Let me Introduce myself! I am thetravelman ! Traveling from Cleveland OH to Madras' OR for The Total Solar Eclipse! The only city in the USA with 100% totality

2 years ago we set the plan in motion. My friend Joe Powers (44 year old scientist) came up with the idea to travel to the only city in the country that would see the full solar eclipse at 100% totality. A lot of people were "close" to 100% totality. (ex: 99.9%,99.1%, 99%) but the only city in the entire country to be at 100% totality was Madras' Oregon. 2 years ago my friend Joe told me about the idea and I responded out of pure emotion "IM IN". Keep in mind I am a born and raised city boy that didn't have a lot of knowledge on space and science, let alone eclipses and "totality". At the time, the word totality sounded funny to me. At 5pm on August 17th 2017, in a 2016 Ford 12 seater van, myself and 7 others pulled onto route 80 west and didn't look back.
We made a few pit stops on the way to Madras' (Denver Colorado, Snake river falls, Evil Knievels cannon jump) but time was not on our side! We needed to arrive by Sunday morning in order to set our telescopes and tents up. The eclipse was set to arrive at our location Monday August 21st, 2017 at 10:16am. Excited was an understatement. Everyone in the van was extremely excited and in good spirits. We arrived early Sunday morning (completely missing the horrific traffic the news was talking about) and started setting up our home for the next few days. We set up on a farmers land in the middle of a corn field. We were not the only ones. Campers, Rvs and cars as far as the eye can see. After we got settled in and some quality sleep (the van was not an easy sleep) we started to mingle with the other people at our location. Scientists, students, fans and just people that love space! It was a beautiful thing! To the west we had Mt. Jefferson and to the North we had Mt. Hood. Both mountains with white caps. Very beautiful. Mountains that I have never seen in my life. We don't have mountains anywhere close to Cleveland OH. One of the scientists was a current employee for NASA and had a telescope the size of a canoe. It was huge! He told us we could come over later and look at the stars with his telescope. I took him up on that offer and he set the scope facing southeast and locked it in on the planet Saturn. It left me speechless. I could completely see the rings around Saturn and through the scope it was the size of a softball. I had never seen anything like that in my lifetime. I headed back to my tent and got some sleep as I wanted to be ready to go by 9:00am. I was so excited for the eclipse I kept waking up periodically throughout the night. Coffee in hand we were now 10 minutes out from witnessing the total solar eclipse at 100% totality. The energy was in the air. We all got our protective eye gear out and started to look at the sun slowly getting smaller. 9 minutes and 50 seconds later there was a very small piece of the sun showing and then boom! It went from 85 and sunny to 60 and pitch black. We took our glasses of and looked at the moon! That was the climax! A sight I still to this day cannot find words for. Like an incredibly bright crystal corona that was almost blinding but so beautiful. Almost like a diamond ring. Truly amazing. Cheering and celebrating as far as we could see. High fives and hugs. Lots of love in the air. A few minutes later the sun started coming back and the temperature starting going up. I was honestly shaking and later I found out so was my friend Joe Powers and a few of my friends in the group. I didn't know why my nerves were filled with so much emotion. It was a different feeling, a feeling I had never felt. We all packed up as quick as possible after the eclipse with hopes of missing the crazy traffic on the way out. We wanted to visit a few historical landmarks on the way home. (Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Pacific Ocean, black hills) We got stuck in a few hours of traffic before we were able to branch off and start our journey back. I hope that you enjoyed my short story and felt the emotions that I did. Stay tuned for part 2. Traveling from Madras' Oregon back to Cleveland OH.
-TravelMan-