Earlier this Summer Lone Star and I went on a grand adventure with the family, and Castle Gardens, WY was our destination. The date you ask? Well, it was none other than August 21st, 2017...the solar eclipse.
We left the night before the eclipse, and reached our campsite by 12:00am. Tired, and mildy hungry, we set to work seting up our campsite. All the while munching happily on Snicker bars and Caramellows. BEST DINNER EVER!!!
The drive and the mildly unhealthy dinner (Shhhhh), it was all worth it. We woke up to this..........
It was gorgeous in the morning light! Lone Star and The Little Brother explored first with my camera while Mom, Dad and I held down the fort (with the coffee hehehe).
I later joined them and retrieved my precious from Lone Star. What looked to be another (beautiful though it is) Wyoming rock formation was also a location for some interesting pictures dating 1000 A.D.. Taken by the locals at the time, the Athapaskan groups. Closely related to the Navajoes and Apache. My heart was racing! Amazing!
Not sure what the artist was photographing but I bet it was a spectacular sight!
There were fences to keep the photos undisturbed, I attempted to zoom in as close as possible with my lens. We were t-minus 20 minutes til the eclipse when we headed back to camp and prepared ourselves to witness a historic event in an equally historical location. The anticipation was palpable!
A short while later totality fell.....
Screams of excitement was heard from all around! Truly Magnificent!
After totality had past we went back to the stone formations and the secrets they hold. We went farther than we had gone before. I felt like Jean Luc Picard traversing a new universe. Every corner held a new sight to behold!
The final photo sent chills up my spine!
It was almost as if they were capturing all the times they saw an eclipse in that exact same location! To think, we had witnessed the same event in the same place! Chills I'm telling you, chills!
However, the adventure was not over yet. The journey home was yet to come. On the way back I experienced something I had never before. A traffic Jam!!!
Deadlocked traffic on a 65 mph highway in nowhere Wyoming! The traffic stretched all the way from Casper to Riverton like the photo above. Six hours later we arrived back in Cody to eat dinner at Bubba's BBQ. Family, history, a historic astronomical event and finished it all with a wonderful dinner full of laughing and fun. I couldn't have been more blessed!