I stayed at the 4 Seasons there once, but they've got special high rates for the week of the eclipse. I'm seeing $5,000 a night. Maybe somewhere around Grand Island, Nebraska....
... that's right around where we always need to stop when we're driving west. Heading toward the Rockies, you tend to think that there's nothing interesting in Iowa and Nebraska, that it's just a land ocean you must cross. Why do you think they call them "waves of grain"? You don't imagine walking there, just getting across.
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Looks like Kentucky has the best duration, but it can't beat Wyoming for glamour and low likelihood of rainfall
So, you and Meade are flying your Learjet into Casper Wyo. to see the total eclipse of the sun? You're so humble, you probably think this comment is about you.
York or Cozad are also good places to stop.
Nebraska is for cows. That's about it. It's most famous for Peyton Manning's snap count and sod homes. They flat ran out of lumber.
We drive.
Getting through Nebraska is a challenge.
Here's an exciting event to be seen.
But don't look straight at it. Nebraska.
I'm supposed to be in KC, for a meeting, right under totality, the week before. Tried to get the meeting shifted one week. Failed.
Getting through Nebraska is a challenge.
I've been telling people for years that there is a time warp in western Nebraska.
Idaho and parts of Oregon are a good choice since they have a good probability of clear skies that time of year. I'm hopping a plane if the weather looks iffy in the Southeast.
You could spend a day or two rafting down Grey's river and stay in Alpine.
I flew my little airplane down to Wallops Island in 1970 for the total eclipse, staying many miles offshore and so out of the restricted flight zone.
Not particularly impressive but I could see across the shadow zone to blue sky all around, which probably ruins the effect.
Of note was a bunch of rockets going up from Wallops Island, however.
I'd suggest stay at home and enjoy the peculiar sharpness of shadows, out of totality.
See that mountain range east of Jackson -- the big one south of Dubois. That's the Wind River range of the Rockies, a fantastic place. Backpack up in there, and hang out for the eclipse.
Pennslyvania is harder to drive through than Nebraska. You keep thinking it will end.
I stayed at the 4 Seasons there once, but they've got special high rates for the week of the eclipse. I'm seeing $5,000 a night.
I believe in Jackson Hole you will also be competing for space with the annual Kansas City Fed Economic Summit.
Whatever your choice location you should pick an observing spot with few tree or nearby buildings that might obstruct the view. In Grand Island, I recommend the Veterans' Field Softball Complex on N. Broadwell Avenue. It's a public park so there's no fee to pay, and it's treeless, flat as a board, with no buildings nearby over one story. Parking is limited, so take your bikes with you. Park at McCain's and cycle over, five to ten minutes flat.
Trump will somehow screw up the eclipse, just you wait.
You've seen one eclipse, you've seen them all.
Idaho and parts of Oregon are a good choice since they have a good probability of clear skies that time of year.
If there aren't wildfires going on.
Make multiple reservations, then two days beforehand narrow your location based on forecasts/present conditions.
Back in Feb. 26 1979, my wife, and some friends drove to Portland OR from Corvallis to see the total eclipse. As usual, Portland was clouded in, so we drove up the Columbia River Gorge, hoping to find a clear patch in time. We lucked out, and enough of an opening in the sky in time to see whole period of totality.
A good resource site for eclipse watching, photography, videography, etc.
rh is correct. Drove from Star Prairie, WI to Mount Bethel, PA, which is right across the river from NJ, and PA was 1/3rd of the trip.
The Trailways Bus station in Grand Island would be a better viewing story to tell than Jackson Hole. And then you could go home, without having traversed the whole state of Nebraska.
I like Quaestor's idea for Grand Island followed by TA and chuck's recommendations. We'll stay flexible until August 19, check the weather, decide and go.
...as per MadisonMan's plan.
Grand Island... home of Hornady! Good stuff!
Consider visiting your friend Glenn Reynolds and the Insta-wife. The four of you can drive down to watch it in Pigeon Forge.
Grand Island - a city so nice it's name lies twice.
It should be named Bland Grassland.
It is a hike, but the area around Stanley ID is right in the middle of the totality. This is just North of Sun Valley Idaho (where you can ice skate outdoors in the Summer). Between Sun Valley (where there are lots of nice places to stay) and Stanley is maybe an hour's drive. I would think the best spot would be the summit of Galena Pass, which is about 8,700 ft in elevation. It is normally very clear. It is so remote, there should not be too many crowds.
you tend to think that there's nothing interesting in Iowa and Nebraska
I grew up in Seward, Nebraska, which is about 20 miles west of Lincoln. It's about half-way between Lincoln and York, which are labeled on the second image.
Seward is a wonderful small town -- about 7,000 people -- with a Lutheran college where my Dad taught. I write a blog about growing up in Seward.
If I won the lottery and did not have to work, I would want to move back there.
http://seward-concordia-neighborhood.blogspot.com/
Seward is supposed to be a nice place. One of my bad memories of Grand Island is a sister (a cheerleader) having to go there for a football game, during which the cheerleaders (in skirts) were attacked by a swarm of locusts or some other foul insect, leaving bites all over their legs and arms. Not a good place to live or visit.
"Make multiple reservations, then two days beforehand narrow your location based on forecasts/present conditions."
Friend and I are taking his camper. You HAVE to be prepared to chase. Observed the 1979 eclipse. Traveled to North Dakota in February. Drove all night and arrived am. Planned observing site was cloudy, but being able to see a long ways we saw a hole and drove to it. Ended up in Minot.
Didn't have the internet in 1979. We winged it and scored. This time I am using every resource available to score again. If you witness a total solar eclipse you will never forget it.
Trump will somehow screw up the eclipse, just you wait.
Or vice versa.
I'm at about 99.14% obscuration, with a 20 min drive to total, and 20 min more to total with 2'39" duration. Eh, might as well (the kids will dig it). We can bang on pots and pans and curse the moon until we scare it off. You're welcome.
cheerleaders (in skirts) were attacked by a swarm of locusts or some other foul insect, leaving bites all over their legs and arms.
Paging Mr. Spatula ... Mr. Laslo Spatula ...
Freaking global warming!! Freaking Donald Trump!! Now the sun is gone!!
Blogger William said..."You've seen one eclipse, you've seen them all."
It guessing you haven't.
Wyoming is what I'm hoping for. Taking the big telescope for its first trip out west.
I'm afraid to make reservations anywhere because of the unknown of the weather. I think we'll check the forecast a couple days out and head out with plans to sleep in a tent or in the car if need be.
Mike Sylwester,
My parents, older sister, daughters, multiple aunts and uncles and cousins and nieces all went to Concordia. Seward is a great small town!
Telescope? I'm thinking I'll be facing the other way with my head in a box with a pinhole in one end.
Watch out for the Tzitzimitl.
I've got reservations at a Days Inn in Kentucky already, just along the eclipse line. Can cancel 24 hours before (if weather requires). But I suppose even a rainy day would be pretty interesting in the middle of a total eclipse.
We're heading to a place we used to love to visit and hike in, in eastern Oregon. Made our reservations years ago.
Fortunately, I live right on the northern edge of totality here in Oak Ridge, TN. My youngest sister lives nearby in Lenoir City which is almost dead center of the path of totality, so that is where I hope to see it. The weather is a big unknown, so a day or two before, I will readjust based on the weather forecasts. I am will willing to drive 300 miles or so to get the best probability of getting an unobstructed view.
"Telescope? I'm thinking I'll be facing the other way with my head in a box with a pinhole in one end."
You do not want to use a pinhole camera if you're under totality. You'll miss all the good stuff!
The big telescope is for night time under dark skies. If I tried to use it for the eclipse I'd probably set it on fire.
I MAY observe with the 5" refractor; starring with the solar filter prior to totality. Then I'd take the filter off for the corona and prominences. I'd have to set up an alarm to push the scope away before the photosphere returns. Risky, but observing prominences at magnification is tempting. Have to think about this hard.
Primary observing instrument will be image-stabilized binoculars. And naked eye.
Have not decided what to do, if anything, about photography. I'm leary of screwing up the experience messing with a camera.
"Risky, but observing prominences at magnification is tempting"
Possible to rig up some sort of video of it? That would be really sweet.
Eastern Oregon is also on our radar.
@Crimso - Can be done, but don't currently have the camera rig to do it.
Prominences don't have observable motion in real-time. What would be sweet on video are the diamond ring and Bailey's beads effects. Hmmm...
Right around the early 1970s, iirc, there was a total eclipse that happened when I was at work in St Paul, MN. at the printing plant on the afternoon shift. We looked at it through some kind of dark photographic film from work. I wouldn't rate it very high with exciting things that I've seen in my life.
It's coming on August 21st and going right across the United States in a beautiful diagonal. We can all get to it...
National Road Trip Day! Solar Safari!
If everybody had an eclipse
Across the USA...
You could visit Professor Reynolds.
Eastern Oregon will have sunshine. Guaranteed.
I will be in TN, because it's close.
Nobody tell jimbino. A lot of people will probably visit the national parks near the path of totality, coming and going from the national forests and state parks they'll be heading into for viewing.
"Eastern Oregon will have sunshine. Guaranteed."
My friend is pushing Eastern Oregon as Plan A.
I want to be within shouting distance of our final observing site the day before. I don't know what may happen if half the country decides at the last moment to drive to the eclipse.
Ha, I'll be in Driggs, Idaho for the eclipse, on a week-long bicycle trip with Cycle Greater Yellowstone. Much cheaper than the hotel rates you were quoting. :-)
Original Mike: I want to be within shouting distance of our final observing site the day before. I don't know what may happen if half the country decides at the last moment to drive to the eclipse.
That's our plan in Eastern Oregon. We'll go prepared for any Road Warrior scenarios that may develop.
"Right around the early 1970s, iirc, there was a total eclipse that happened when I was at work in St Paul, MN. at the printing plant on the afternoon shift. We looked at it through some kind of dark photographic film from work. I wouldn't rate it very high with exciting things that I've seen in my life."
Had to have been a partial eclipse AllenS. Either July 20, 1963, March 7, 1970 or February 26, 1979. And I agree, a partial is nothing to get excited about. The difference between a 95% partial and a total is the difference between night and day.
I've been looking forward to this for years.
I booked a hotel room in Western KY last August for this coming August.
Original Mike said...
"Had to have been a partial eclipse AllenS. Either July 20, 1963, March 7, 1970 or February 26, 1979. And I agree, a partial is nothing to get excited about. The difference between a 95% partial and a total is the difference between night and day."
Yeah, I experienced that last night. And the night before. And the... Wasn't that exciting.
I have an observing friend who's already got a room booked in Jackson Hole. He is adamant that he will not chase. This guy is a hard-core observer. He and I have pulled many all-nighters in freezing temperatures. I don't understand his attitude. I think he'll break at the last minute.
Try Carhenge in Alliance, NE. I hear the native Druids built it to track movements of the sun.
Could be Mike. It was a long time ago, but I remember how dark outside it got during daylight hours. And then... it was over.
The place to stay is the Kah Nee Tah resort on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon. Too late, its booked.
IF you can go, go. I watched it in Corbett, OR in 1979. It was extraordinary to see Bailey's beads and the Diamond Ring Effect. Totality was breathtaking.
Ann Althouse wrote, , you tend to think that there's nothing interesting in Iowa and Nebraska, that it's just a land ocean you must cross. Why do you think they call them "waves of grain"? You don't imagine walking there, just getting across."
As a native Nebraskan, I can testify with certainty that Althouse is wrong here. She probably has traveled Interstate 80 along the Platte River Valley. You need to get off of the Interstate and into the Sandhills. I've canoed the Dismal. Middle Loup and Niobrara rivers in the Sandhills. I've stayed in Mullen, Thedford and Valentine. Three world class golf courses. Highway 2 is where one sees the best of Nebraska. The Hastings-Grand Island-Kearney also has the Crane migration in the Spring.
Next summer in Mullen! Eat at Red's Cafe.
Quaestor knows Grand Island!
But I suppose even a rainy day would be pretty interesting in the middle of a total eclipse.
I drove to a little known South Carolina island called Hilton Head in 1970. A monsoon of proportion I have never seen ensued. Totality make absolutely no dent in the gloom.
Such a long ride back to Atlanta.
But Althouse is correct about Iowa. Nothing interesting there other than the people and Field of Dreams.
♫ Then you flew your Learjet up to Nova Scotia,
To see the total eclipse of the sun,
Well, you're where you should be all the time... ♫
You're all so vain!
I don't have to go anywhere, for it will be passing directly over my house (Pendleton, SC)
It is like a dark skid mark across the underpants of America...
I am Laslo.
they've got special high rates for the week of the eclipse. I'm seeing $5,000 a night.
"But it's raining!"
"Sorry, no refunds."
It might be cloudy. If you could arrange to see it from an airplane, that would be cool
It's so nice when science happens that's entertaining enough for the host and her minions to actually take seriously.
Because you know their mantra when it comes to science: If it ain't interesting, it can be dismissed!
AGW isn't interesting. It involves killing off 90% perhaps of other life, not us. And as every right-winger knows, other life doesn't concern us. Humanity can live perfectly well in a planet with less than 10% of the life that we evolved to co-exist with.
But hey. The moon moved between us and our view of the sun. That's neato! That's the kind of scientific phenomenon that startled and scared the ancients, causing them to sacrifice more virgins and tremble in fear at the power of the gods.
Altering the planetary conditions that allowed civilization to form in the first place isn't nearly as attention getting. Which is why the same firm hired by Phillip Morris to deny the carcinogenicity of cigarettes has been hired to tell us to dismiss it.
Saw the one in '93 at Cabo san Lucas.
Altitude & a good view to the West.
I'm set on two places (coming from WA) - Oregon coast or east of the Cascades.
""But it's raining!"
"Sorry, no refunds."
That's observing. The standard farewell in astronomy is "Clear Skies!".
I'll be biking the Katy Trail and plan to pull off at Rocheport, MO for some wine (perhaps some local moonshine) and viewing.
Central Missouri has long totality durations, convenient services and easy access.
. . . . . . but don't tell anyone, it will ruin it for the rest of us.
"Eastern Oregon will have sunshine. Guaranteed."
Eastern Oregon usually has a few rainy days in late August. Ask any green bean combine driver.
I would look at maybe going out to North Platte, and going up to someplace like Arnold...
Speaking of Grand Island, haven't been there in a while, but the restaurant at the Bosselman's Truck Stop was GREAT.
My brother lives in suburban Kansas City, one of the places where we grew up. Another one was St. Joseph, Missouri, an hour north of K.C. The line of totality goes right over St. Joseph, so I'm going to visit my brother in K.C. that weekend and then we'll road trip to St. Joseph on Monday for the eclipse. It will be my first visit there in almost twenty years. I figure we'll watch it from Bartlett Park, where we played as kids. I remember we had a partial eclipse in St. Joseph when I was a kid that we had to watch through a pinhole projected on the ground. This time, it will be the real deal, total eclipse for about two-and-a-half minutes. I'm looking forward to it.
AGW isn't interesting. It involves killing off 90% perhaps of other life, not us. And as every right-winger knows, other life doesn't concern us. Humanity can live perfectly well in a planet with less than 10% of the life that we evolved to co-exist with.
A venn diagram shows "not real" things overlaps with the circle of "not interesting" things.
The inability to think things through is a trademark of lefties. This is because all that they are interested in is hating their fellow men and women. So they reason "what will make the people I want to hate look more hateful" and proceed from there. And they always come to the conclusion that the people that they hate are more hateful than they had ever known.
So what does R&B mean by "90% of life"? Ninety percent of all living cells? Are eukaryotes on the list as well as prokaryotes? Or are we talking about number of individuals? Or the number of species?
There have been several mass extinction events in the past. The Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event, the Permian extinction event, etc. None of these events had any moral significance, because people have morals. The universe does not have morals. But if people have morals, doesn't that mean that they are special in some way? More important than algae? Or monkeys?
Everyone who has ever lost someone close knows that awful (inspiring fear; dreadful; terrible) feeling that they would do anything to bring that person back. The mass of all the life in the universe weighs short in the balance.
Human beings are fallen. They are more awful and terrible than all the other life on the planet.
I saw the total solar eclipse in Kona in 1991. It was cloudy on the morning of the eclipse. Very unusual, mostly the mornings in Kona are clear, year round. All of the rich folks who stayed at the resorts north of Kailua town had to watch the eclipse through the clouds. The sky cleared in central Kona for the eclipse. Ironically the best view was from the parking lot of the MacDonalds right in town, in a working class neighborhood called "Hamburger Hill."
I watched the eclipse through part clouds at a place on the ocean called Makalawena. It got dark. At peak eclipse, all the fish in the little lagoon began to jump. It looked like the water was boiling for a few seconds. Not very exciting, really.
Also, I'd quibble with Althouse's characterization of the eclipse's path as a diagonal; it's an arc.
If you just wait till the sun goes down, you get the same effect. Plus, you don't have to listen to all those barking dogs......The eclipse was far more impressive in the Bronze Age, but, for the last few hundred years, all the suspense has gone out of it.
I've also been to Carhenge in Alliance. The perfect place to watch the eclipse.
Human beings are fallen. They are more awful and terrible than all the other life on the planet.
Especially you. But there is a remedy for this and one that will allow you to fulfill your theological imperative more directly than any other.
70% of Americans are able to draw obvious conclusions on truth and reality based on straightforward observation and deduction. But that's apparently no match for your bible humping commandment on how to ignore that so as to make all wrongdoing strictly personal or partisan.
Some of your team are hateful. You're just woefully irresponsible. And too distracted by the prophecies of bronze-age goat herders to look around you long enough to stop disrespecting the creation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzhT_7g0qpA
If one is to use Jesus as an excuse for destroying the creation then I think it's fair to ask that he go to meet Him soon enough to clarify His stance on the matter.
But I doubt that was His intended message, anyway. I don't think He said, "Use me as an excuse for sloth, apathy and destruction."
I guess people (like Lewis) get out of him what they choose to, though.
The Republican position on the matter, anyway.
It will go right over Beaufort, SC, where I live. Except we will probably be in Wisconsin at the time. My youngest daughter lives near Jackson Hole so she and her family will get a good look.
"Especially you."
Thank you, R&B!
Thank you, R&B!
Just as long as you keep your destructive masochism to yourself.
The Guy Who Drives the White Van With No Windows In The Back Says:
In the back of the Van I alone Control the Light that gets Seen. I am the Heavens’ Flashlight in the Dark: I am the Moon, covering a woman’s face with my bare hands: I am her darkest Eclipse…
Ah, I’m fucking with you. I’m not one of those freaks who thinks he’s some godlike creature of primordial nature: I’m just a dude who likes to listen to some ol’ Neil Diamond and occasionally take girls for rides out into the woods in the back of my Van…
Don’t get me wrong: I like to look at the stars and shit. But sooner or later you finish your beer and then what are you gonna do…?
Some people, they get all deep when they talk about some shit that happens in the sky every fifty years: me, I get the same feeling outside the gas station at night watching flies flit around the Bug Zapper…
Chicks dig the stars and the moon, though: a lot of the girls I get, they got tattoos of them. Me, I don’t mind a few tattoos on a girl, but keep it tasteful, ladies: I don’t need to see a shit-drawn dragon spreading its inked wings over your tits, you know what I mean…?
Some chicks, though, they DO get damned spooky with that Moon shit: one girl I had picked up, she started going on about Druids and Gnomes and Moon People who were actually Wolves or some shit like that. Fuck that: I let her ass back out of the van — I knew I wouldn’t be able to bury THAT kind of crazy near deep enough…
So, anyways: enjoy your moon thing, people. Who knows, while you’re looking for your view spot we just might pass each other on some dark road in the middle of nowhere…
I am Laslo.
"Who knows, while you’re looking for your view spot we just might pass each other on some dark road in the middle of nowhere…"
Dark roads in the middle of nowhere are my specialty. I'll be watching for the van.
We witnessed the 1976 total eclipse in Australia...it was eerie. Not quite dark as night; but an odd sunless sort of dark. I still remember the stillness.
Here's a clip (don't mind the clothes or the usual reporter argle-bargle):
https://youtu.be/j9_w1r8vArw
A total eclipse is one for the bucket list.
Here's an interesting article re Richard III and eclipses.
http://tinyurl.com/jl62gfo
"Here's a clip (don't mind the clothes .."
Nice suit!
Driving across Nebraska will suck out your soul. Miles Davis once drove across Nebraska. He came out white.
- (Some comedian whose name I can not recall)
If like most of us you find Jackson Hole a bit rich for your eclipse tastes, consider the opposite side of the Tetons. The eclipse will pass between Victor and Driggs in lovely Teton Valley, Idaho, where the mountain views are bodacious and the demographics Middle American.
I recollect seeing the annular solar eclipse in May 1994. Not sure I'm ready to drive down to Tennessee to see another one, even though this one is total.
Carbondale IL.
@Big Mike - There truly is no comparison. For an annular eclipse you don't see the corona, prominences, the diamond ring effect, or Bailey's beads. Scratch-off tabs vs. winning the lottery.
Lake McConaughy.
And I just watched yesterday True Detective, starring Mathew...
I can't help but think you've made a categorical mistake, R&B. Hatred is expressed as repulsion, the need to separate yourself from a thing, not the wish to destroy a thing. Love is the desire to join with a thing, not the desire to posses and control it.
You should read more theology. Or James Joyce.
R&B wrote: Because you know their mantra when it comes to science: If it ain't interesting, it can be dismissed!
Typically Rhythm and Balls, non causa and ignoratio elenchi.
Here's the real mantra: If you ain't interesting, you will be dismissed. You may think you ride a high horse, but from here your steed looks distinctly ovine.
Althouse, I wonder what you think of Judith Curry resigning her tenured position at Georgia Tech.
https://judithcurry.com/2017/01/03/jc-in-transition/
Like you, she owns a popular and influential blog that runs contrary to the monoculture at her university, and like you, she says she can reach more people through her blog than her position at the university.
What's the opposite of diversity? University!
Oh yeah, R&B, here is an interesting discussion of the true enemies of science. Hint, they ain't conservatives:
First, there’s the Left’s opposition to genetically modified foods, which stifled research into what could have been a second Green Revolution to feed Africa. Second, there’s the campaign by animal-rights activists against medical researchers, whose work has already been hampered and would be devastated if the activists succeeded in banning animal experimentation. Third, there’s the resistance in academia to studying the genetic underpinnings of human behavior, which has cut off many social scientists from the recent revolutions in genetics and neuroscience. Each of these abuses is far more significant than anything done by conservatives, and there are plenty of others. The only successful war on science is the one waged by the Left.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/real-war-science-14782.html
Oh yeah, here is a reconstruction of drought in New Mexico. Long and severe droughts are common in North America. They might be the reason no great civilizations have ever arisen here, the climate being too unstable for long term development.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/images/grissno.jpg
That's just one, there are plenty of reconstructions that show that long severe droughts are the norm for this continent since the end of the recent ice age.
But I am sure you can find a way to ignore this evidence by calling me a "science denier" on account of that's how intelligent people make the kind of arguments that advance understanding, right?
But go ahead and clutch your pearls about the current drought in California and blame it on the boogy du jour, GLOBAL WARMING!!!! Because SCIENCE!
Oh yeah, and Glacier National Park's glaciers have been receding since the end of the Little Ice Age, a couple centuries ago.
But if you consider projecting a trend from a short section of a wavy curve "deduction," there is probably no help for you.
I suppose that people who claimed, based on "deduction" and the "law of gravity" were right when they said that airplanes would never fly!
Turned out as we learned more, it wasn't so simple!
About three months after the beginning of the Clinton administration, Hazel O’Leary called me into her office to ask, “What have you done to Al Gore? I am told I have to fire you.” I assume that the main thing that upset Al Gore was my questioning of blatant propaganda about stratospheric ozone that was his focus at the time: “ozone holes over Kennebunkport” and similar nonsense. Although Secretary O’Leary offered to find a way to keep me at DOE as a civil servant, I was glad to have an excuse to get back to doing real science at Princeton University, which was kind enough to offer me a professorship again.
More reports from the Democrat war on science.
We have a lakehouse in the path. We have invited friends and relatives to an eclipse party. It's not in Texas.
But how many of those 70% think socialism will work this time when they feel the "right" people are in place?
I'd just camp, instead.
It's August, not January - live the American National Park Dream!
Exactly, Sigivald. I'm sure we will be doing some camping come August (if only in the back yard).
Thanks for all the great comments, commenters — very helpful in what looks to be an exciting year of planning and tripping. I'm tempted to just stalk Original Mike wherever he goes starting August 19 and try to be within earshot of him and his observing pals on the day of. Could be a rich (and fun) education.
Madras, Or. for us. 100% obscuration, and it's a 3 1/2 hour drive from home. Eastern Oregon, in the middle of nowhere, and the hotel rooms are limited @ $1600 a pop. Sounds like a day trip.
Just don't forget to bring beer, Meade.
Will 1 keg be enough, Mike?
That'll do.
Don't forget ice.
And no Spotted Cow!
I'm thinking — it'll be August. So — ice cold Miller High Life. I've never known a beer drinker to turn one down. Or several.
You'd be driven from the observing field.
Hopalicious.
You got it. I'll stop at Woodman's and grab 2 or 3 cases on my way out of town.
Now I wonder who will be stalking who.
Just to help your planning, you'll need to start the stakeout about a week prior. I'll be leaving early in order to enjoy the dark skies of the West.
10-4, good buddy.
10-10
Iowa and Nebraska on I-80 are indeed deadly. But two summers ago, we wandered up the Loess Hills Scenic Byway and had a great week. Two highlights: from the Hitchcock Nature Center (which is not far from I-80 near Council Bluffs), we took the Fox Run Ridge Trail to the end, maybe a mile. You wind up on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River flood plain and it's the flattest thing I ever saw. Well, maybe the Bonneville Salt Flats but this is so different, so fertile with just about every square foot planted. And down below is a railroad track, built about 20 feet above the flood plain because, well, sometimes it floods.
Well north and on the Nebraska side of the River (but near I-29) is Ponca State Park. The River there hasn't been channelized or backed up by a dam. Go down to the boat ramp and you get to feel what it was like when Lewis and Clark came up 215 years ago. Most of the time, we had it all to ourselves.
So many snarky comments about the heartland. Are you all from the coasts?
I was. Then I got smart and moved inland. Never to go back, thank you.
Ha! I see that the path crosses the home of a relative I especially like. Problem solved.
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