This nice animation of the August 21st Eclipse across America showed up on Astronomy Picture of the Day today. It is less than a minute in length and is a good graphic illustration of the path of totality.
The embedded video can be set to full screen for enlargement.
After the video finishes, there is another interesting video follow-up that animates the shadow of the moon as it crosses the country. You can see in detail where totality occurs with the shadow video.
The countdown has been underway here for almost five years since we first made our reservations at the RV campground near the centerline of the eclipse in Wyoming. Now, however, we’re down to the last few weeks before the big event. The Javascript countdown timer above shows the remaining time to the start of the eclipse (first lunar encroachment) in Arizona Time.
The date of the eclipse is August 21, 2017. The beginning of the eclipse is dependent on the location of the observer, but in our case is 16:22:20 UTC, The seven hour difference has been adjusted in the timer. Totality follows a bit over an hour later. The interactive eclipse map has moved to the NASA Eclipse pages:
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/interactive_map/index.html
Damsel took this shot of the entrance to the RV drive at home just as we were about to slowly and carefully pull the Palazzo into it’s home parking space. That is where we pop out the slides and start the process of unloading some things that will be needed in the house.
The trip home was good; we stopped at Seligman, AZ, along Old Historic Route 66 for souvenirs and made another stop in Wickieup, AZ, to stretch and walk the dogs. The weather started out with a bit of drizzle along I-40 for a while then cleared to partly cloudy with plenty of sunshine when we made the connection to US 93 east of Kingman on down to Wickenburg.
We enjoyed the visits with family in Commiefornia and the extended return trip through some great scenery and stops at interesting places. It’s good to be home.
Just a short one today . . .
We left Monument Valley this morning and drove through to Williams with one stop at Cameron Trading Post for souvenirs and another at a Safeway in Flagstaff for provisions. We had quite a bit of rain with some gusty winds in some places. This is the first time we have had to use the wipers on the windshield, with mediocre results – the blades chatter on the downstroke – another squawk for the dealer to resolve.
Our campground here in Williams (elevation 6750) is expecting freezing temperatures overnight and possibly some precipitation mostly before 11 PM. The precip could be rain, freezing rain or snow. We have not hooked up water or sewer, so we should be OK with an overnight freeze.
Tomorrow, we will be headed home again with at least one “touristy” stop along Old Route 66 for more souvenirs. The weather is expected to be generally good with slight chance of showers along the route.
Today was another very enjoyable travel day on our extended excursion, covering the territory from Moab to Oljato/Monument Valley, Utah. The weather, although forecast for possible showers, stayed reasonably sunny and nice for the duration of the drive. The winds were light and variable, thus making for a less tedious drive in the big RV as opposed to those days when gusty winds made it a bit tiring.
Our camping spot is in a little enclosed area surrounded by higher terrain with a gap looking toward the massive rock formations made famous by the likes of John Ford and “The Duke,” in the golden days of western movies. We had that view from our campsite before some late arrival RVs arrived. We still can have that view by taking a short walk to the end of the row where we’re parked.
Tomorrow, we will head south with one more overnighter in Williams, AZ, before heading home on Wednesday. Damsel and I discussed taking a side route through Grand Canyon tomorrow, but dismissed the idea since we were just there last September. Besides, the side trip would add an additional hour of travel time, so we will be happy to take the faster route.
Rather than my usual portrait of the RV parked somewhere, I thought I would compose a panoramic image which shows our RV on the left and pans right to the next big rig parked along our row in the campground where we are tonight. The sites are terraced up a hillside along US 191 near Moab, Utah and this panorama shows the view from our site looking east.
This is a very popular campground and is nearly filled to capacity with visitors from far and wide. The view above shows most sites occupied and as I write this, more rigs can be heard arriving.
We saw some wonderful scenery today as we crossed Utah mostly along Interstate 70. We had some gusty winds in the mountainous areas, but nothing we couldn’t handle.
Tomorrow, we’re going to pop into Arches NP just up the road and then head south, eventually arriving at another campground near Monument Valley. We anticipate more breathtaking scenery as we head south into the Diné (Navajo) Tribal Reservation.
Click on the image to activate the image viewer and scroll to the right for the full panorama.
Damsel took this image of the RV parked in the Sand Bench Rest Area on I-70 with a spectacular vista of the red rock formations in the background. Click on the image to enlarge.
It doesn’t look like much on a map, but today’s drive had some very spectacular scenery going across US 6/50 from Ely, UT to Delta, NV. There are beautiful mountains, rock formations, National Forests and fertile valleys.
The weather was a bit disagreeable since there were gusty winds most of the way over the 150 mile long route. It was a considerable challenge to keep the big slab-sided bus going straight, but we managed. The winds varied from a quartering tail wind to a full-on tail wind with velocity of 25 to 35 and some gusts up in the 50’s I’m sure. We are still getting gusts here in camp, but not on the same order as those on the road.
Tomorrow will find us on the road headed toward the eastern part of Utah with a planned stop near Arches National Park near Moab, UT. We have traveled most of tomorrow’s route on prior vacations and expect to see the same spectacular scenery as before. On this route, if you don’t like the scenery, just wait five minutes and it will change.