2011 Trip across the US
2012 Trip across the US
2014 Trip across the US
2015 Trip to Alaska
2015-16 Southwest Trip
2016 New England Trip
2016 - 17 Southwest Trip
Monday, August 21, 2017 - Silver Lake Park, Maple Falls, WA, Day 5, 0 Miles, 14 Towing Miles For the Trip
I wasn't sure I'd even see the eclipse since the site is nestled in tall fir trees, however it was visible through some breaks in the trees. My neighbors gave me a pair of eclipse glasses, and I had already set the D700 up with my 80 - 400 lens, stacked with 10X & 6X neutral density filters. The combination of filters let me view the sun through the viewfinder or use live view to focus, and provided usable images.
There is an interesting effect when the eclipse is near total - it creates half moon shadows. If you look carefully, you can see them in the tree branch shadows on the ground and a little on the trailer.
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| Through the Trees | Through the Trees | Underway | As Close to Totality as We Got |
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| Half Moon Shadows | |||
As soon as the eclipse finished, the neighbors packed up & headed out. Unless someone else moves in, there is just me & a tent camper in the Red Mountain campground. Actually, the tent campers left around 2:00 so now I'm here by myself.
I decided it was time to wax the bottom half of the trailer. Much easier than the top!
I also decided to try the oven for the first time cooking a frozen pizza (which, by the way still doesn't fit in my new 6 Cu Ft 2 door refrigerator without removing the door rack). Since frozen pizzas take up a significant part of the normal grocery store freezer section (and a good part of the American diet), you would think that the designer of the refrigerator would add the last 1/2" of depth necessary, but...
Back to the oven - 1st problem - lighting the pilot light is "interesting". 2nd problem - while you can set the temperature with a dial, there is no indicator as to when the oven reaches the set temperature. I need an oven thermometer. 3rd problem - don't follow the instructions for frozen pizza, ie cook it directly on the oven rack. Lots of smoke & a burned bottom long before the top was done. Eventually I managed to get about 1/2 the 12" pizza edible. Since that is all I usually eat, no problem, but next time I'm going to move my 12" tile from the electric toaster oven to the trailer's oven, and look for a 12" pizza pan.
After dinner I saw young woman driving loops every 15 minutes around the campground. She finally stopped to talk, and said she was looking for friends. Since there is no cell service, she couldn't call them, but since no one else way in the campground, she was worried. I gave her the news that there were two other campgrounds here at Silver Lake - the Red Mountain campground I'm in is about 1/2 mile from the main part of the park & sent her off to search for her friends. I suspect they will be there - the other campgrounds are closer to the lake and have a shower house ($.75 for 6 minutes). One is dry camping; I'm not sure of the others. Red Mountain was the only one that had sites left for the weekend when I made the reservations back in late June.
Until next time -
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Last Update:
August 23, 2017