The solar eclipse at Cedar Breaks, and Luke Strikes Again

 I have been putting off working on this post because I knew it was going to be so long and huge and take me three hours to do. Aren't you lucky! I hope you like scenery pictures.

We started getting ready for this annular eclipse (annular: sun and moon are exactly in line, but the apparent size of the moon is slightly smaller than the sun, so there's a bright ring, or annulus, surrounding the outline of the moon) months ago.

 Someone Is Eating the Sun is a book I had when I was a kid, and I ordered a used copy of it from Amazon. It's a cute story about a solar eclipse (lack of eye protection for the farm animals aside) that got Madelyn excited for the big event.

 Mark's brother James, who is a serious astronomy buff, told us he was going to be coming up from Phoenix to Cedar City to watch it, and sent us a GPS so we could scout out the perfect viewing location.

Mark spent a couple of weekends checking out Old Iron Town, (where he saw some bald eagles) and Cedar Breaks National Monument. We really lucked out because our area happened to be in the direct path of the eclipse. People traveled for hundreds of miles just to come to our back door.

We ended up at Point Supreme in Cedar Breaks (elevation 10,350 ft.) because of the gorgeous scenery and negative horizon (meaning we'd still be able to see the whole sun throughout the eclipse, since it was close to setting by the end at 8:30 pm). I am happy that this happened in late May. There was still some snow on the ground there as it was. That's what happens when you're almost two miles high!

 

 James and his humongous telescope. It has a motor and was tracking the sun's movement. He had his digital camera hooked up to it and was taking pictures every four minutes during the entire eclipse. His pictures turned out wayyyyyy better than mine. Ha.

 My sister Maria (a self proclaimed astronomy geek), Shay and Emery came up with us. We got a late start and the eclipse had already started by the time we got up there. The main road to Cedar Breaks was washed out by a landslide last summer and we had to take the long way around through Parowan and Brian Head. But it was sure worth the drive!

 We brought our telescope (which was one of James' old ones that we bought from him last year) and set it up with a sun filter and my old SLR film camera. We took two rolls of film of the sun but haven't gotten them back yet. I'm hoping they will turn out.

 The kids had fun running around. Madelyn kinda sorta payed attention to the eclipse.

 Mark's brother Mike drove up from Las Vegas and picked up Mom Yoder (Kathy, who is always up for an adventure) and met the fam up there.

 James already had some of his progression shots on his iPad to show off. Here's a better view:

 Isn't that amazing?! You can see a sun spot and everything. Sigh.

 Exactly five minutes before the apex of the eclipse, Madelyn suddenly had to go to the bathroom. So I had to race down to the restrooms with her, and when we came out, I took this pic. The sun was almost completely covered up, but it was never dark enough to look at directly.

 And then of course my camera batteries died, but luckily I'd brought about 20 extra. Sheesh.

 Even though we had our telescope set up to take pictures, I decided to also take some with my DSLR, using the highly technical method of sticking one half of a pair of eclipse glasses over my lens with masking tape. And here's the ring of fire!!!! COOOOOL.

 I stopped to take pictures of the sun periodically and got my own time lapse series. Not too shabby for a handheld digital camera zoomed in on something 150 million kilometers away! (It was windy, too.)

 Luke was too busy running figure 8's around the site to care what was going on.

The whole thing was just awesome.

The rest of these pics are random...

 James' wife Laura was good-naturedly trying to entertain Luke, who was constantly weaving in and out of everyone and bumping into telescopes....

 Grandma Yoder took him on a walk, which kept his interest for about two minutes.

 Mostly, he and Emery just decided to be hooligans.

 He kept running away till he was about 20-30 feet from us, and then stopped to see if we were going to come catch him. I'm sure people thought we were delinquent parents. We were just trying to watch the dang eclipse and take pictures! All it takes for Luke is one second of us turning our backs for him to be gone. It was exasperating.

 Running right through a group of park rangers....."Hey, little dude!"

 I'm not sure how this happened, but you can see the crescent shaped sun down there in the middle of the picture, which is how it actually looked at the time. The reflection must've bounced off of my lens somehow.

 We could see Cedar City from where we were. There's the airport runway, and you can practically see our neighborhood!

 Picasa (which I use to edit my photos) has some new filters, so I put the "Lomo-ish" treatment on this one. I like it!

 And the 1960's filter on this one...Props to Madelyn, by the way, for keeping an eye on Luke as best she could all night. We couldn't have done this without her.

 Heat map of the sun!

 When the eclipse was over, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset (with cloud trails from two airplanes).

And then...

 It was past 9:00 pm. It was 45°F and windy. Our hands were numb; we had finally packed up and hauled everything back to our car. We were some of the last people to leave the site--even the park rangers were gone. Except we couldn't get into our car!!!!!

Why? Luke is why.

 Earlier in the day, before we'd left, Luke had this little pinwheel, which was on a pointy, plastic coated wooden dowel. He wandered out into the garage with it, and we saw him poking around here and there, but it wasn't until after the eclipse that we realized what he'd done. He'd poked that little dowel right into the keyhole in my car door, where the point broke off and got lodged inside. Yay.

Mark tried to get it out, but it just got stuck in further and further. We were locked out of my car. For some reason, that is the only keyhole the car has (stupid design if you ask me). And for once in my life, I had forgotten to bring my set of keys, which has the keyless entry remote. I ALWAYS have my keys! I couldn't believe it!! (I had accidentally left them in the side pocket of my church bag earlier that day.) I had also just switched purses and did not have any diapers or wipes with me either, which is also unheard of for me. Oh, and Mark's phone was locked in the car, and he was on call. I had my phone but we had no cell service way up there. It was the most ridiculous situation we have ever been in!

I started praying really hard that we'd somehow be able to get into the car, but in the meantime we decided that we'd just have to ride back down to Cedar City with James, get my keys, drive all the way back up (it's an hour's drive), unlock my car and drive back down again. It was so frustrating. It was already past Madelyn's bedtime, and we were thinking this ordeal wouldn't be over till past midnight.

Well, somebody upstairs must have been listening (plus, James had a couple of friends--Bruce Howard and his brother--who went to find help). We were all loaded up in James' car, about to leave, when they came from the other direction, having gone to a park ranger's cabin and brought one back.

(turned out to be that guy)

 He opened up his trunk, which was full of emergency stuff. (Presumably, park rangers are used to going around rescuing people with miscreant two-year olds.) He had some special equipment that forced the car door open a crack, and then stuck a pole thingy in to push the unlock button. He had us in the car in less than five minutes. GOD BLESS THAT MAN!

Lovely shot of Venus I took in the car on the way home.

So, we mostly had a wonderful time! Now all I need is a child leash and the name of a good locksmith....