I had every intention of waking at 5. That wasn't how it happened. Over an hour earlier the people upstairs woke me... by taking a shower... for over a half hour. Steve and I got the bed closest to the bathroom, because. That means the pipes run nearby as they drain, and when they do they are enough to wake me. Not the guys of course. (Is that fair?) The longer I listened, the more irritated I got. Wasting that much water? Here in Navajoland? What kind of jerks are they?
Meanwhile I got up, walked the dog outside, fed her, and started my morning cleanup. One washcloth sufficed. Not bragging, but I was still irate about the upstairs neighbors. Since the guys were still sleeping and the alarms hadn't gone off, I cleaned out our room, folded my dirty clothes to go back in the single bag we brought in once the guys were out of it for their wardrobe for a chilly day, and sat for a couple. What next? OK, time to kill 5 minutes figuring out how to make coffee in the Keurig, after reading the labels on the cups and choosing my variety. Since we weren't taking the offer of free breakfast, I packed the other 5 cups to take home and donate to the club. It has one of those. Other people use it.
Then Steve woke, did his morning routine, and we sat talking quietly until it was time to wake Rich. Because of course we had to wake our night owl. Nevermind, he'd earned every minute he gave himself. He took 29 of the 30 minutes originally planned for all of us to get up and out. Good thing we started early. In his case his extra minutes involved loading up everything he was going to carry out so we could all together manage it in one trip. It was still dark, but as we neared the car, the guys discovered the dog's sweater on the ground next to it. Now she'd be warm while the car heated up, and while we were sitting outside trying to shoot the eclipse. Here I'd been thinking that while I remembered to pack the sweater, perhaps I'd simply remembered wanting to. Age, ya know.
We headed east on 160, also named Navajo Trail, to meet the sun rise. To meet it getting eclipsed too, of course. In about twenty miles we started to see the outlines of terrain. The sky was gaining color. Rich had fallen back asleep in the car while Steve and I chatted. We passed a sign for Cow Springs. If there was a town it was behind a rise. But we entertained ourselves imagining cows springing all over the landscape: bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, sproing! sproing! sproing! Such dainty things, cows.
This was another case of being flexible in our plans. The original one had us heading to Kayenta, where the turn-off to Monument Valley was, hitting the McDonald's for breakfast and nature calls, continuing east to Red Mesa for the eclipse, then further up the road to 4 Corners for some authentic fry bread. Instead, once we hit Kayenta, it got shortened. If we stayed in that area we'd only lose about 30 seconds of the totality of the eclipse, the Ring of Fire. We'd save gas, Steve's time bouncing in the car, and maybe still find some fry bread locally. Nobody would be unhappy to be home a few hours sooner, nor to save some money we would have had to spend for entry to 4 Corners. It's not a National Park so our passes don't work, just like in any state parks. (FYI there was no local fry bread. The helpful clerk at the gas station kept ticking the possibilities off on his fingers with, "Nope, she's closed Saturdays.")
I'd been seeing the landmark out the window for miles as we approached Kayenta so immediately changed our plans to head north from town instead. No, not to Monument Valley, which judging by traffic would be crazy crowded like it made a difference where exactly you watched the sky from since it wouldn't be in the pictures, but instead just a few miles up the road, close to Mount Agathea. There are several places to pull over and park on wide flat shoulders, so we did. I of course took a picture of Agathea in the early light.
I was second, and while that was happening I started following the start of the eclipse by eye, properly protected of course. There was just a little divot in the top of the sun, barely an imperfection in the perfect circle. No photos were taken yet, of course. Not till a bigger chunk was taken out.
Some of the most focused slices of sun were well off to one side and cropping couldn't fully correct. Any dots in the photo I do not attribute to sunspots but to spots of dust either on the lens or the protective film.
Each trial, first mine, then Rich's, were improvements on the last, then taken back to the previous camera to implement. I had to absolutely put my foot down and insist he put on a set of the glasses and look at the progress of the eclipse of he would have completely missed most if not all of it. After Steve and I were set up, he had to work on his own tablet to try for a shot with that. I finally insisted he come out of the car where he'd been working by then, once the ring of fire started. We only had three minutes to see that.
Once it started brightening up again, we gave up on shooting. We could fake it by turning photos like you do when you held the camera vertical and the picture file shows horizontal, then post them in reverse order. (We didn't bother.) We'd each had our problems with getting photos. Steve had the tripod but not my camera's ability to zoom as much so his shots at this point are still dots. With 16 megapixels, he can do some severe cropping like I later did to see what he really has.
When I was shooting, sans tripod, my camera a fullest zoom (30x) got a good size sun, but it bounced all over inside the view window. I'd get it perfectly lined up, made sure my hands could hold it there, but the tiny finger movement for the shutter bounced it somewhere else. I took lots of shots at each stage, perhaps 70 total over the eclipse. It wasn't just that however. My camera wasn't sure where/how to focus. In the process I watched fantastic blurs grow and shrink back to crescents. It couldn't decide on colors either. It varied between a white/yellow sun with a thin red rim, to all red. As the shutter clicked, it was always jumping to red by default. In editing later when I tried to change that on the first shot, I got grey and blurrier than the original red. OK, red it is.
Where we set up there were sporadic plants like rooted tumbleweeds except green, spiny, and with tiny round purple blossoms at the nodes. If you walk into one it can snag your shoes and try to trip you while higher branch bits try to pierce your clothes. We avoided them as much as possible, but after the eclipse I wanted a picture in good light. The tape was removed along with the protective over-lens. All my camera showed was a white screen with a few dark streaks across it. I didn't bother shooting. In the process of taping the protection, then removing it to improve it, the tape had also pulled off the cap on the button on the top which tells the camera what mode to shoot in. Somehow we lost it. I didn't think anything had gotten bumped, though it was entirely possible. I'd gotten the eclipse shots, as you can see here, but I had no idea how to get the next whatever shot I wanted.
My camera broke! I was faced with the option of finding a repair shop or replacing it. Since there are several other quirks in this camera that I need to "shoot around" and make up for on the laptop by rebalancing the light exposure and specific cropping, I figured replacing as cheaply as possible might be the best option. EBay is my friend!
But meanwhile there were more pictures to shoot on the way home, IF we could find the spot again. We'd passed a sign pointing to dinosaur tracks, and made a mental note to give it a go on the way home, with all other obligations met. As for my camera, I had a plan. Steve wasn't interested in shooting them, particularly as it meant walking around in very irregular footing. I got permission to pop my SD card into his same-brand-different-style, camera to take them, then swap back afterwards. Look for an upcoming post on that.
There was one more mini adventure on the way home. Anyone who travels the 17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff regularly knows that any accident can mean the entire column of traffic in that direction can be stopped dead for hours, or however long it takes to clear the accident. It's why they are constructing extra bypass lanes between the original two sets. With all the mountains the 17 passes through along that route the first two sets are already at different heights anyway. There will be no traffic on the middle set, reserved for emergencies, and connected where necessary to bypass dead-stopped traffic. It would have been handy when we drove home to have that finished.
The signs were posted way back from the mile marker we were told the accident was at, warning us of the need to pay attention, slow, and stop. The terrain allowed us to see from one high point to another one several miles ahead and catch the flashes of sun reflected of vehicle roofs and sides, whether moving or not. The apparent answer was a very close-packed column of "not". We were close enough to Phoenix that it was getting hot in the car, since I turned the AC off whenever possible but especially climbing a mountain. The accident turned out to be two miles past the rest stop at Sunset Point, when we finally got close enough to find the correct mile marker. We'd crawled in packed traffic for well over ten miles at that point, some stop-and-go, some just creeping, cussing out the motorcycles whose drivers thought it was a good day to drive the center lane and get ahead of us all. One passed so close to my door it made me jump. I was positive I'd been too close to the other vehicle for anything but a rabbit chased by a coyote to be stupid enough to try navigating. I had NOT seen it coming.
We speculated when we might have to come to a full stop and sit in the car, hoping we'd be lucky enough to have a cut wall of mountain on the side blocking our sun. No such luck. Then again we never really had to stop and sit. Slow we were but not sitting. Nearing the rest stop traffic began to accelerate, up to 5 or even 10 mph. then 12. 15. Back to 11. Up to 20, 25, 30 and steady. As we started down the mountain where the accident was supposed to have happened we saw no indication of where. No damaged guard rails, no metal scraps, no glass, no indication of injuries. The more interesting thing to me was how slowly traffic was continuing to pick up speed for the next several miles, all down. Maybe somebody had gotten a bit spooked? I mean, common sense with a lower speed around those curves was a bit much to have asked.
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