We decided to take a road trip and escape the heat of Las Vegas to not only observe the Total Solar Eclipse, but to be in the path of totality! This meant a 12-hour road trip each way to Weiser, ID.
All of that for 2 minutes and 9 seconds of totality, which if you’ve never been in 100% totality of an eclipse, it’s a life-remembering experience.
Fortunately for us, we didn’t have to go it alone. Our friends, Bill and Tam, whose wedding we attended on Maui also went, and brought their massive RV trailer, that sleeps 6 people comfortably.
A big part of the trip was finding exactly where in Weiser we could go to be in 100% totality for as long as possible. This meant plotting out the center of totality from the NASA website, and then using our mobile phones to find a suitable place to observe the Solar Eclipse. This led us to a farm in the middle of nowhere.
From the time the eclipse started, until it ended, was about 90 minutes, so we had plenty of time to stand in an open field along a dirt road and watch it with our nifty NASA supplied Solar Eclipse glasses. Even just a few seconds of staring directly at the sun could mean permanent eye damage, and since Bill and I are both airline pilots, we’d like to keep our eyesight as long as possible!
One cool thing we did not expect was that at about 70% eclipse, there was a cow a few hundred yards away that started wailing uncontrollably. It was standing out in the field and totally freaking out due to the sun disappearing. We noticed that the temperature started to drop rapidly. I usually have to wear sunglasses outside, even if it’s cloudy, but at about 70% I could take them off easily.
Just so you know, the difference between 100% and 99% is almost night and day (pardon the pun). We watched as the sun went from 99% to 100% and all of a sudden the corona of the sun blossomed and for over 2 minutes it was an amazing experience.
Oana and I plan on being in Gibraltar on August 2nd, 2027 for the Total Solar Eclipse that will go through there with over 6 minutes of totality!