The Great American Eclipse 2017

On Sunday, we packed up the camper and headed northwest with a bunch of friends to a ranch near Casper, WY for the eclipse on Monday.  Full disclosure, I was lukewarm about the idea. I was worried about leaving the pets at home (they couldn't come to the ranch but they had Aunt Vicky checking on them frequently). I was also concerned about traffic because news reports indicated that Wyoming's population could possibly double from all of the people coming to see the eclipse.  I just felt uneasy but we headed out of town.  Spoiler alert?  I'm so very glad we got to see the eclipse.

After we unpacked and set up the camper, we headed to Miracle Mile, a great fishing spot on the North Platte. Some of the kiddos fished.  Our two just stuck their feet in the water.  

It was a little chilly.  

Glenn offered Will $20 if he'd submerge himself.  Pay up Dad.  

Reina preferred a submerge-less experience. 

Will warming up in the truck afterward.  

A juvenile pelican that didn't get that close - thanks zoom lens.  Glenn said he was a juvenile and I usually believe everything he says that's bird related.  

Shorts drying on the fenceline because someone (me) only packed Will one extra set of clothes. I forgot about the water factor.  No swimsuits either.  

The view from our camper.  We were camping on a ranch that's now owned by a corporation and all of the buildings except the main house are currently unused.  It was a peaceful place.  

Boys exploring a little creek that ran through the ranch yard.  We'd been warned about rattlesnakes but luckily we didn't see or hear any all weekend.  

I got to see an owl!  Two of them actually but I couldn't get them both to pose for the picture.  Glenn says this is a juvenile great horned owl.  All I know is that its giving me a very judgmental look.  And I'd like to snuggle it.  

Kids and parents fishing and catching crawdads.  

Day #2 and it's time for the eclipse!  We had to travel a few miles from the camping spot to completely be in the path of totality.  We pulled off the road on some BLM land and set up a temporary viewing area.  I took this picture right as the moon touched a sliver of the sun.  It would be another 80 minutes until totality.  

Smile!  With those glasses on, you can't see a thing except for the sun. 

Will passed the time playing a little football.   

Reina got comfortable.  

After we stopped,more cars and trucks started pulling in.  You can see some cows enjoying the spectacle too.  

The kids would take a break, put their glasses on, check out the sun and then go back to their game.  This one involved a soccer ball, points and a lot of yelling.  

A herd of horses were in the pasture we picked and that resulted in the Great Stampede of 2017.  Some of the kids jogged down the road to check out the horses, the horses decided to come up and see why the small humans were running, the small humans got scared of the horses running towards them and then chaos ensued.  No one was stampeded, there were lots of giggles and one barefoot kid.  Reina was just happy to have all of the horses hanging out.  

Getting closer to totality. It's a little hard to tell in this picture but the light was starting to change.  As the eclipse got closer, the light became more diffused and almost green. It was a weird thing to watch.  

Totality!  I didn't try to take any pictures of the sun with my camera until this point because I was worried about the lens.  It was such a strange sensation to peer through the glasses and see the fun partially covered, mostly covered and then this.  

Here's my zoomed in shot.  

Where we parked, totality lasted about a minute and a half.  All of the stress leading up to that weekend, the worries about traffic, etc., evaporated in that 90 seconds.  I keep using words like strange and weird but it so eerie to be standing outside at 11:42 a.m. on a Monday in the middle of August and have the temperature drop 10 degrees, the crickets start chirping and the world go silent for just a minute.  Glenn said later that it looked like dusk, except the sun was still high in the sky.  We all marveled at those few seconds, waited for the sun to come peeking back out, piled everyone back in the car and headed home.  We lucked out.  No traffic to speak of on our drive home, pets and house waiting for us and a great way to wrap up Summer 2017. I just might have to go see another eclipse in my lifetime.  

Softball and baseball

Well.  I started this post almost three weeks ago now and still haven't finished it.  This summer! Blogging has been scarce this summer mostly due to softball and baseball and gardening and Reina's drama camp (more on that later!) and a list of fun stuff that's kept me off of the computer.  So these pictures are starting to be a little outdated and I'd better get them blogged before football starts (it started two weeks ago....)  

We loved watching Reina play softball.  I posted about this last month, but she had a great coach and a really nice group of girls and parents.  She learned a lot and it was fun to see her progress throughout the season.  I thought my girl wasn't competitive - in previous sports she was usually happy to run alongside teammates with a smile on her face - but during softball, I started to notice some serious looks in the dugout and dare I say.... frustration when the game wasn't going the way she wanted.  Turns out our Reina-iac really wants to win and if she thinks her team isn't going to win, she'd rather just call the game off.  

Then there was Will's baseball season.  It overlapped with Reina's softball season for a few weeks so we had to divide and conquer and meet up on fields after one game was done but before the one started.  Luckily, the fields were just down the road from each other.

Will had a really fun baseball season.  He had a good coach, good assistant coaches (including Glenn), good friends on the team and I had a great group of moms and grandparents to cheer with.  Will's team ended up fourth in the tournament but they made it a lot farther than was anticipated.

Will developed a lot as a player this year.  He was a solid hitter and had some good plays on defense.  He also pitched!  I was a bundle of nerves when he was on the pitching mound but he showed such strength and tenacity up there.  He never let his nerves get the best of him and he was a joy to watch.  And he struck some kids out!

I don't have any pictures of him on the pitching mound because let's face it... I was usually pacing back and forth behind the bleachers when he was up.  Or I was sitting directly behind home plate and willing the other team to swing at the ball.  No, I wasn't too wrapped up in 5th grade baseball, why do you ask?

The highlights of Will's baseball season where an in-the -park home run, a few three-up, three-down innings as a pitcher, getting a base runner out in a pickle as a first baseman (it was glorious!) and many RBI's.  We really had fun watching him play.  Bring on football season!