Day 4

The fourth day was eclipse day and our revised route would take us to the Agate Fossil Beds first thing where we'd spend all of the morning and some of the afternoon to witness the eclipse. From there we'd head upstate to a Fur Museum before crossing into South Dakota for our next hotel.

It was a very early start with us out of our guest house at 4 in the morning. Our host was up until 1am baking the biscuits and then up at 3 to prepare our breakfasts and coffees. You wouldn't get that from any of the major hotel chains and we were all very appreciative of that before we got back on the coach, where the majority of the group fell asleep. The drive was fine but there was a thick wall of fog at the start, which fortunately had cleared up as we arrived at the fossil beds.

Once at the fossil beds we set up our cameras in preparation for the eclipse. Because I was travelling very light I'd not brought any tripods and I wasn't overly fussed about getting the best photos, I was more interested in seeing my first eclipse directly and not through the eyepiece of a camera. Like a live concert I don't feel you get the full experience if you're photographing or filming it.

It's fun standing on the side of roads in the middle of nowhere in the early hours. It must have freaked out the few drivers who did come through. (actually I suspect the most were heading off to eclipse locations just like we were).

Fog!

Setting up well

Setting up badly. As the winds picked up he lost control of the canopy and eventually gave up on the idea.

Despite not wanting to play with the camera during the eclipse, I thought it would have been a nice idea to have a sunflower in the foreground and the eclipse behind it but this failed for two reasons: One most sunflowers face the sun so I'd have gotten the back of the flower (this rebel plant here is an exception). Secondly the eclipse was going to hit us around midday when the sun would have been too high in the sky to get it and the flower in shot.

As the partial eclipse begins you can use pinholes to see crescents, as beautifully demonstrated here. We were also able to see an effect called shadowbands where lines of shadows run across the ground pre and post total eclipse. I thought I had filmed it but the light was too low for the video camera to pick it up. Ah well!

It's eclipse time and we had 2 minutes and 20 seconds to take it all in before the moon passed across the sun and we reverted back to a partial. Having gotten slightly distracted by 2 jets that were chasing the eclipse across the country I then looked at it for a little bit and felt I had to get some photos of it, despite my earlier thoughts I wouldn't. Camera 1 didn't have a good enough zoom haha! 

The iphone camera came out very strange indeed, either it's the way the camera works or the lense was needing a wipe, but I thought it was quite funky.

  

I had a camera with a bigger zoom but it was handheld so shaky, and during the partial phases where we can't look at the sun I was shooting through the camera pressed against the lense of the safety goggles which must have looked ridiculous, but Macgyer would have approved.

This was my favourite photo of the eclipse. It's not perfect but it's mine. 

With the eclipse out of the way I had a quick look around the center's museum. They had some stunning collections.

Our next drive took us into the state of South Dakota (a new one for me) where we drove past the badlands national park, which given it's name is not one suited to the coach so we didn't go into it.

Located in the town of Chadron the Museum of the Fur Trade is another complex that tells of the history of the area and the industries that grew in it. After a quick welcome and introduction from one of the staff we were let loose to explore the grounds.

It's a nice small complex and you could spend a load of time here, more if you're a fan of old rifles as they have loads here. As well as the museum there's a small external area containing of old settler style buildings built into the terrain and some wonderful constructions made from animal skulls.

The eclipse was stunning and I can add it to my small list of awesome things I've experienced, which consists of the Grand Canyon, the Maid of the Mist and the Zhangjiajie mountains. I took a little satisfaction when some of the group commented they couldn't come up with a word that summed the eclipse up; and whilst the use of "awesome" to define the mundane is a bugbear it's at times like this I know it's a valid one to have. 

We subsequently found out that Carhenge did get it's eclipse but so many people had shown up that had we gone we wouldn't have made it off the site for a good hour or so and would have lost some of the rest of the day. So whilst we didn't get to see Carhenge, and some of the celebrities who had gone there, we did avoid that crowd and was able to keep the itinerary intact.

Our hotel for tonight was in a motel style lodge on Lakota land, run by Lakota Indians. I really liked the place especially that it was out in the middle of nowhere.

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