In the days prior to the Eclipse

 Wednesday, October 11

After some diagnosing help from RichardM, I determine my cheapo harbor freight solar charge controller had failed, so no solar power until I replace it with something else.

We spent part of the morning just doing a slow cruise on the VOTG (valley of the gods) road, checking out the rock formations. A lot of traffic to avoid while doing so, I feel it will be more crowded still as the eclipse nears.

We spent the afternoon inside the RV, sheltering from the high winds that started around 2:00 p.m. and lasted till past 10:00 p.m! Being outside at times felt like one was being sandblasted!

Thursday, October 12

I went riding after 2pm on Yagi, my TW200, to check out a trail that started near Rooster Butte that I had not ridden before.

It turned out to be a road leading to what looks like an abandoned ranch property.

                               

I did the whole loop and ended up at the other end of the ranch where county road 226 provides access to it.

Soon after the above picture, I got to highway 163 and turned south to the eastern entrance to the valley of the gods.

Someone had set up a traffic sign stating that on 10/14 this entrance will become one way till I am assuming there will be another traffic sign on the western entrance saying it is an exit only.

After taking the above picture I started counting rigs and campsites as best I could as I rode along the road towards my own campsite.

As I approached my campsite I had reach the account of 174+ RVs, tents, car/truck campers! I can safely I had never seen more than say 30 or so campers during the busiest weekend while I was staying here before!

Sadly we even had a trio of California trucks across the road from us. Bastards. Still, they perform they function in terms of making the area look full and being quiet campers who left us alone. (At least so far).

Friday, October 13th

We spent the day at the campsite guarding our perimeter. People continued to stream into the valley taking up all the spaces remaining and even some that weren't actual camping spaces, creating their own.

Taken during short walk:

Can you spot Uma?

Saturday, October 14th

Well that was anticlimactic, there was no darkening as the totality event happened and while we could squint and see the sun become a glowing example of the Opera logo, that was about it.

We're assuming that with specialized equipment it was a much better show and look forward to seeing it on the site that advertised it as a live stream event.

After the event statistics, in the first hour we saw 112 vehicles leave, 216 vehicles by the time 2 hours rolled by and a total of $264 vehicles by the two and a half hour point at which time I stop counting in favor of lunch.

After lunch, we drove the CRV to check out the Moki Dugway and get some internet signal for both of us at the top.

Afterwards, we drove over to the Gooseneck State Park and checked out the sites there. Martha managed to check out the side without breaking her foot again. We'd been there once before you see when Thing 1 was a baby, and she somehow fell while walking in the parking lot and broke up bone in her foot while 8 months pregnant with Thing 2!

Mexican Hat Rock was next but it was still crowded with RVs at the campground located there. There wasn't an easily available pathway closer to the rock itself so Martha just took pictures from nearby.

We got back to camp by 5:00 and hopefully tomorrow we will see a stream of RVs leaving the Valley of the Gods.