On the night of August 20th, the cloud forecast for Nebraska was a bit "iffy". We chose a location north of the Crescent Lake National Wildlife refuge and south of Lakeview, NE.
The morning of August 21st dawned with a pea soup fog (this was, ironically, the exact reason why I avoided the Oregon coast for the eclipse), so it was impossible to assess the cloud cover. Many hotel guests were through the breakfast bar before 6:30 a.m., so we also departed the Ogallala hotel early at 7:15 a.m.
We missed a turn for US-26, and did not discover this until we reached NE-27, so we took the scenic route to reach Oshkosh, NE about 8:45 a.m. The Sinclair mini-mart there was slammed. The small parking lot was packed, and the eight gas pumps had a line. I am sure the clerks there thought it was the apocalypse. People seemed in a good mood, though. There were quite a few tailgate breakfasts on the street immediately around the minimart.
The fog dissipated during the drive thirty-five miles north to and through the Wildlife Refuge, which took about 1.5 hours. There were fields of wild sunflowers and some other late-season flowers in bloom across the rolling hills. There was a line of cars driving the dirt road to the Wildlife Reserve, but the Refuge is where we left the traffic behind. At our chosen observation spot, there were only three cars on the half-mile of road we could see, and only about a dozen drove by in either direction while we there.
We arrived to clear skies, but then some clouds developed to the north, and a north breeze blew them in our direction. We watched the eclipse progress through our eclipse glasses, with the occasional cloud obscuring the sun. The landscape took on a strange, filtered light effect; the wild sunflowers popped neon yellow bright in this light. We developed an action plan to move north or south toward clear skies, but it was not needed. We lucked out with a clear view for the entirety of totality.
Totality was a totally different experience from the partial phases leading up to it. It was like someone flipped a switch. Removing the eclipse glasses was rewarded with a sight I will remember for the rest of my life. A perfect ring of silver surrounded the moon with three large arms of plasma visible. I have not seen a picture of the eclipse that captured the delicate filaments of the sun’s corona. Totality is definitely something where you have to "be there".
The most surprising aspect was the 360-degree sunset/sunrise in the south, north, west and east horizons. The clouds in the area magnified the effect with orange, yellow, blue and purple.
I thoroughly enjoyed my short trip to Nebraska. The locals were quite friendly to all of us out-of-towners. The police departments in Alliance and Scottsbluff were completely prepared for the apocalyptic traffic jams and moved everyone through their towns safely.
The total solar eclipse is definitely worth a repeat performance. I am already planning an extended vacation to one of the WorldMark resorts in Texas for April 8, 2024. 2024 will be here before we know it. In the meantime, I will be watching the west Texas cloud cover in early April each year to get some idea of what to expect.
If you did not make it into the Zone of Totality for this eclipse, try for another total solar eclipse; it is soooo worth it.
I was having a busy day, and to be quite honest, I didn't make any arrangements to view the eclipse. I saw it on the news, later.
