Coming Home from California and the Eclipse

Saturday morning we slept in a bit and then got packed up.  My mom and I took the kids down to the pool while Jim finalized packing and got it all to the car.  We said goodbye to my mom and hit the road.  Anaheim is really pretty, they keep the area we were in very clean (Jim saw people cleaning the sidewalks) and there is beautiful vegetation.  The smog is unfortunate and it is just really really crowded.

We stopped at a Costco about 30 minutes into our trip and got pizza, churros and frozen yogurt.  So much cheaper than Disney!  Then we drove through to St.George. We put the audio book on and it worked again to put Elliott to sleep.  This time he slept for nearly 3 hours and we had a movie on when he woke up so he was happy.  We picked up some dinner in St. George and checked in at the condo and went swimming.

Sunday morning we swam one more time.  We were a little worried about traffic since our home was in the path of totality for the eclipse the next day.  Our city was listed as a prime viewing area and was hosting scientists from NASA and whoever else was willing to drive to the area.  We heard estimates of 500,000 visitors and had been told to stock up on food and expect our cell phones to not work.  So we left at 10am not knowing if we would encounter gridlocked freeways.  

The traffic from St. George to Salt Lake City seemed slightly heavier than normal for a Sunday, but not too bad.  From Salt Lake City north it was even a little heavier.  We were really disappointed in the middle of Utah when we tried to stop at an Arbys and it was closed on Sunday.  We then attempted to get food at Wendys but the line was. not. moving.  So we drove about 15 more miles and found an Arbys that was open.  Things would slow down and get congested every time there was a slow moving vehicle and there were lots of people hanging out in the passing lane.  But it kept moving and we made it home in the expected amount of time.  We even stopped in Pocatello to get some groceries at Costco and got home in plenty of time to eat dinner and get mostly unpacked.

One other interesting thing that happened on our trip is that Elliott sort of potty trained himself.  We still have a little ways to go, but I had not wanted to potty train him before the trip to avoid lots of driving breaks and needing to get out of lines at theme parks.  On the trip there were pretty regular stopping points when we would all go use the restroom and he started going with the flow and by the end of the trip he was telling us when he needed to go.  

These people were prepared...look at all those gas cans

One of the many slow moving vehicles that caused congestion

 On Monday, after a good night of sleep in our own beds, we went to the zoo to watch the eclipse.  Originally there was going to be a research project by a university in Canada to photograph and observe animals during the eclipse and Jim had applied to be a photographer for that.  It ended up getting cancelled, but we still thought the zoo would be a neat place to watch the eclipse.  It was nice to have all the animals too look at especially for Elliott who didn't have a whole lot of interest in staring at the sky for 2 hours.  We got to look up and see the progress of the moon's shadow and also observe the changing light and animal behavior.  We found a good spot with a clear view near the monkeys and that is where we watched totality.  We had some homemade pinhole cameras, large white paper to observe shadow bands, a camera set about 15 feet from us taking video, an iPad that I used to take video and Jim's "mega lens" that he used to capture Bailey's beads and the Diamond Ring.

The eclipse was a pretty spectacular event.  I was mostly surprised at how little the light seemed to change up until totality and then how dramatically it changed.  The animals did seem to think night had fallen, but it didn't seem like it affected them all that much.  The traffic after the eclipse, especially headed south was more like what we had worried might happen on our way home.  It was taking people 4 times as long as usual to get places.  I was very glad we didn't have to battle that!