Ilanarama!

As some of you may remember, in 2017 we drove to near Casper Wyoming to see the total solar eclipse, which was an incredible, astonishing, literally awe-some experience. So when we learned that we'd be nearly in the direct path of an annular solar eclipse (what happens when the relative distance of the sun and moon are such that the apparent disc of the moon doesn't completely cover the apparent disc of the sun), naturally we made plans to get ourselves in position to see it!

We actually wouldn't have had to drive very far, as the center of the annularity path would pass only an hour or so south of Durango. But there had been a lot of regional buzz - nearby Mesa Verde National Park was expecting a huge influx of visitors, all the campgrounds and hotels were sold out - and we wanted to get away from people, as is our wont :-) So instead we drove about 3 hours to Utah's Cedar Mesa, an area with many canyons full of arches and ruins we've explored many times, and more importantly lots of nooks and crannies that regular RVs wouldn't be able to access but which would be no problem for our Sportsmobile.

As it happened, Cedar Mesa had a lot more visitors as well, and the spot Britt had picked as a possible camp already had a half-dozen vehicles parked along the narrow dirt road. No matter; we headed back to the main road across the mesa and continued along it, looking for possibilities. Pretty soon we found a small cut-off that wasn't on the map, but didn't have a "no vehicles" sign - perfect. The fact that it was narrow, with sharp dips and bumps and hard turns and a few sections of deep sand just made it better, because we were pretty sure nobody else would come in after us. We found a flat spot and settled in to enjoy the sunset.



The clouds cleared out during the night, making for excellent (though very chilly) stargazing. When I got up in the wee hours (so called because I had to wee :-) I saw a meteor streak across Orion!

After breakfast the next morning we moved our chairs and table to a spot just behind the van where we had a clear view of the clear, blue sky, and settled in with our eclipse glasses, eclipse binoculars, and the SkEye app on our phones.

And this is what we saw!



Many more photos, including total annularity, below the cut. Note that these were taken by shooting with a phone camera through one lens of a pair of eclipse glasses, so they are very far from professional quality! However, I think they're nifty, so you get to see them. Total annularity was maybe even prettier than totality, though we had to continue to use the eclipse glasses and not the naked eye. It also got colder and darker, though not by nearly as much as it did for totality.

( One ring to rule them all... )

In case you're wondering why I haven't been posting, it's because I'm not doing anything worthy of posting about. Yeah, I had great plans after the Kendall Mountain Run, but maybe I shouldn't have posted, at the end of my race report:

Now, my legs hurt like you wouldn't believe, though I don't think I actually injured anything, just overused the muscles of my quads and glutes. Hopefully everything will feel good by next Saturday, when we head out into the wilderness for a week of backpacking. Then it will be time to turn my exercise attention to mountain biking in preparation for the Telluride-to-Moab ride in September. But I'll still be running 3-4 days a week, including attending the club track workouts, and hopefully by the time October comes around, I'll be ready to run a decent half marathon, and maybe even sign up for a late fall/early winter marathon.

Because in fact I did injure something. ( Gory details. )

Anyway, that's why I've been boring lately. :-( But in happier news, we'll be driving our camper van to Wyoming to see the eclipse, heading out this weekend! Originally we were going to combine it with some mtb'ing, but obviously if we do any, I'm just going to ride around on a dirt road as I'm not yet ready to switch to the real bike. This will be my second total eclipse, as I saw the March 1970 eclipse with my family:



Er, I'm the six-year-old moppet wrapped in a blanket. The reason all the telescopes are there is that my father worked for NASA Goddard, and so this was a group of his co-workers and their families, who had all driven to just over the VA-NC line to get to totality.