So here is the story...
This probably started in 1999 when my son and I saw the clouds go dark in Devon. Since that experience I harboured a desire to see totality properly. In 2015 travelled up to the far NW of Scotland to see 97%, dark and weird but not total.
So a plan was hatched to take a holiday in North America, seeing a business associate in Canada, then hiring a campervan from Calgary and driving to the eclipse zone. All good, except the near £4k cost of a suitable campervan, and its associated milage and fuel charges. I phoned a school friend in Salt Lake City and next thing we were planning to stay with him and have a loan of one of their cars!
So then to choose the spot. Every piece of reporting about the upcoming eclipse said that millions of people would go to see it. I chose west of Idaho Falls, seeking out a triangle of roads, to give us a bit of a chance to change position if it was cloudy. The area East of Idaho Falls - Rexburg - was likely to be very busy. 2m 18s of totality on the central line.
So we left SLC at 22:30 on Sunday - I didn't want to get caught in traffic, or get there and find no space. Come 3:30 we were one of about 20 cars on a 15 mile stretch of road! Dawn showed us how isolated we were.
We went off road and tried to sleep. A downside was that going for a pee meant walking off into the scrub, and then peeing in full view of everyone - even if you walked for hundreds of metres.
Gradually more people arrived, and we had a neighbour with a drone...
They had also come from the SLC area but had more sensibly stayed the night about 30 miles away.
The last one shows us parked up, third car up on the right.
If you look closely you can see me and my shadow by the roadside
Popped off for a pee and met another couple who had driven for 2 hours to get here. He said that he had chosen this spot because some clever algorithm had put it forward as the least likely to get full up. He also said that he had put the central line into his GPS, and this was it. I then had to set up the equipment and get focussed. Which was way harder then in the back yard a few days earlier.
I'd had to buy a tripod (mine being too big to fly out) and improvise with a jumper as blackout hood
Here we are in Eclipse viewing mode
I set up to bracket exposure, and had to reposition the camera every few minutes as the sun tracked across the sky. It had to be by camera, not telescope, as the telescope was far too bulky for air travel. As it happens my hand luggage weighed nearly as much as my hold case. Nikon DX and a 1.4 teleconverter, wth the 200-500mm lens meant an equivalent to 1050mm
and a few photos of the eclipse...
I didn't get any diamond rings, or Bailey's beads. Everything happens very fast and I was hoping to get a good totality shot.
Totality was astounding and now I realise I missed one great image - a wide shot of totality. Luckily my son got an iPhone shot.
It was really beautiful, very, very moving and well worth all the effort. I was forgiven for the early start and sleep in the car!
As soon as totality was over there was a firing up of car engines and people began to leave. Us and our neighbours stayed to the end. It seemed rude not to - nature had put on a spectacular show.
Next time I shall go for the wide shot at totality too - I didn't have my full frame camera to hand at totality as the ground was so dusty and cameras hate dust.
I shall definitely plan to see another one. On our trip we stayed in a town in New York State and enthused our hosts to drive to Kentucky to see totality (on their way back they took 10 hours to do a 4 hours bit of road!) They now report that their town is in totality for the 2024 eclipse.