On the Road Again - Eclipse 2024

My sister lives in Indiana, right in the middle of the totality path of the April 8 total solar eclipse and my wife and I are planning a road trip to visit and watch eclipse #3 for us, with her family.Our 1st was 26-Feb-1979 on the top of Rattlesnake Mt. in eastern Washington and it was a moving life experience, but the corona was really subdued and disappointing, for us photographically. Of course we were shooting Kodachrome and while my shots through my Questar of totality were ok, my wife on the other hand shot a series of spectacular wide angle scenes. The weather was very cold and foggy, with bone chilling wind and we had hiked up a trail lugging heavy cameras and tripods in the dark so we could watch everything and kicking ourselves for not going further east where the radio said the weather was clearer. There were dozens of other groups set up with scopes and tripods and they looked like hooded druids. The sun was so obscured by clouds prior to totality that we could look at it without eye protection. We were afraid we wouldn't see it, but about 10 minutes or so before totality the clouds started burning off. The sun was a narrow crescent at this point and suddenly there is a fucking rainbow around the sun and the 30 seconds before totality the clouds opened up and a bunch of things happened all at once. Later, I wished I had just spent more time watching it rather than shooting it. At the instant of totality cheers and whoops rang out around us and then everyone watched in silence for the rest of the 2 minute and 17 seconds. Where we were on the summit let us see the distant horizon almost full circle, and it was this spectacular ring of fire where the sun was shining outside the shadow. It's the only time in my life I have seen a scene with this bizarre lighting.More tomorrow evening.

Whoa, what a visual. Thanks for that. I saw one a long time ago. I saw the fire. Wonderful memories.Here's hoping you have a clear cool day for your seeing and you remember to take the lens caps off.Speaking of sun, some advise. First, don't look at the sun. That will burn your eye balls and make them explode. Right in their sockets the sun's energy is so strong that the light will fry your eyeballs till the innards steam-flash and explode. If you come back with only one eye then, well, you were warned.Second, don't point your camera at the sun. It will burn the circuitry and could explode the battery. And if you're looking up to where to point the camera then you're looking at the sun and you're not supposed to do that as already stated above. You need to pay attention here Tany. This is good advice.Anyway, have a time, my man, and may the beauty overwhelm you.

Very good advice! I have a special solar filter for my Questar that protects the camera and my eye. The trick is rapidly removing it when totality starts.Our 2nd eclipse was 21-Aug-2017 and we were able to watch it from our own backyard where we were very close to the center of the path. Our daughter and son-in-law and grandkids were there also. The traffic was so jammed up on Interstate 5 that it took them 8 hours to get home 75 miles away. We had originally planned to go to a spot in central Oregon along the John Day River, but in the week before the eclipse some huge gatherings (think Burning Man) popped up and it looked like finding a place to camp and watch would be next to impossible. Aerial photos of the gathering at Big Summit Prairie where an estimated 300,000 people gathered looked like a zoo.Anyway, I had practiced shooting the sun with my DSLR cameras mounted on the Questar and it turned out that my older Nikon D700 12 megapixel camera would work better than my 36 megapixel D810. I had originally planned to just watch this eclipse and not worry about photography, but then decided to go ahead and mount the camera and shoot the sun as it approached totality, but it turned out to be easy to set up the camera to shoot a bracketing burst series where the shutter speed and exposure is incrementally changed for each shot. I was extremely pleased with my results! I captured Baily's Beads and the Diamond Ring Affect and the corona was really spectacular. I shoot RAW images so I was able to dial the over exposed shots back and it revealed a lot of fine structure in the corona. I am hoping the corona will be even more spectacular this year, because we are in Solar Max this year and we were at Solar Minimum in 2017.Both our prior eclipses were in the morning so the camera/telescope was easier to setup and look through, but this one will occur at around noon so the telescope will have to be pointed directly vertical, making it trickier to look through the camera view finder, but a little practice should make that easier.I'm looking forward to the road trip with my wife also. It seems like we are so busy most of the time that we don't spend as much time just having fun together.

I got lucky with the 2017 eclipse. I had about a 1 hour drive to rural Idaho (Parma, in case anyone is familiar). Drove 1 hour, parked along a farmer's field and had a great time with a bunch of other strangers for an hour, watched the eclipse (which was awesome), and then drove home for an hour.Having witnessed one does give you the bug. I'll miss the 2024 eclipse, but I'm feeling like I shouldn't miss the next American eclipse.

I'm really hoping to see that one too!I was at a family gathering yesterday and my son-in-laws brother was saying that he and his wife are planning to go view the 2-Aug-2027 eclipse in Egypt. It will be the longest duration for the next 87 years, 6 minutes and 23 seconds.We will have over 4 minutes of totality in Indiana.We had planned to try and see the July 11, 1991 eclipse with the friends we watched the 1979 eclipse with, but ended up not making it. They went to Hawaii and missed it because of clouds, but another friend watched it from Baha, Mexico. It was almost 8 minutes long!

A couple weeks ago in anticipation of our trip we both got Covid boosters. I got the Novavax brand for the 1st time. We also both got Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) and MMR (Measles, Mumps, & Rubella). My sister's family, kids, grandkids (twin 1 year olds) and a mob are going to be around, so we are at least prepared, Earlier we got RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) and I got both shingles vaccines a few months ago.And whatdaya know, we are just fine and less likely to pick up anything nasty or drop off anything nasty (on my list). I just wish there were vaccines for a lot more of the nasty microorganisms and viruses that infect us, for purely selfish reasons! Vaccines are the single most successful medical achievement and have saved more lives and relieved more suffering than any other medical treatment.On a bit of a tangent, I have decided to record my memories of my grandfathers and father growing up, but also the stories they told me of their lives. and my story too, and then I will try and get my son-in-law to record his story too, he's a grandpa too now and I'm a great grandpa now, so this story will be Five Grandpas.I thought it might be fun to tell these stories to my great-grandkids as something they can read or listen to and I have a high end video camera now so I will leave a video, not all the stories but an hour or so talking about the fun trips and projects I have worked on.I was the oldest grandkid on both sides of my family by five years and I got to spend a lot of time with both of my grandpas, one a cattle rancher and the other a veteran of the Spanish American War and a sawyer in the saw mill in Bend. I had my own horse on the ranch and rode with my grandpa a lot, his horse was Whitey and mine was Tubby-Man-Boy. I could ride my bike over any time to visit my other grandpa, he told wonderful stories about the mill and the men who worked there. There were six sawyers working 2 shifts that alternated weekly, my dad and an uncle were also sawyers and continued to be until after I graduated from high school. I worked there in the powerhouse during the summer and winter breaks at college, I used to love to go over into the main mill and watch my dad saw these absolutely huge old growth ponderosa pine logs into planks. Dad and I mourned the loss of the forests and we both recognized the irony!I don't know if anyone remembers, but more than 10 years ago I took my grandson on dragonfly and photography adventure trips. There were lots of field trips around the northwest, but we also did a trip to Tennessee, and Prince Albert in Canada, and also to the Grand Canyon. My granddaughter and I visited Mt St. Helens last summer. Once the boys get interested in girls and cars and peer pressure at about 14 they are no longer good traveling companions and at about that age the girls get interested in what you do and want to spend time with you.Man, I mowed 2 large yards today, for the first time this year, and I'm sore, good night. I'll check the spelling tomorrow.

Here in New Hampshire we won't have to mow the grass until well into May.--Percy

We might get 6" to a foot of snow in the next week. With this warm winter I thought I might be mowing in April, but this will put it back to late May at the earliest.
We do need precipitation. Spring is always high fire risk until green up, but the lack of snow makes this year much worse.

I often mow into November and start again in February. Rain and mud are the issues here.

I never had much luck mowing rain or mud. They never stayed at the height I set.

They make a great roostertail though!

My favorite roostertail sits at the end of a 2# line trolling the lake for trout.

My dad and his dad taught me to fly cast and I still have my granddad's Pflueger fly reel and all of their flies. A high school football shoulder injury eventually made casting more pain than fun for my dad so he got a boat and started trolling. I didn't have patience and preferred looking for aquatic insects along shore.

What is a Roostertail?

It is the wake of water high in the air behind a hydroplane racing boat, and has come to mean any spray of liquified material. Picture what happens if you run a lawnmower through a mudpuddle.