Our location for totality was a farm on the eastern side of the Teton Valley in eastern Idaho. The farm is up above the valley a bit with pastures and wheat fields laid down to the west. The owner is a relative of my wife's and he let us park our trailer in one of his pastures. Dragging the trailer up from Utah was a bit of a pain, but it was nice to have a bed, toilet, food etc. when needed. Especially for the trip home when we ended up in a backup heading into Aspen Junction, which is where traffic from parts of Idaho and Jackson Hole merge.
For totality I had decided to take minimal pictures. They don't do justice to the view, and there would be plenty of pictures of the same thing by people with better equipment and techniques than I could provide. Instead I wanted to observe the environment and mostly just share the experience with my wife and two boys.
The partial eclipse leading up to totality was what I had experienced in eclipses past, the noticeable darkening of the environment and the odd shadows. A few minutes before totality my wife, two boys and myself walked out into a pasture where we could see the eclipse and the valley and mountains to the west. I wanted to see if we could observe the shadow’s approach. I had a pair of solar glasses in one hand to keep tabs on the sun, but otherwise I was watching the environment.
Deep into 90% the world is very odd. We had noon shadows under a clear blue sky but it was way too dark. You wonder if this is what it is like to go blind. The shadows make what my boys call ‘witches fingers’ where the crescent of the sun creates distorted and bent shapes.
As we were playing with our shadows my wife said ‘the mountains are dark’. To the west something had approached that is difficult to describe. Behind the mountains the horizon was orange as if it were sunset, yet the sun was still above, the sky was blue and we were still casting shadows, but out west something was there and it was coming our way. Things happened quickly. We watched the entire valley darken noticeable over the course of several seconds like someone was turning down a dimmer switch. The orange to the west spread to cover the entire horizon. Our shadows went away and in the thin dry mountain air it got cold quickly.
We have all been under a cloud as it moves over the sun. The world outside of that shadow is still there, sunny and bright. My wife and I stood in that pasture and watched our entire world go dark from horizon to horizon. A primal part of my brain was in panic mode and a toddler back by the farm house was in melt-down, his mind having processed all of what was happening that it could.
Then I looked up where the sun was supposed to be. This is why you need to see totality for yourself if you can ever make it. The sun, which you have grown up with and are familiar with is just gone. In its place is this thing. You have seen pictures of it and you know what it is, but now this thing is where your sun is supposed to be. It is startling beautiful. Nothing in nature prepares you for this. You can spend a lifetime observing the sky both day and night and see many wonderful and beautiful things, but nothing prepares you for this. It is literally other-worldly and you are afforded a peek behind the curtain for a brief moment.
My wife and my two boys watched. There is way more to take in than the little over two minutes allows and as soon as you can compose yourself it’s gone. The lights come on and you are left in this euphoric state. You can only console yourself with the knowledge that the beauty you just saw is still there. It’s always there, just hidden.
I understand how people become addicted to chasing totality.