It’s been a long time since we posted anything, since last October to be exact. Since then, I have fully recovered from my knee replacement 8 months ago. I must say, it’s nice to be pain free. It’s also ironic that my last blog post was about being at an eclipse and this one is too.
We had a nice winter season, our first in Las Cruces. The winter was mostly mild, but we did have a few times where we could see snow on the Organ Mountains and once where we had a dusting where our house is.
This was sunset one evening. The sun was behind me, so what you are seeing is the setting sun shining on the snowy Organ Mountains. The next morning, this is what the white thorn acacia (bushes) in our back yard looked like. What’s that white stuff?And this is what our front yard looked like. All the snow was gone in a couple of hours.
During the winter and early Spring, we had four groups of RVing friends RVs visit us and take advantage of our RV hookups. Do I have pictures of any of them? Nope. But it was nice to visit with friends and not have to leave home.
The travel season is now upon us. It’s time to get back out there. The big event on our Spring calendar was the April 8th Total Solar Eclipse. Along with our friends L & D, last Fall we had booked reservations at Whitney Lake Corp of Engineers (COE) Campground, near Waco, Texas, right in the middle of the path of totality.
COE campground are great places to stay. They are usually on a reservoir, this one was no exception. Lake Whitney was formed when the COE put a dam on the Brazos River. Once you reach a certain age, you can get a Senior National Parks Pass and camp for half price. All this for $9 a day? I’ll take it!
I was a little surprised at the lack of hype in the town of Whitney when it came to the eclipse. When we witnessed the 2017 eclipse in the little town of Stapleton, Nebraska, they pulled out all the stops. Not Whitney, I think they let Waco do all the heavy lifting. We were told by others that the town of Waco was a tad nutso, crowded with people! No thanks.
As eclipse day approached, we had been closely watching the weather. It was not looking good. The forecast was for clouds and thunderstorms. No!!!
Getting eclipse ready. Glasses? Check. Eclipse t-shirt? Check. Granted, the t-shirt was from 2017, but it didn’t matter.
But as the time approached for the eclipse to start, the clouds dissipated and we had mostly clear skies! The solar gods listened to our prayers!!!!
Let the show begin.We hung out at L & D’s campsite. When they purchased their RV a few years ago, they swore they would probably never use the outside TV. But we found a use for it this day! We could follow along with the nationwide eclipse coverage while experiencing it ourselves.When the sunlight filtered through the leaves of the trees, we could see how much of the sun was covered by the moon.It’s getting closer! Just like last October’s annular eclipse, I was able to take these pictures by putting my eclipse glasses over my phone camera lenses and zoom in as much as I could. I’m impressed at how well it worked.Then BOOM! Totality!!! The glasses came off and we could look at the eclipse with our naked eyes. It got SO MUCH darker than it did during the 2017 eclipse. We saw the egrets on the lakeshore head to their roosts. Someone heard the coyotes start to howl. Street lights came on. We had 4 1/2 minutes of totality. It went much too fast. I tried to take pictures of the landscape around me, but it was just too dark.And just like that, totality was over.
I was curious what effect the eclipse had on our solar panels back on the house in Las Cruces.
This is what a normal day looks like for us. The blue bars indicate how much power we are producing from the sun. Sunrise is on the left of the bell curve, sunset is on the right.This is what that curve looked like the day of the eclipse. Las Cruces didn’t experience totality, but most of the sun was obscured. It messed with our power production.
So, that’s what we did on April 8th. It was totally, totally worth driving the 600 miles to experience yet another eclipse. We got lucky with the weather, that’s for sure. The next total solar eclipse will be on August 22, 2044. I’m putting it on my calendar.
Thanks once again for sharing your pictures. Nice ones of the eclipse!!! Enjoyed the chart showing the solar panel activity.
Snow? LOL! I never expected that in a blog post from NM!
Thanks for sharing the eclipse photos; your phone did a magnificent job!