miles of driving, probably a bit excessive for less than 5 1/2 days.... The cement job on well is successful and rig is released and moved/racked off location, woohoo.... At home the cat is glad to see us on our return....although seems to be suffering from ADD (attention deficit disorder - at 3 am she determined that just walking all over us in bed wasn't quite enough so decided to jump up at the light switch on the wall by the door and turn the lights on in the bedroom - who knew she could do that??)
