I traveled to Wyoming to view the total eclipse of the sun. Rhonda had been camping for several days and was not up for another road trip! I drove up to Laramie the evening before - got in touch with nephew David for a beer, and he suggested a place for viewing that would likely be less crowded. I had planned on taking the back road to Casper, but the route I took was the back way to Douglas. It was a dirt road called Fetterman that headed north shortly beyond Rock River. David thought that it would be about 45 minutes to the area of totality, but it turned out to be about twice that. However, it was worth it.
There were dozens of cars along Fetterman Road, and as the terrain turned from plains to canyons, there were numerous pull-off sites where people were gathering. I saw one open area where about a half dozen cars had gathered, and decided to stop. Got wonderfully lucky!! A fellow from Texas had brought his 12 inch telescope and some modified binoculars for the viewing. The 20 or so folks at the site were treated to some wonderful images along with the views through our glasses and the transition from day time to darkness.
I watched through my glasses and saw the progression shown above. As totality approached, the air started to cool, and I went from comfortable in short sleeves to needing my hooded sweat shirt! The bright blue sky began to lose its color, and transformed to a dusky gray. All of the colors took on an other-worldly hue - not unlike when the sun is being partially blocked by smoke from forest fires, but still different from anything I had ever seen. At totality, I had my binoculars ready to go, and the view was just as shown above. However, I immediately noted a star adjacent to the sun/moon, and from the map below, it was Regulus, one of the stars in Orion's Belt. Solar flares were also plain to see. Venus appeared early on and was easily identified, and various other planets and stars came into view. The two and a half minutes of totality passed way too quickly, but to use an overworked word - Awesome!! As the total eclipse ended, the crowd broke out into spontaneous applause, and folks began to gather up for the trek home, knowing that traffic would be a zoo. Fortunately I took the 'back' way home to Colorado and avoided the traffic-jam-from-hell along Interstate 25.
The next total eclipse in the US is in seven years, and the path is shown below - I highly recommend making the effort to take it in - I don't think that you will be disappointed.
Hi Doug,
ReplyDeleteI watched it from Eastern Oregon. Totality is an amazing experience.
I notice in seven years the paths make a cross, which happens to be right over the New Madrid Fault, which wreaked havoc in 1811 and 1812 with a series of absolutely massive earthquakes. Think the God of the Bible is trying to tell us something?
ReplyDeleteI think that Mr. Turd Clinger is on to something! The crossing of paths is not over the overtly godless and sin-driven cities such as Las Vegas, New Orleans, NYC or DC. Rather it is close to the epicenter of the totally misguided evangelicals who really don't listen to the God of the Bible, that would be Jesus, and have given us a deranged, god-less 'leader' whom they support indiscriminately. Of course such folks have a perverted expectation that their god will reign terror on all those who deny him - seems like such a god would start with China, India, the Muslim countries, etc. Also, seems as though he must be really pissed at Houston for some reason. What rubbish Mr. Barry.
ReplyDeleteAgree, Anonymouse, Hillary would have been much better. The abolition of Christianity is the ultimate goal of radical leftists as it is THE main obstacle to the imposition of their worldview. In addition, Hillary would happily fellate George Soros and his ilk to line her pockets all the more and allow those globo-homos to continue to try and dominate the world. Unfortunately, God-emperor, Trump, stands to thwart all that...for now.
ReplyDeleteJohn - totally agree on the amazing experience. Looks like Goshen is not too far from totality next time around. July 2, 2019 - Argentina, near Buenos Aires - maybe we should start planning a trip!!!
ReplyDeleteThe temperature change was amazing, the hot air balloons started coming
ReplyDeleteup about 45 minutes in. Another thing I will note, that was almost as remarkable as the eclipse, was that the state park did not provide any trash cans....and yet there was not a single piece of litter left behind by the crowd. We were all pretty darn impressed by
that.
Contrast that with the trash left behind by the 420 rally, or any of the recent
political demonstrations here and across the country.
Hey, Anonymous, sounds like you've got some Biblical "wailing and gnashing of teeth" going on there.
ReplyDeleteBB Brain - not sure how much wailing and gnashing there would be if one is thrown into a fiery furnace!! Seems as though it would be pretty brief! Also, the furnace is for all "who practice lawlessness." Now, this lawlessness is not particularly well defined, but let's just go with the seven deadly sins: "the sins of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth." A lot of evangelicals in that crowd!!
ReplyDeleteTurd clinger - don't recollect mentioning that Hilary would be any better - they are all scum, just different types. I do believe that the Trump scum is more dangerous to this country's well-being than the Clinton scum. And the leftist homo anti Christian agenda simply does not comport with facts. A huge number of LGBT folks are sincere Christians, and let's have a look at who occupies most of the seats of power in this country - white, heterosexual, Christian men. Too bad you are so paranoid.
Biz, am thinking you misapplied the "wailing and gnashing of teeth" verses to Anonymous. It refers to people who have chosen to spend eternity separated from the God of the Bible who find themselves extremely uncomfortable (wailing) and awfully mad about it (gnashing of teeth). Anonymous is in the here and now.
ReplyDeleteThanks Yodie!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, how Brennemanesque of you to claim that a huge number of LGBT folks are sincere Christians, though I would disagree that most of the seats of power in this country are occupied by Christians. They have to claim to be for obvious reasons, but most don’t bear fruit (Matthew 7:15-20). My favorite is Bill Clinton, strolling out of church after an Easter service, lugging a ten pound Bible, as he makes his way to the White House to have sex with Monica Lewinsky.
ReplyDeleteDGB - always good to look at the data - Pew Research shows that 48% of the LGBT community identify themselves as Christians, and another 11% identity with other religions. As opposed to such non-Christian Christians like Billy C and the Trumpster, the LGBT folks have nothing particular to gain by claiming Christianity or another religious tradition. I assume that you would acknowledge that Pence is one of your true Christians - and a lot of other folks in Congress may also pass your muster. However, it seems clear that no politician will ever be elected in the near future if they claim some other faith than Christianity.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the statistics, Douglas E. Obama let it slip out by mistake one time that he is a Muslim during an interview with George Stephanopoulos on 9-7-08, who had to correct Obama by reminding him he was supposed to say he was a Christian, not a Muslim. But that is not the near future.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKGdkqfBICw
Am a big fan of Brennemanism, Dean. It means you can do it with whomever you want and still go to heaven.
ReplyDeleteHarold (may I call you Harry?), what Brenneman stands for is "affirmation" and "inclusivity," which sound noble and honorable and desirable and Christlike and Christian on the surface. However, inclusivity most often means including people in your organization who want to destroy your organization, e.g. Boy Scouts and MCA. Affirmation? Affirming tells people they made the right choice, even if nature says otherwise. Protestant churches have become affirming as they embrace every anti-Christian lunacy.
ReplyDeleteThese comments are getting hostile, and pretty stupid as evidenced by the commentors' names.
ReplyDeleteI've a mind to delete all of the tangential comments that are not related to the eclipse. However, I would like to point out that this country is not going to be destroyed by a small number of gay folks and atheists. Those who currently hold the power are the ones who should be feared. The folks from Trump and his me-first minions to the growing numbers of drainbows and dead-beats who have no interest in contributing to community and country and leading the dismantling of this country. I am afraid we are well along this route:
ReplyDelete"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
And now a relevant comment - for the event, I wore a shirt that I got from a Pepperdine professor who teaches in the Great Books Program. On the back is a quote from Dante's Inferno - "Abandon hope, ye who enter here." Some of the folks in our group saw the humor - we were prepared for the end times. Alas, the prophesies of the crazies did not come to pass, and we all drove home in peace.
ReplyDeleteWow, Douglas E! Your democracy quote is a most profound pronouncement, and one with which I heartily agree. I am of the "we are doomed" school of thought and predict the country as we knew it won't last much longer due to stupidity, apathy, immorality, and any other negative you want to add to the list. Most people don't care one way or other, but when the money runs out, which it surely will (financial collapse), then fasten your seat belts. As we go, the free world goes, and after our collapse, global hell WILL break loose. [Ain't this more fun than talking about the eclipse?]
ReplyDeleteIt should please you, Douglas E, that I plan to stay on topic. I went outside and saw the eclipse. I was not in the total eclipse path. Because I was not in the total eclipse path, I did not get to see a total eclipse. They say there was maybe an 85 or 90% eclipse in my area. My wife made a viewing box, but it didn't work. It just showed a white dot on the bottom of the box and no eclipse outline. Do not think we used the box right. I tried looking at the eclipse through a pinhole in a card. All I saw was bright sun and no eclipse outline. I did notice there was less light and things dimmed down some. We were very excited to experience the eclipse moment even though we did not see jack shit. I forget what we had to eat that day.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lance, for the exciting, blow by blow description of your eclipse experience! It brought it to life for me! Have you ever thought about being a writer? If not, you may be overlooking some great potential.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lance - your experience was no doubt shared by thousands! Even in 99% of totality, it was hard to appreciate the event; at 1%, the sun is still amazingly powerful. Mike - glad that you enjoyed Lance's writing :-)
ReplyDeleteNostra - glad that we can agree on a few things :-) It's hard to predict the nature of the doom, but I agree that it will be catastrophic. It's just a matter of time before there is a great financial 'adjustment'. The likes of Paul Krugman poo poo the national debt, which to me indicates that any bloviator can win a Nobel Prize in Economics.
ReplyDeleteHere's my latest Nostradamus prediction - Trump secretly actually believes in anthropogenic climate change and has decided that nuclear war, with the ensuing nuclear winter, will be a great fix. You heard it first here, folks!
I would be happy to predict the Left's vision for humanity: "Nothing to admire or aspire to, all envies pacified, all ambitions mollified, all behaviors sanctified, all filth normalized." In other words, the equality of the garbage dump.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Right's vision for humanity: "I've got mine, so f*** you."
ReplyDeleteThat about nails it, hoosier. This country produces a lot of goodies for its citizens and there aren't nearly enough goodies to pass out to everyone in the world who wants them, so a lot of people have to do without and learn to be content in their sh*thole countries controlled by their multi-billionaire dictators. I would not go so far as to say the Right's vision is "screw you" to the have-nots. The Right would like to see a drastic increase in the number of haves and a drastic reduction in the number of have-nots. Unfortunately, there are way too many mindless zombies (Obama, Bernie, and Clinton lovers, and the RINO's) who stand in the way of that ever happening.
ReplyDeleteWay to shuffle the blame for the Right's failures back to the Left! In reality, neither the Right nor the Left have true compassion for the less privileged. The Right blames the plight of the poor on their bad decisions and not working hard enough [thus justifying keeping nearly all of the wealth for themselves] and the Left sees the poor as a vast pool of votes for government expansion. Neither the Right nor the Left is willing to cut back the military in order to invest in programs that would actually employ the poor to do work rebuilding the country's infrastructure. Then again, I make a huge assumption that the poor would actually work.
ReplyDeleteI think we used to have compassion for the poor before Lyndon Johnson (about our worst President) federalized welfare. Communities used to take care of their own at the community level. Then Johnson came along and started using federal dollars to pay illiterate, drug-addicted teenagers to have babies, and you know the rest of the story. Those babies never stood a chance in that environment. People do make bad decisions and end up in messes and government programs can't undo that. But one formula that works out very well in getting out of the poverty cycle is 1) finish high school, 2) get a job, 3) get married, and 4) THEN have your baby (and STAY married).
ReplyDeleteNDA - you hit on something that no politician seems to want to address these days - welfare reform. The right picks and chooses when they preach states' rights, but maybe welfare should indeed be left up to states, or even counties. As should marijuana policies :-)
ReplyDeleteVery much agree about government being conducted at the local level, so smoke yourself silly! Lol! Seriously though, the states should decide whether or not to permit unborn baby murder or to allow the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples. Am sure there would be plenty of states where one could get an abortion if it was not legal in one's home state.
ReplyDeletePhil - wouldn't it be great if the Federal government stuck to things relevant at the federal level??? I've got no problems with laws that regulate matters of national concern but am of the belief of the less government the better!
ReplyDelete