Aria Begins her Life: Total Solar Eclipse Adventure

On Sunday, August 20, Karen, Aria, and Ted set out on an adventure of a lifetime - to view a total solar eclipse. We started out in the morning from Bellingham and drove for about nine hours to our destination in Baker City, Oregon. We choose Baker City because it was within the 70 mile-wide path where the sun would be totally eclipsed. Even though we had anticipated the trip for nearly two years we ended up heading off with no certainty about where we would stay or where we would view the eclipse the following morning. We also didn't know with certainty whether the weather would be clear or not. Being in a more arid part of Eastern Oregon and at a higher elevation, Baker City had a good chance of being clear. The weather forecast the day before the eclipse called for light clouds but as the eclipse time approached the forecast called for clear skies. We kept our fingers crossed.

We arrived at Baker City just before sunset and stopped at a city park that had a great playground. Aria enjoyed the playground while Karen found us a nice parking spot for the night next to the river that flowed adjacent to the park. We spent the night sleeping (sort of) in the back of our car and got up early in the morning of eclipse day - August 21, 2017. The sky was perfectly clear and cloudless - perfect conditions for eclipse watching. Given the location of the sun in the sky, we decided that the grassy area near our car would be a perfect place to watch the eclipse. As we waited for the eclipse to start other people arrived. Some folks came from just north of Bellingham and even recognized us!

The partial solar eclipse started, as predicted, at about 9:09 am with the moon nibbling a small bite out of the sun in the upper right hand corner. For the next hour and ten minutes we used our special eclipse glasses to watch as more and more of the sun disappeared behind the moon. About five minutes before the total eclipse started we could see many changes start to occur - shadows were becoming sharper and sharper as the sun became more a point of light, the sky started to take on a darker shade, and images of the sun projected through the trees took on a crescent shape. The light level didn't seem to drop a lot until the last minute or so before totality. And then, in just the few seconds before totality began at 10:24 am it went through the quickest twilight I've ever seen becoming pitch black in a matter of seconds. Then we saw the most awesome and beautiful sight imaginable as the sun's disc was completely covered and the solar corona shown brightly like a glorious crown of light. We watched and cheered in awe at the beautiful sight. And then ... it was over as quickly as it had begun. The sun peaked back out from the upper right corner of the moon and the sky stated to lighten. After a few minutes the city street lights turned off and it was almost a normal day again. We continued to watch through the eclipse glasses as the moon's disc moved off from in front of the sun.

We enjoyed a little more time on the playground checking out the partial eclipse until it ended a little before noon, packed up, grabbed some coffee and lunch and started the long trek home.
And, as Aria said during the eclipse, "this is EPIC!"

Here is a video of the time before, during, and after the eclipse.