So with about a half hour or so before C1 a complication rears its ugly head.
We're parked on the SE side of Idaho 22 on the dotted line pointed back towards Dubois. There's another sedan similarly situated two cars ahead at about 75 yards.
Couple from New York had stopped and a Western* Rattlesnake had discovered the best above ground source of shade and cover he (?) had seen in his entire life.
She spread a blanket out along the starboard side of the car, took a lie-down, heard "TZTZTZTZTZTZTZTZTZTZ" from a foot or so away, decided against a nap.
Word spread, I arrived on the scene, got buzzed at by the critter coiled near the starboard edge about halfway between the front and rear wheels.
Need bag and stick. Pulled the plastic BugsGear ukulele out of the sleeping bag stuff bag (its case had been separated from it at his parents' house back in Northern Idaho (somewhat fortunately - given the current circumstances)) but the stick...
Went into the trunk of the Toyota, found the crank handle for the scissors jack in the spare compartment, returned to the problem area. Was a bit worried 'cause there was an official looking guy in an orange highway safety vest a bit downstream from us and I didn't want him doing anything ugly in the interest of public safety.
Was also a bit worried 'cause it had been many years since I'd picked the previous snake that had the potential to seriously fuck up a day for me (Northern Pacific Rattlesnake, Cascades up from Stehekin, Washington the better part of two decades ago) and this would be a really bad day to have fucked up - for lotsa reasons.
Rattler had moved aft of the rear wheels and center - which made things a bit easier. I instructed the driver to move the car forward at a reasonable good clip. He did, Rattler started taking off down the shoulder, I arrested him by pressing the jack handle about a third of the way back with my right hand, grabbed the body a safe distance aft with the other, worked the handle up the neck with the left hand following until I could get a safe grip on the neck, lost the handle, scooped him up.
Rockstar status at E09 Village. Had to let people take pictures for a bit while pretending to be cool and relaxed with my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest.
After everyone had gotten his fill I lowered Snaky into the bag, buzzer first, and quickly lost the hold on the neck and got my left hand outta there.
Drew up the cord lock tight, added a Clove Hitch for good measure.
Had a teaching moment with the crowd about what a pit viper was and why one should never allow a loaded bag to come into contact with any body part one didn't want loaded with venom.
Took Snaky back to the rental car, used the tripod stool...
...in stowed and bagged configuration to push the heavy end of the stuff bag under the center of the car from the port side for maximum comfort and safety of all concerned. (Got a few buzzes out of the operation nevertheless.)
Our rental car shading snake bag about thirteen minutes prior to start of total:
Thanks Jan. It's an infinitely better feeling to enhance the safety, possibly save the life of something like that than to be responsible for a death. Still pretty tough coming back home to a house with no Quinn. But at least she was killed by something that was just looking for a meal rather than by some total douchebag for no good reason.
Canon is more powerful, stabilized, tripod mountable. Leitz is light, wider field, more easily hand held. Both take the same diameter solar filters. Nephew supplied a really nice sturdy tripod with quick and easy attachment, pitch, yaw, vertical adjustment mechanisms. Need to get one like it. Set up a station with aforementioned and folding chairs maybe fifteen yards east of the road.
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Amendment - 2017/11/13 22:30:00 UTC
After a zillion hours of research, looking at specs, hair pulling I recently acquired piece by piece (eBay - used when possible) a really nice Manfrotto tripod system along the lines of what we used at E09 (a SLIK model I was unable to later identify - possibly discontinued).
Aluminum. Real monster. Wouldn't wanna pack it too far from the car for a birding scope but beautifully engineered for quick setup, adjustment, stabilization, locking, stowing.
Semi hardwired to the mount on the top of the tripod's center column. Pan, tilt, fine adjust, lock. Handle gets out of the way of you and what you're looking through and for folding and packing.
Really cool. Didn't know about this common-as-dirt and obvious technology until prepping in Helena for the chase. Screw the plate onto the 1/4-20 tripod mount of your scope, binoculars, camera and then just quickly snap it on and off. Get an extra or two for other toys you might want to bring into play.
Takes some practice to get everything figured out and quickly and properly set up, targeted, broken down. But that's kinda fun too.
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The plan was to do this (set up) then parasitize as much as possible off of geeks with really serious heavy artillery. But, incredibly, tons of people had shown up out in the middle of nowhere at Ground Zero with nothing more than twenty cent cardboard eclipse glasses. So we never got a single glimpse through anything serious and had to run our station for about half a dozen neighbor cardboarders.
Oh well, they were nice fun people and we enjoyed the company, conversations, shared experience, opportunity to give folk vastly better experiences - starting with the unobstructed sun. And one of the cardboarders, Peter from Salt Lake City, had some cool iPhone app which announced and gave lead warnings for the critical phases. Had two young adult kids with him - Sean and Carly - and was in frequent communication with the wife watching back in partial territory.
Got a couple of highly educated doctoral types. He was Russian/Ukrainian, a chemist, tall. She was Indian (Asian), in medical, well into the short range. And another guy individual walked in close to Prime Time.
Canon gives a great view when mounted or stabilized and an even better view when mounted AND stabilized. I think you could do a decent sunspot with the Leitz bracing yourself and the glasses against a tree or on a car but I can't confirm that right now 'cause there only seems to be a microscopic spot in the middle of the disk at present.
So post rattler we were down to about twenty minutes to fine tune preps, settle down, sight in the unobstructed sun. Celestial stuff moves FAST through fixed fields of view and I had Nephew do most of the resightings until I got a better feel for what knobs to use and how to use them. Temperature was getting up there early - which is why Snaky went under the car by not much later than 09:30 - and no wind but it was a desert therefore zilch humidity therefore negligibly uncomfortable.
And then at approximately 10:14:33.8 MDT the alarm goes off and we see the first tiny sliver of the edge encroached on at the one o'clock position. And then shortly into things...
This composite image of eleven pictures shows the progression of a total solar eclipse at Madras High School in Madras, Oregon on Monday, August 21, 2017. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the contiguous United States from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of South America, Africa, and Europe.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
I'm gonna call Madras High School:
44°37'49.23" N 121°07'16.98" W
which is 416.2 miles back along Centerline, 6.24 miles off it on the south side, where the shadow's moving at 2259 mph. So they're seeing pretty much the same thing we are 12:08.2 minutes sooner and for a shorter duration (two minutes and a couple seconds total).
And those are what we we're seeing in the way of sunspots. Nephew dubbed the one o'clock linear pattern Orion's Belt and I called the couple low at seven o'clock the Butt Spots.
Gotta post this now and work on getting my head rebooted. Feeling like I'm slipping into meltdown mode and am rapidly going blind.
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P.S. - 2017/09/05 15:25:00 UTC
Confirmed this morning that one can EASILY see half decent sunspots with the Leitz 7x42 glasses hand-held and unbraced.
Watched the eclipse progress, eating up the individual sunspots as it went.
I'd, of course, heard about the temperature drop during an eclipse but was too stupid for it to dawn on me that they weren't just talking about during the period of totality - that being in the lower percentage ranges for long times was also gonna have a profound effect.
Recall comments in previous post about temperature and desert humidity. We were all getting uncomfortably cold as the disk was disappearing behind the moon. Just as we would've been in the evening with it disappearing behind the horizon. Duh.
Damn. I actually HAD one of these:
Oasis Oh-2 Digital Hygrometer
WITH me. It's used to monitor what's happening to one's wooden instrument (guitar, ukulele...) and so one can adjust to keep things midrange as necessary. I keep one in my road/travel bag (backpack) to quantify what the assholes at the restaurants are doing with their nuclear powered air conditioning systems to make those of their patrons who've acclimated to summer temperatures as miserable as possible. It monitors temperature and relative humidity and records mins and maxes. Would've been PERFECT. Crap. Hopefully I'll be able to find a report from that neck of the woods on the web down the road.
We had, as I've said, a wide range of heights at the station. I myself am a bit over six feet and the Indian chick was way down there so we had to constantly make substantial height adjustments on the tripod. But it had nice cranking and locking mechanisms so we were able to make said substantial adjustments quickly without losing the target. But I wonder if it would be possible/practical to have steps or an adjustable platform on which to stand.
As the percentage started getting real zilchy I announced my intention to be an asshole and hog the tripod mounted Canons for the transition, diamond ring effect, Baily's Beads. And everybody was fine with that and, anyway, no matter what you'd be looking at and/or what you'd be using or not to look at it, it was gonna be freakin' awesome.
Another thing I regret missing - shadow bands. As the exposed crescent becomes razor thin the beam becomes laser like and you can see light/dark ripples on a clear uniform light surface due to atmospheric turbulence. See the Wikipedia article for a better explanation:
Nephew HAPPENED to notice the effect on an area of open sand just behind the tripod and called attention to it. Everybody 'cept Yours Truly was able to get it. If I'd done more/better homework I'd have known what I should've been looking for and brought some approximation of a small movie screen to lay flat to make sure it would be blindingly obvious to even dolts such as myself.
Instead I thought we might be able to see a leading edge of the shadow racing down our face of Saddle Mountain and was geared accordingly.
If the crowds are manageable, a high unobstructed spot in these mountains (Smokies) may be an appealing venue to watch the eclipse. The reason is that from a high vantage, you'll also have the chance to see the surrounding landscape darken and brighten again as totality races across.
I now realize/understand that the leading edge is too soft and the available scale was too small to get much of anything like that. But I DID see the mountain...
...in darkness while we were still lit - and that was reasonably cool.
1908 miles per hour, 0.53 miles per second, 8.58 miles from the Saddle Mountain peak to E09, 16.2 seconds, PLENTY of time for that to work as I saw it. (Damn it was nice to be in such an incredibly wide open space with such a geographical feature so positioned. Part of that was lotsa research and prep work and part was luck. I think I got about the best spot on the continent.
2017 Total Solar Eclipse Composite
This composite image of eleven pictures shows the progression of a total solar eclipse at Madras High School in Madras, Oregon on Monday, August 21, 2017.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)
That's a HUGE original composite image by the way - fifteen by three thousand pixels. Pull up the full job from the URL(s) and have some fun with it.
Backing up to comment on several things I'd intended to in sequence... (And I'll probably edit this and previous posts after a while to get things properly chronologically ordered.)
Nephew was driving the final leg and overshot E09 a little. Pulled the car off the east side of the road and shoulder and onto the flats a few yards and we started setting up camp. He pointed towards a distinctive trails network through the low scrub and asked me to explain them. Didn't have any great ideas and he said Prairie Dog, pointing towards several burrows. I said no way, this was NOT "PRAIRIE" Dog habitat. Ground squirrel, fer sure, and Prairie Dogs ARE ground squirrels... But definitely not this flavor.
So if anyone was wondering what prey base was sustaining the rattler...
I grabbed the GPS receiver and walked to more accurately locate E09 and the backtrack walk lasted a lot longer than I'd thought it would so we decamped and backtracked maybe a hundred yards.
Fast forward now to the crescent getting majorly thin... And the shadows, of course, got extremely sharp. The lighting was weird, unnatural, creepy and I found it substantially emotionally unsettling, despite completely understanding the arithmetic. Must have been a reptile brain thing. I wonder if others were similarly affected.
And then, after the mountain got blacked out, it happened - just like in the textbooks and EXACTLY like:
I was on the Canon, Nephew had the Leitz, cardboarders were fending for themselves. Respective credits and links for the two photos from which those were cropped:
Sun's Corona Seen During the 2017 Solar Eclipse
The Sun’s corona, only visible during the total eclipse, is shown as a crown of white flares from the surface during a total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21, 2017 from onboard a NASA Gulfstream III aircraft flying 25,000 feet above the Oregon coast. The red spots called Bailey's beads occurs where the moon grazes by the Sun and the rugged lunar limb topography allows beads of sunlight to shine through in some areas.
Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Thomas) http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/36329608000_2e0f627e4b_o.jpg
Regarding the Baily's Beads photos...
- Just noticed that our intrepid rocket scientists misspelled them. (Francis Baily (1774-1844), English astronomer.)
- Madras again, we've already run the numbers for the difference between them and E09.
- I was blown away by the red flares at the one-thirty and two o'clock positions. Also note the red fringe centered on the seven o'clock Baily's Beads.
Chromosphere. For reasons not yet understood the sun's low level atmosphere is cooler than the higher/outer stuff. Some phenomenon having to do with hydrogen accounts for the color.
Totality. (Obviously barely - comparing the moon's leading and trailing edges.) Filters and cardboard glasses off.
Let's take them at their word that this one was snapped EXACTLY over the Oregon coast and assume they also mean where the Centerline meets it.
44°50'39.67" N 124°03'03.01" W
560.25 miles back from E09
2416 mph
17:15:57.7 total commencement
16:47.6 minutes ahead of E09
Again same sun for all intents and purposes.
I ceased hogging the Canon some precious seconds after things visually stabilized and started cycling station other members. Nice not having any fuckin' Rooney Links to increase the safety of the viewing operation at the expense of minor inconveniences and run prime-time effectively and efficiently.
Looking up at 48.7 degrees feels a lot like looking straight up. Looking up minus magnification and protection at this black hole surrounded by a glowing white corona is the most unworldly thing you'll ever experience.
Solar Eclipse From Greenville, S.C.
Photograph of Aug. 21, 2017, solar eclipse, as seen from the Gary L. Pittman Memorial Park in Greenville, South Carolina.
Image courtesy Jim Jeletic, Hubble Space Telescope deputy project manager, and his son Jordan
Try watching a clock for 2:17 minutes. It's a rather long time. Also a rather short time. But I have zero doubt that everybody went away ecstatic about what they'd seen and experienced.
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Amended - 2017/08/27 11:00:00 UTC
Watching the eclipse wind back down after the end of totality phenomena is MASSIVELY anticlimactic but I was a bit annoyed hearing engines start up minutes after the main event was over. What? Ninety percent is now no longer worth a quick upward glance? Felt like Mother Nature had just put on the greatest possible show on Earth and you owed it to her to sit through and watch the credits.
And Nephew and I DID score a cool little treat during the phase-out that perhaps no one else at E09 did - transit of a bird. Kinda like:
Eclipses and Transits
ISS Transit During 2017 Solar Eclipse
This composite image, made from seven frames, shows the International Space Station, with a crew of six onboard, as it transits the Sun at roughly five miles per second during a partial solar eclipse, Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 near Banner, Wyoming. Onboard as part of Expedition 52 are: NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson, Jack Fischer, and Randy Bresnik; Russian cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Sergey Ryazanskiy; and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Paolo Nespoli.
Photo Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky
Editor: Gary Daines http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/36670875426_39d028e28a_o.jpg
'cept:
- on the Centerline 'stead of way north of the path
- during the backside of the eclipse 'stead of the ramp up
- with a much closer transiter
Note Orion's Belt and the Butt Spots. (About 170 miles east of Yellowstone Lake and 114 miles north of the center of The Path in North Central Wyoming. (Great shot/sequence but I'd have hated to have to have made the sacrifice.)
That bird - which I could only identify as passerine - was the only other wildlife I recall seeing at E09 beyond the rattler. Not so much as an insect or spider.
Human population was close to nonexistent by the time the moon finished clearing at 12:56:26.0 MDT. I think only one or two somewhat distant vehicles.
Time to lose Snaky. (Felt a bit bad about killing his one shot at a total - right on the freakin' Centerline ferchrisake - but I suspect he'd have been underground anyway were it not for the invasion. Although - now that I think about it - the cold, reduced lighting, darkness would've probably brought him back out.) Retrieved him from under the car and was worried about his condition 'cause there wasn't any buzzing and I didn't detect any movement. Lined him up with the point of contact on the shoulder and took him out through the scrub and Prickly Pear about a hundred yards to get some distance from that hazard, looked for the densest Sage available for shade.
Nephew won't get within striking range times twenty so he gives me the iPhone - which I don't know how to use and I can't see the display. Thumb, finger encroaching on the lower left and left bottom edges.
Head, tongue, nostril, pits, hint of an eye, color patterns, rattle (missing the end button).
Said goodbye and good luck, broke camp, packed up, started rolling back to Dubois, still nothing like a cloud in the sky.
And speaking of which, I sure hope Zack's still above flood level in the current horrendous Houston/Harvey situation. I don't even wanna think about what's going on down there now. We'll forgive him if we don't get a report sometime in the course of the next six months. But seriously folks... No worries. Just more of this Chinese hoax bullshit. We're well on our way to making America great again. (Where's a fuckin' desert and/or a continental divide when you really need one?)
So Peter of Peter, Sean, Carly has talked about an area or two of Yellowstone being no brainer for Grizzly, something still missing from my life list, and Nephew suggests we might return to Helena via Yellowstone - which is a lot more going the wrong than anything remotely resembling the right way.
I guess we're packed, organized, rolling (probably last or second to last E09 vehicle to do so) by a bit before 13:00 MDT. Get back to Dubois looking for something in the way of lunch but there didn't seem to have been such an establishment for a fair number of years - although I'm sure I saw them pumping gas.
So we took the "shortcut" - way shorter mile-wise, considerably longer time-wise. A-2 Clark County / Kilgore-Yale Roads - longest, best surfaced stretch of dirt I've ever seen but bone dry and you didn't wanna stay closer than a mile behind anyone.
Dubois is on I-15 near the SW corner just a bit north of the pivot irrigation area. We're going NE and north along a creek through some more desert turf and climbing into some cooler moister agricultural stuff.
If you go to the full res image (URL) Yellowstone National Park encroaches about 190 pixels (about 10.6 miles) into the left edge most of the way down. There's a rather obvious straight vertical/north-south line demarcating a rather obvious change in the vegetation density a little shy of halfway up.
So then we start paralleling the Centennial Mountain Range - defined by Wikipedia as "the southernmost sub-range of the Bitterroot Range" - rising to the east from Monida Pass, 6870 feet, on the Interstate near and before where it runs off the edge at the NW corner, rising to the west from the Henrys Fork of the Snake (which was supposed to have been the Fish or Salmon) River. (Henrys Fork drains from Henrys Lake which is the large body of water you see north of the east end of the range.) The Centennial Range is a rather rare east-west affair, defining the Continental Divide and Idaho-Montana boundary, topping out at Mount Jefferson, 10203 feet.
We're running east at around 6500 feet or better most of the time and the terrain, geography, habitat is mind blowing. It was like stuff that nobody from the outside had ever entered and described. Both Nephew and my brother - who'd been there before - were of similar minds.
Stopped for Nephew's second and my first meal of the day at the Shotgun Bar and Grill at Island Park. (Guess who they voted for last time.) Continued east, crossed Henrys Fork, hit US 20 north to West Yellowstone and its Park entrance. Being over 62 and only blowing through on the way home I got us in and a lifetime parks pass for ten bucks.
Punched Gardiner (Montana) into the GPS for the north Park entrance/exit for Livingston. East on West Entrance Road for 14 miles, left/north onto Grand Loop Road for 35, right for north onto North Entrance Road for 4.6 and exit to Gardiner. Total - 53 miles and 1:36 hours assuming no traffic and construction. And there WAS traffic and construction - but nothing to got bent out of shape about, 'specially given the circumstances.
Now that you - and especially I - have a better understanding of this tangle of geography, geology, highway engineering I'm gonna post and take a break.
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2017/08/28 18:00:00 UTC
Found this wonderful visual aid for understanding the Continental Divide, watershed issues relevant to E09 and the rest of that excursion:
* Correction: EVERYTHING on the east side of the Google Earth shot is Yellowstone - and much more continuing south. (I had assumed otherwise 'cause I hadn't realized that the Tetons extended into Yellowstone (WAY into Yellowstone.)
We'd time budgeted till half past Eclipse Day +1 - Tuesday noon when the rental car was due back at HLN but Nephew wanted to get back not too late that evening to be geared for a regular work day the next. So we didn't get to do the Yellowstone World Wonder / supervolcano / heart of the North American continent much justice. But better than nothing - which had been Plan A anyway.
I'd only been there once before - with my mother, brother, sister (Nephew's mom) 1977/06 - and it was kinda sad to have to blast through it at pretty much the speed traffic and construction was allowing, which wasn't a bad clip (unfortunately). Another crossing of the Continental Divide (Columbia to Mississippi), breathtaking vistas, massive high altitude marshes and meadows, smoking hot springs... Made several dedicated stops but didn't do much in the way of lingering.
But what I haven't revealed up to this point is that, subsequent to dealing with the rattler, there was pretty total fucking zilch in the way of wildlife. Needless to say, Grizzly remains on my to-do list. All that excellent and diverse habitat and outrageous visibility damn near everywhere. Must've surveyed thousands of square miles.
And compare/contrast what we were getting in the early morning light en route to E09 - too much to comprehend and process.
Sun was BLAZING - to make up for all that seriously reduced efficiency earlier in the day - and sky remained crystal clear. And everyone was taking it real easy under the densest cover possible. (Remember what this guy:
did immediately when given the opportunity? Not likely to find him if you don't know exactly where to look, are ya?) All birders know that from late morning through most of the afternoon you might as well go back to bed.
Somewhat ironically, it was immediately upon getting OUT OF the Park that we started getting overwhelmed again - with the sun again on the low side.
In Gardiner there were Elk hanging out on the lawn behaving like petting zoo animals. Unfortunately I spooked a half grown calf a little testing his tolerance. He was doing his grazing lying down a couple feet from the fine stone walkway. I wanted to see if he'd stay that way if I walked straight ahead not expressing much interest. Nope. Hopped to his feet, I stopped, he stayed put / didn't bolt.
In some nearby conifers scored my first Clark's Nutcrackers since probably the Montana Audubon trip.
Heading for Helena by way of Livingston picked up more Mule Deer, scattered Elk, massive herds of Elk, Redtails, a Great Horned Owl on a telephone pole with a couple hours of daylight to go, Ravens, a group of several Sandhill Cranes in a field (first impression was that they were somebody's fenced in Emus)... Can't recall everything but there was plenty to keep one alert, entertained, looking.
The sun we'd watched coming up to our right on the way down on I-15 was now coming down straight in front of us on the way back on I-94. At first the visors were necessary but it got low to he horizon in the smoky lower atmosphere and turned deep red and you'd have probably been OK hitting it with the unfiltered ten powers.
Got back in one piece less than an hour into darkness with nothing broken, bent, lost, burned, injected with venom.
Too much information department... But it was something in the mainstream media that was also a major concern of the local public agencies so here goes.
Having zilch idea how bad things might get On Path I was losing beaucoup sleep about getting caught really needing a toilet - and I don't mean for a leak - with nothing but wide open desert and tens of thousands of people around.
One of the more unpleasant related experiences of my life occurred some years back when I was on territory mid morning for a Chestertown area Christmas Bird Count. Went from feeling fairly normal one minute to Level 10 Red Alert the next.
Blasted back to a hapless Arby's back north of town. Boots were a mess with wet clay. Spent an agonizing eternity trying to stomp them clean in plowed snow off the side of the parking lot. Dashed in, lost fifteen pounds in the first available instant, spent he next half hour cleaning up the mud trail I'd tracked in, bought lunch to legitimize my invasion.
In the final couple days at Helena before the critical roll consulted with my mega-outdoorsy sister. Seems the sensitive areas campers dealt with this issue eons ago. Five gallon bucket, sawdust, toilet seat, privacy tarp that can be suspended by assistants in the absence of trees from which to tie off.
As things turned out my biology worked well for just after 2017/08/21 03:00 and well before 03:30 and I was good until well into the following day back home and nothing the least bit critical then.
Of course also lost the liquid at the same time before rolling south and didn't pee again - or need to - until mid morning the following day back home. High altitude desert air and sun is really good for keeping surplus liquid from getting all the way through.
Poor Carly - of Peter, Sean, Carly at the Tad Station Observatory and Venomous Reptile Mitigation Center - who introduced herself as a pregnant recovering meth addict after I made a crack that a contribution of a little weed being required for optical equipment sharing - was hopping around with a pressurized bladder at around the worst possible time with respect to the day's event. Didn't like any of the suggestions we had to offer. Don't know how or if she dealt with the issue.
For that in glider setup environments I've never had a problem just stepping between a couple of open car doors.
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P.S. Tad Eareckson Post 7777.
So on the evening of 2017/08/15 I'm hanging out at MSP waiting to board Delta 4707 to get the rest of the way to HLN. See a youngish guy doing same with a full size guitar case strapped to his back and I ask him, "That's not going in the overhead, right? So how is it going? Did you hafta buy a seat for it?"
And he explains that he just brings it to the gate, has it checked there, takes some damage potential out of the equation. Oh. Curiosity satisfied. Thanks.
Almost straight into a very long sunset, arrive at Helena, extract myself from the plane after just about everyone else, look down to the lobby level to find Nephew. Down the stairs, contact, Nephew sees guy with guitar, says "Is that Josh!"
Holy shit! "Hey, didn't I just see hear you on Prairie Home Companion a couple weeks ago? Or a rerun?" (2017/07/22 of 2017/05/13.)
I tell him about when my sister was in this neck of the woods and we were in the Eastern Mountain Sports in Annapolis with a young chick clerk helping her find a jacket. "You're from Idaho? Do you know who Josh Ritter is?" "Yeah, he was a student in my biology class at Moscow High School." Chick clerk was a rabid fan who'd just returned from a Josh concert in New Jersey. "So I'm her brother Tad and this is her younger kid. Saw you with him at Moscow City Park fair about a decade ago."
When I was in Dublin in 2008/09 the train stations were all wallpapered with Josh posters. Ireland's nuts about him.
He was in town for a couple sold out performances at the Myrna Loy Center - two hundred crow flight yards south of my couch for the trip duration. We'd tried to see him at the Ram's Head in Annapolis 2017/06/07 but that too had sold out.
So that was a bit of an Eclipse prequel thrill.
Got Nephew started on a kalimba when he was preschool but that was never followed up on. But when my sister and he were in DC with my niece in early March 2015 he really took to my tenor ukulele and I said if he wanted he could take it back with him on indefinite loan. I'd just play the baritone which was my first acquisition.
At first he was really enthusiastic and I'd teach him stuff via Skype a couple times a week. Then at some point he got tied up with some real world issues, had to bail for a week or two, never heard from him again.
And when I got to his place I was disappointed to find it gathering dust, not being humidified, MAYBE showing signs of slight reversible desiccation (which I immediately started working on reversing). And when I was gearing up the night before to depart I asked him if he wanted to keep it to play. Take it if you want. Or at least keep it watered? Better take it, I can't hurt the plastic one and I can hurt this one.
And of course not long after I'd sent him off with the tenor I found that I really needed a tenor to be able to efficiently exploit the several workshop sessions I attended, online lessons (James Hill), sheet music. So I got myself another (and now have two).
is the little BugsGear soprano size I'd gotten him for travel practice/fun into hostile environments - like the desert on the Snake River Plain. It was minus its case:
And I played Carly of Peter, Sean, Carly an identifiable rendition of "You're So Vain" as we were watching the partial ramp up.
And when I disembarked from Delta 4483 at MSP the captain chased me into the boarding bridge. He was all lit up finding a fellow uke geek and we had a fun little chat for a few minutes. The Kamaka logo on the case had really registered.
I still kinda suck but when I'm warmed up I'm capable of delivering something pleasant to hear - 'specially on a Strad equivalent instrument. And I've done my homework, understand some principles, can talk the talk. That encounter was payoff for just making an effort.
I'd been able to board at HLN (05:40 departure time) with three carry-on items - backpack, laptop case, uke - I think 'cause the second item was virtually empty with everything stuffed into the backpack. On board I put the uke in the overhead and tossed the laptop case on top of it. Also spent considerable effort and a little time stuffing the bulging backpack into the overhead and arrived at my seat with no toys. (I always have fun using my GPS receiver to track the flight - position, climb/descent, altitude, groundspeed, approach pattern, liftoff/touchdown speeds...)
But at MSP things got complicated. First they called for voluntary gate checking of carry-on items - which seems to have become a universal practice for fully loaded flights (and they're all fully loaded nowadays). And I started transferring toys and survival items from backpack to laptop case. Then they announced that the flight was overbooked and seven volunteers could each get four hundred dollar vouchers if bumped. I was Volunteer Two of two. Then we hung back until pretty much everyone else boarded, weren't needed. Got busted with the now not empty laptop case. Told them to take the backpack, asked them if they'd like to take the uke as well. They would.
Navigated to BWI, got in late afternoon, couldn't find my GPS case. After nearly everyone else was off the plane found it two seats behind me. Hurried to baggage claim, got there with things well into process. Was worried about the uke. It kept on not appearing on the carousel and not coming down the chute. Eventually new stuff stopped coming down the chute. Finally noticed my backpack, straps up, which I'd been too distracted to notice before.
Heart pounding I went to look for help from an official human and immediately saw the uke pulled and cordoned off at the corner with the carousel incoming point. Also found a Latina official human. Told her I almost had a heart attack, what's the deal? Told me that with fragile likely expensive stuff they take precautions. Made me prove I was who I said I was before letting me part with it in hand. Thanked her for interrogating me so thoroughly. Nice to see that extra level of concern. And apparently I wasn't charged the 25 bucks I expected to have been for the surplus item. Thanks, Delta.
Backtracking to Tuesday, Eclipse Day +1. Had to return the rental car to HLN at noon. After the drop-off I was shot and didn't have much to do. Saw a pair with backpacks heading in. Had "eclipse" written all over them so I took a chance and yep. They were heading back to the Sacramento area.
Hung out at the airport for a couple of hours trading stories with people, learning local history stuff, having a blast. Eventually took an Uber hop - my second ever - in a Prius back to the apartment, more fun with that guy.
Another out of sequence comment...
After the conclusion of the eclipse I talked with the New York chick who'd discovered the rattler close to the hard way and commented that I was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) that no one within range was suggesting getting a shovel to deal with the situation. And she expressed a similar sentiment. And I found that extra encouraging given how close and vulnerable she was when she made the discovery. I had her beat on closeness but she had me beat hands down on vulnerability.
![[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_River#/media/File:Snake_River_watershed_map.png](%5Burl%5Dhttp%3A//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_River#/media/File:Snake_River_watershed_map.png){kind=link}
