A RVer's Eclipse Story

Above, The Beast at the viewing spot I selected. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

As many of you regular readers of this blog know, I headed off to Idaho to view the eclipse.

Getting to the viewing site was no problem as I left Lava Hot Springs campsite at about 5:00 AM. I got to the viewing area near Roberts, Idaho at about 7:00. I spent the next few hours relaxing and munching.

The drive back to Lava Hot Springs after the eclipse was something else. As I reported earlier, it took me 4 1/2 hours to get back to my campsite.

RV Life has posted another RVer's eclipse story. They went to view the eclipse in Oregon and ran into traffic in the mountains before the eclipse.

Here's a snippet of the story:

Arriving within miles of the area I wanted to camp, I thought it wise (with all the traffic) to drop the travel trailer off the side of the road while my wife and I checked out each of the campsites I had documented in advance via Google Earth. 

The road to the primary campsite I had selected was a bit rough, so we went to check out the second, which was perfect! It had a good gravel road to it, it was on a ridge with a view to the east for watching the eclipse along with a nice breeze blowing over the top, would easily hold two RVs (level sites) and was close to the activities we wanted to enjoy while waiting for the eclipse. It even had a bit of cell service which we didn’t have while driving up to the area. 

Fearing someone else might come along and steal our site, I left my wife with a camp chair, bottle of water, bag of trail mix, puzzle book for entertainment, and headed back to get our travel trailer. There was still traffic coming up the road while I headed down to get the trailer, but there were gaps between groupings of vehicles and it was still moving near speed limit. 

Arriving back at the trailer I quickly hooked on and headed back to the campsite my wife was holding, maintaining the speed limit for the first few miles until I came around a corner just a little over a mile from the side road to our campsite and came to a complete stop. In front of me was a line of vehicles that were stopped, shut off, and the occupants were exiting their vehicles.

This was only the start of their problems. If Idaho was bad enough, it sounds like Oregon during the eclipse was even worse. Still, it was worth it as it was one of those "once in a lifetime" kinds of things.

Above, the big payoff for the trip to Idaho. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

To read more, go here.