We traveled 12 hours for 2 minutes

All eclipsed out.

In August of 2017, I drove with four friends from Denver to Wyoming to witness the rare event of a solar eclipse. Always the planner and amidst a ton of hype, I was nervous to not have reserved a hotel or camping spot ahead of time. This once in a lifetime event would prompt millions of people to walk outside (or for some, travel incredible distances) to stare up at the sun for 2 minutes.

I concerned about getting there in time; not interested in sitting in traffic for half a day if we didn’t get to see it in totality. I worried about the lack of services such as food, gas, water, cell service. Wyoming’s population is less than 600,000 and they estimated that possibly that many people would travel from outside the state to view it there.

I was also scared something bad might happen. Not that I’d burn my retinas or something supernatural. I worried about humanity. How many people would turn out? And how might they treat each other if resources were scarce? What would people do if there was no cell service and no gas in middle of Wyoming? This is the year after the 2016 election which revealed incredible divisions in our country and there were still stories of hate crimes and skirmishes.

As with most of my worries, I combat them by planning. I got extra gas, packed toilet paper, cell phone chargers, sunscreen, blankets, pillows, food, snacks, and drinks. I packed fun things — cds, books, games, coloring supplies to keep us entertained. But I couldn’t know what might actually happen.

This is the genius and fault of life, in my opinion. We don’t know what’s coming. What would it be like when the sky went completely dark in the middle of the day?

Maybe as more of a pessimist than an optimist, I was to scared to sleep the night before. But we were going — eclipse or bust!

We left at 5 am. There was no traffic on I-25 coming out of downtown Denver. Our chief navigation officer saw that the traffic around Fort Collins was heavy, so we got off and traversed to Hwy 85 which took us most of the way to Cheyenne. There we took another road around the city to avoid sitting. Once north of Cheyenne, it was easy going. 85 mph.

Once in the path of totality, I started to relax. We had made it. If nothing else, we would be able to experience the eclipse. But then I worried, would we be at our destination once the eclipse started. Cars lined up to exit highways, cars crowded side roads, and even pulled off into ditches and farm roads. Would we find a place to park (and a bathroom?)

We kept going was racing to a deadline, we got to Fort Fetterman State Historic Site with plenty of time to park, pee, and set up.

I even found a friend we planned to meet. He had left two hours ahead of us and he had a spectacular telescope. The site had planned well with eclipse viewing glasses included in your entrance fee, clean bathrooms, some food for sale, and even special parking and chairs for the handicapped. Plenty of space and long views of rolling prairie covered hills.

I made lunch — caprese and chicken sandwiches on ciabatta, SUNchips, CapriSUN’s and champagne with strawberries. We tested out our glasses, talked about the corona, took pictures of random shadows on the ground and commented on the slightly dropping temperatures.

Once the eclipse was immanent, I began jumping up and down. We had made it and the long shadow was coming. It was so weird to see the sunset AND the sunrise in the middle of the day.

Excitement came from the crowd. The sky got dark. The “sunset” was surrounding us. Kids squealed. Someone yelled, “It’s complete! Look up! We did and tried to absorb the totality. The total eclipse of the sun was above us. Time flew. The moon flew. Photobombing the sun in the most spectacular way. And then… glasses back on everybody.

With that, it was done. We hung out. We spent a couple hours walking around, enjoying the bathroom without a line, watching the moon resend from covering the sun.

And then we left, in order to sit some more. We quickly found the traffic and tried a side road. That road became congested too so we found another side road. At the hottest part of the day, we sat, taking in gas fumes in the heat. We came across a Honda Element parked in the ditch under the only tree for miles, hatch opened, with a person snoozing in a pile of blankets. I looked on with jealousy.

We drove through Shawnee, Lost Springs, Keeline in search of Manville. And we found it — population 62 with one gas station. There was a line of cars waiting behind two apposing pumps which looked to be from the 80’s — no credit card swiping here. There were people standing around in the street — bikers, rednecks, families with kids, hippies, white collar suburbanites in SUVs, and nerds to name a few. We all waited together. We passed along info: “Don’t stand in line at the door,” someone said. “Just wait until your car is at the pump and then go in so she can reset the meter,” said another. And still someone else pointed out, “These over here are only diesel.” We waited. We pushed the car for fun and to see if we could do it without starting it.

Finally, with gas, we drove on. To Lusk (where we passed up a sign advertising beer, food and bowling). To Guernsey. To Wheatland, were we stopped for dinner. We got a table and didn’t have to wait to use the bathroom. We were brought chips, salsa, beans and beer right off. Our food took longer, but we were trying to wait out the traffic anyway, so no worries.

From there, back on I-25 south, we took turns on interstate and frontage roads (including some dirt — watching for cow grates!). In five hours, we got to Cheyenne and thought we were really getting somewhere. Hitting Fort Collins at 10 pm, I didn’t know if I could take much more.

But upon reflection, it really wasn’t bad. Everywhere we went, the service folks looked tired but were not rude. The drivers and people we encountered were pleasant, like we all had been through something together and now were going through a whole different something in order to get home. I think most folks got home with time enough to sleep some before work the next day.

On the long drive, we kept each other going with stories, games, singing Sun/Moon related songs like “Bad Moon Rising,” ‘Here comes the sun,” “Dark side of the moon,” Dreamweaver,” and of course, “Total eclipse of the heart.”

Back at my house at midnight, we hugged and said our goodbyes. No apocalypse, no shoot out over gas or resources. I did pee on the ground once, but only because I didn’t want to wait in line and hold us up. We ate out and bought items from stores. Maybe when the moon comes between us and the sun, we can find a way to be in it together.