Solar Eclipse

We drove down to Madras, OR to watch the solar eclipse. Doug bought our hotel reservations in Redmond, OR 2 years ago. We drove down Saturday and hung out at the hotel on Sunday. Monday morning we got up super early, like 5:00, and drove to Madras. Alli and Konrad had drove down Sunday night and slept in their van in an empty lot. We met them there and waited until the eclipse around 10:30 am. I took the kids to the bathroom at Safeway and the line was so long. It took probably about 20 minutes to get through it. But we were just happy there was a bathroom :) 

Everyone kept checking the sun through Doug's telescope and our eclipse glasses. It was cool to see the moon slowly cover the sun, especially since it you couldn't tell at all outside until it was covered. It got a little darker and colder before totality, but was still pretty light.

The kids played Star Wars Monopoly in the Crabtree's van.  

The space between Jordan's eyes was a little swollen. 

Doug bought some welding goggles.

Kenzie made this cute picture of the sun being covered by the moon.

This was what totality looked like. It was really cool to see the light coming around the moon. I think it was from the sun's atmosphere, but I could be wrong. It wasn't as dark as I expected it to be. The kids were so excited as soon as it happened. And all around everyone was cheering, which was fun. It was a great experience. 

The 13 hour drive (that should have been 5-6 hours) wasn't as great of an experience.  It took us about 5 hours to go a couple miles. And the whole time we had to drive so slow. Konrad and Alli got home about 3-4 hours before us. They went a different way at the beginning and must have got ahead of the bad traffic. The kids luckily did really great in the car, it just felt like the drive would never end. Every time we checked our arrival time on Google Maps it was later and later. Around the 10th or 11th hour, I started to wonder if it was really worth it. Doug never doubted though. He was still so happy from seeing the eclipse. We finally arrived home at midnight.