On Aug 20th, we left Bend to drive in "the path of totality". It is a 70 mile stretch where the moon would cover the sun completely and where the "experience" is the most striking.
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| Path of Totality in Oregon |
As you can imagine, we weren't the only ones having that neat idea :). Accommodations and campgrounds were booked months if not years in advance. So one solution left: boondocking! There are many public lands in the US (National Forests, BLM...) where you can camp for free in dispersed areas for as long as you follow some rules (I'll make a blogpost on that later). So this is what we did and found a neat spot in the Ochoco National Forest (yay! I finally found a way to import our tracking data in the blog).
August 20th Van Tracker
On the spot itself, well it's amazing (see Christel's post). It's quite an experience to be on your own, far from the crowds in the middle of the forest. If you add the eclipse to the equation, it's awesome!
So what does it look like? Well, unless you wear your special glasses, your really don't see anything besides the light dimming slowly (the whole process takes about one hour). It becomes a bit chillier and a few cows crossed our campsite and looked really confused (might also be that they didn't expect to see anyone here).
And then, bam, total darkness, total silence and a ring around the sun. There is really nothing like it. For what it's worth, here's a picture I snapped.
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| Totally eclipsed! |
The totality lasted for about a minute and a half, and pretty much life resumed its normal course after that.
D.
