The Eclipse!

Last week we drove up to Rexburg, Idaho for the Great American Eclipse of 2017.  Since my husband is a physicist, we made plans a long time ago to attend.  I decided to turn it into an opportunity to visit a few more temples.  So on Friday night we drove up to Idaho Falls and visited that temple which is quite lovely and stayed in a nearby hotel.  In the morning we did the River Walk along the Snake River which is very scenic.

Saturday morning we drove to Rexburg and visited that temple after dropping off our children at my sister's house who lives quite nearby.

It turns out to be true that Rexburg is always windy.

We spent the rest of the weekend visiting with my sister and other visitors and relatives--Sunday night she had 29 people sleeping at her house.  It was a fun weekend!  My sister and brother-in-law did a great hosting all those people.  And we were glad the sewer system and the electricity didn't fail with all the extra people in Rexburg.

Doing the Cress Creek Hike on Saturday with some relatives.

My sister and I and our youngest children

The backyard of my sister's house where we gathered for eclipse viewing.

The eclipse glasses made a big difference in viewing enjoyment.  If we had had to use the old-fashioned viewers, it would have not been anywhere near the same.

Shortly before totality when it's starting to get fairly dark.  You can see the light on the horizon that looks like sunset.

Scott took these pictures with our camera using eclipse glasses taped over the lens.  The glasses said don't use them for that purpose but they actually worked great.

He had to take off the eclipse glasses to get this shot since there was nothing showing through them at this point.

It got almost completely dark outside as the sun went completely behind the moon and significantly colder too.  We could see Venus in the sky.  The streetlights and temple lights came on.   The horizon looked like dusk all the way around.  Then there was totality with a black moon covering up the sun and brightness around the perimeter.  Everybody cheered and exclaimed.  It was very cool.  Then the light came back and we decided it was time to leave to try and beat the crowds.  We left my sister's house at 11:40 or so but already the traffic was building up.

Then came "Carmaggedon". Despite taking the back roads whenever we could, including a sketchy underpass which we barely fit through, we still sat in a lot of traffic and it took almost 8 hours to get home (counting our stops) instead of the usual 4.  But we didn't have it so bad.  My husband's student was also in Rexburg for the eclipse but left more than an hour later than we did at 1pm--it took him 12 hours to get home!  My husband's colleague left Rigby (near Rexburg) at 8pm that night and it took him 6 hours to get home.  They called it "Carmaggedon".

Despite the travel delays, it was worth the trip.  The views were amazing.