I made it to the eclipse.. part 1

I hadn't given the solar eclipse any thought until I heard a radio program a week before it happened. The person they were interviewing had witnessed three or four total solar eclipses and sounded pretty jazzed about how cool they were.

After hearing that I took a look to see how far I'd have to travel to get to totality. The closest I could find was southern Illinois, and that would be a six hour drive. That didn't sound fun to me, so I let the idea go.

A day later I heard about local libraries giving out eclipse glasses. So the next day I showed up about ten minutes before they were to start giving the glasses away and began to realize just what a big deal this was to a lot of people. When I got there, the parking lot was full and I had to park about a quarter mile away. More than a hundred people were already waiting in line and they ran out of glasses well before it was my turn. "Oh, well" I thought, I'm probably not gonna go anywhere anyway.

The eclipse would be Monday August 21st and by Friday the 18th, my older son was encouraging me to go out west and see it. He told me I could swing by to pick him up from college on the Friday after, and take him home for the weekend. That sounded like it might work, but I still wasn't sure. After a couple more calls from my son I found myself in the car heading west at 9:30pm Saturday August 19th.

I left too late to feel comfortable that I'd be able to be in Badlands National Park, South Dakota by sunrise, but that was my hope. I drove straight through, stopping only for gas and made it to the park by 7am mountain time. I was about an hour late, but there were no clouds or dramatic skies, so I didn't feel too badly about it. I made a few images of the eroded rocks, sky, and shadows in the morning light and then headed back to the car.

I had seen several Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep rams as I was driving into the park and planned to walk over and see if they were friendly. 

The group consisted of seven rams, all of which seemed really tired.

When I first got there they were walking and eating, but it wasn't long before they started lying down and some fell asleep. Like the ram in the back in this image. Seems they had a long night.

This young ram's head is falling forward as he falls asleep. You can see the cool rock formations of the badlands in the distance.

This was probably the largest ram in the group. You can see the antenna from a radio collar he's been fitted with by park personnel.

By 10 am it was hot and the light wasn't very good for photos, so it was time for me to go. I left the rams resting in the badlands and headed back to the car.

I drove west to Rapid City and stopped to move photos from the camera to my computer. I got some gas, ate something, and drove south towards Custer State Park. It was 90 something degrees and there was a lot of smoke in the air from forest fires in western states and British Columbia. The plan was to photograph bison and pronghorns in Custer and then leave in time to get to the Tetons by sunrise. I took another look at a map to get a firm idea how long the drive to Wyoming should take. 

About a month earlier I had been in the Black Hills for a couple of days and saw this mural of a bison in Hot Springs, South Dakota. I loved the mural, but the day I was there it was incredibly hot and shadows were already falling on some of it so I hadn't stopped. Today, I decided to drive about fifty miles out of my way to get some pictures of it.

I'm glad I did. When I got there a woman was taking pictures of her son and dog in various poses in front of the mural. I made a couple of images and then waited for them to be done. 

I got all of the pictures I wanted and headed to Wind Cave National Park. Wind Cave borders Custer State Park to the south and is connected by several roads.

I stopped at the Wind Cave visitor center to enjoy the air conditioning and use the rest room. I stayed until 4:30pm so I'd have better light and hopefully it would be a little cooler. Then I drove into the park looking for animals to photograph.

I found some pronghorns, including this buck exhibiting rutting behavior. I watched him chase another buck away from the three does he was with and chase those does to keep them in a group.

I've always really liked pronghorns and was glad to find them.

It was almost 7pm when I got done photographing them. The sun was in and out of clouds and the light was questionable. I planned to drive to the town of Custer S.D. and go to Sylvan Lake if it looked like there may be a decent sunset.

When I got to Custer the light didn't look promising, so I decided to start my journey to the Tetons. I stopped for gas and asked the guy at the register which way to Newcastle Wyoming. He pointed me in the right direction and asked if I was heading to Casper for the eclipse. I told him I was hoping to make it to the Tetons and asked if he was going. He said if he could get out of class on time he was going to Casper on Monday.

With that I started west. I had never driven those roads before, so it would all be new to me until I reached Dubois.

I made it to Newcastle Wyoming before it was entirely dark. As I turned south just out of town, strong gusts of wind pushed the car. There was a thunderstorm with lighting to the west and the wind continued to build. A road sign warned me there would be no services for the next 78 miles. So far so good.