![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaAfter our 2017 eclipse trip to Wyoming I knew I wanted to see the 2024 eclipse as well, but we didn't actually get to planning until late summer 2023. We had vague ideas of going camping somewhere in SW Texas, but it turned out that a) our preferred camping mode of remote places on public lands wouldn't work in Texas because they have a dearth of public lands, and b) Texas state parks - state parks are our second choice because they are usually in interesting places with nice campsites - opened for reservations exactly 6 months in advance...and were already sold out when the dates we wanted opened. Apparently canny people got 2-week reservations 6 months and 2 weeks in advance, and then later canceled parts of their reservations. We, not being canny, were forced to look farther north and east, where it was statistically less likely to have clear skies; Britt got a site for three nights at Cooper Lake State Park, northeast of Dallas. (As you may know, it turned out that the actual clear sky map was almost opposite what was expected. Hah, I guess we were the actually canny ones!)
Once that was settled, I let Britt figure the rest out, since he likes to pore over maps and make plans. I was just along for the ride - and what a ride it turned out to be. Literally as well as figuratively, since we decided to take our mountain bikes with us. He picked two state parks for our outbound trip, and two different state parks on a different route coming back home, for a total of five different state parks visited, two in New Mexico and three in Texas.
Our route across southern Colorado was familiar from previous trips. Shortly after we crossed into New Mexico, we turned onto small roads that led up into the hills where Sugarite Canyon State Park nestled. It was early season and the upper campground was still closed, but we easily found a spot in the lower one and settled in. As it was a sunny afternoon and we were antsy from the long drive, we immediately took our bikes off the rack, changed clothes, and headed up the canyon. The steep road soon turned to dirt. We crossed the dam at Lake Maloya and continued north as the road got rougher. After a short while we saw a sign: we'd re-entered Colorado! We were out of the state park and in a (Colorado) state wildlife area. We turned around at a gate blocking the road at private land, near the long-defunct Ski Sugarite ski area, a small ski basin with the slogan "New Mexico's Only Colorado Ski Area," and coasted back down to our campsite.
The next day was another long day to Copper Breaks State Park. The campground was only so-so, basically just a long strip of road with pull-outs along it, but a small trail system gave us a place to ride our mountain bikes, and we had a lovely sunset!
We chatted with a few other campers who were also heading for the strip of eclipse totality, some southeast like us and some southwest, and the morning saw an exodus as everyone poured out toward their various destinations. As we pulled up to the sign-in station at Cooper Lake State Park on Saturday afternoon we could see informational signs already out about the eclipse, and as we drove through the park to our reserved campsite we could see that many campers had telescopes and camera equipment already in place.
The eclipse wasn't until Monday, so we had all day Sunday to bike on the trails - there was one across the lake that we needed to drive to, and then a second, smaller trail system that wound around our campground. Nothing special, but it was good to do something physical outside. We also had plenty of time to worry about the weather. While historically Texas had about a 50% chance of clear skies, with better odds further southwest, a storm system would be moving in that afternoon and the weather report was looking unpromising, with worse conditions expected further southwest. (Meanwhile, in New England where it's typically cloudy in April, they were predicting rare clear skies!) We just crossed our fingers and hoped.
Early in the morning, as I was making coffee, I saw the two camper vans with Quebec license plates pull out and leave; I figured they were chasing clear skies in the totality band. We shrugged our shoulders and stayed put. As the morning wore on, the clouds began to build, but they were moving fast, and the sun was fully visible more often than not. We pulled out our eclipse glasses and eclipse binoculars as the moon began moving into position, and the slow march to totality began.
There is actually a lot of time to an eclipse! We looked through our eclipse glasses and binoculars, listened to the news reports and forecasts, watched the light dim around us, and crossed our fingers when the clouds thickened. We had lunch. We watched the pinhole-camera effect of the partly-eclipsed sun filtering through a tree onto the concrete base of the picnic table.
And finally - totality! Which we got to enjoy for about a minute before the clouds swept in. We got one more bit of clear eclipse view during the 4+ minutes of totality, but actually it was pretty cool to watch it get even darker when the eclipsed sun was blocked by clouds. I took a few photos using Britt's trick of putting a lens of the eclipse glasses in front of my phone:
The red near the lower right edge is real - with the eclipse binoculars we could see a solar prominence sticking out beyond the moon's boundary.
In the late afternoon the Canadians came back. As we had guessed, they had driven to the northeast where the weather forecast was better, but alas they didn't get even as much clear viewing as we did. I felt pretty bad for them, driving a total of 6 hours and not even getting an eclipse!
The next morning, unsurprisingly, the campground emptied out. We had a long drive, though it was mostly on freeway, to Monahans Sandhills State Park in western Texas. Britt had thought it sounded interesting - and it was! The strong winds in this part of the country, which power the large windmill farms we saw along the way, also carry fine white sand and deposit it against the hills. The campground is actually among the dunes; the loop road looked like it needed plowing out every so often!
The next morning we braved the wind and went out for a dune hike.
Then it was only about four hours north and west through the flat, desolate plains to Bottomless Lakes State Park, NM, which is home to nine water-filled sinkholes that lie more or less in a line. Supposedly the cowboys who were the first non-natives to encounter these lakes tried to measure their depth with a rope but couldn't find bottom; actually the lakes range from 22 to 90 feet deep.
We immediately got onto our bikes to ride along the park road to visit each of the lakes.
At the far end of the park from our campground at Lea Lake is a very nice little mountain bike trail called Skidmarks that manages to get 3 miles of trail into a tiny little corner of the park between two roads by making it zigzag back and forth and all around itself - it was great fun and much more scenic than this photo makes it look:
Then we rode back to our van via the road on the escarpment above the lakes, showered and had dinner, and drove home the next morning. We were only at home for a few days before our next adventure...but that's another post!
Once that was settled, I let Britt figure the rest out, since he likes to pore over maps and make plans. I was just along for the ride - and what a ride it turned out to be. Literally as well as figuratively, since we decided to take our mountain bikes with us. He picked two state parks for our outbound trip, and two different state parks on a different route coming back home, for a total of five different state parks visited, two in New Mexico and three in Texas.
Our route across southern Colorado was familiar from previous trips. Shortly after we crossed into New Mexico, we turned onto small roads that led up into the hills where Sugarite Canyon State Park nestled. It was early season and the upper campground was still closed, but we easily found a spot in the lower one and settled in. As it was a sunny afternoon and we were antsy from the long drive, we immediately took our bikes off the rack, changed clothes, and headed up the canyon. The steep road soon turned to dirt. We crossed the dam at Lake Maloya and continued north as the road got rougher. After a short while we saw a sign: we'd re-entered Colorado! We were out of the state park and in a (Colorado) state wildlife area. We turned around at a gate blocking the road at private land, near the long-defunct Ski Sugarite ski area, a small ski basin with the slogan "New Mexico's Only Colorado Ski Area," and coasted back down to our campsite.
The next day was another long day to Copper Breaks State Park. The campground was only so-so, basically just a long strip of road with pull-outs along it, but a small trail system gave us a place to ride our mountain bikes, and we had a lovely sunset!
We chatted with a few other campers who were also heading for the strip of eclipse totality, some southeast like us and some southwest, and the morning saw an exodus as everyone poured out toward their various destinations. As we pulled up to the sign-in station at Cooper Lake State Park on Saturday afternoon we could see informational signs already out about the eclipse, and as we drove through the park to our reserved campsite we could see that many campers had telescopes and camera equipment already in place.
The eclipse wasn't until Monday, so we had all day Sunday to bike on the trails - there was one across the lake that we needed to drive to, and then a second, smaller trail system that wound around our campground. Nothing special, but it was good to do something physical outside. We also had plenty of time to worry about the weather. While historically Texas had about a 50% chance of clear skies, with better odds further southwest, a storm system would be moving in that afternoon and the weather report was looking unpromising, with worse conditions expected further southwest. (Meanwhile, in New England where it's typically cloudy in April, they were predicting rare clear skies!) We just crossed our fingers and hoped.
Early in the morning, as I was making coffee, I saw the two camper vans with Quebec license plates pull out and leave; I figured they were chasing clear skies in the totality band. We shrugged our shoulders and stayed put. As the morning wore on, the clouds began to build, but they were moving fast, and the sun was fully visible more often than not. We pulled out our eclipse glasses and eclipse binoculars as the moon began moving into position, and the slow march to totality began.
There is actually a lot of time to an eclipse! We looked through our eclipse glasses and binoculars, listened to the news reports and forecasts, watched the light dim around us, and crossed our fingers when the clouds thickened. We had lunch. We watched the pinhole-camera effect of the partly-eclipsed sun filtering through a tree onto the concrete base of the picnic table.
And finally - totality! Which we got to enjoy for about a minute before the clouds swept in. We got one more bit of clear eclipse view during the 4+ minutes of totality, but actually it was pretty cool to watch it get even darker when the eclipsed sun was blocked by clouds. I took a few photos using Britt's trick of putting a lens of the eclipse glasses in front of my phone:
The red near the lower right edge is real - with the eclipse binoculars we could see a solar prominence sticking out beyond the moon's boundary.
In the late afternoon the Canadians came back. As we had guessed, they had driven to the northeast where the weather forecast was better, but alas they didn't get even as much clear viewing as we did. I felt pretty bad for them, driving a total of 6 hours and not even getting an eclipse!
The next morning, unsurprisingly, the campground emptied out. We had a long drive, though it was mostly on freeway, to Monahans Sandhills State Park in western Texas. Britt had thought it sounded interesting - and it was! The strong winds in this part of the country, which power the large windmill farms we saw along the way, also carry fine white sand and deposit it against the hills. The campground is actually among the dunes; the loop road looked like it needed plowing out every so often!
The next morning we braved the wind and went out for a dune hike.
Then it was only about four hours north and west through the flat, desolate plains to Bottomless Lakes State Park, NM, which is home to nine water-filled sinkholes that lie more or less in a line. Supposedly the cowboys who were the first non-natives to encounter these lakes tried to measure their depth with a rope but couldn't find bottom; actually the lakes range from 22 to 90 feet deep.
We immediately got onto our bikes to ride along the park road to visit each of the lakes.
At the far end of the park from our campground at Lea Lake is a very nice little mountain bike trail called Skidmarks that manages to get 3 miles of trail into a tiny little corner of the park between two roads by making it zigzag back and forth and all around itself - it was great fun and much more scenic than this photo makes it look:
Then we rode back to our van via the road on the escarpment above the lakes, showered and had dinner, and drove home the next morning. We were only at home for a few days before our next adventure...but that's another post!
(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 12:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 05:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 02:10 am (UTC)That's a terrific picture. (I like the dunes, too.)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 04:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 12:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-01 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-03 04:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-06-06 11:59 pm (UTC)