We Survived the Great Solar Eclipse Camping Trip of 2017 (eclipse video at end of post)

We blew a tire on our way in to our eclipse viewing camping spot. Suddenly the unpaved and unmaintained forest service roads we had been blasting up and down were a lot less friendly and welcoming - geez, did somebody intentionally gather up all the sharpest rocks on this ridge and grade this road with them?

Of course neither my wife nor myself have ever put on a spare tire in our life. And this happened just a half mile from our destination after 4+ hours of driving, so Thing One and Thing Two were very done being in a car. No worries, not to panic, we will just jack up the car, take off the blown tire and bolt on the donut. How hard can it be?

Well for starters the spare tire kit in our 2014 Suburu Outback didn't have any kind of handle for the jack. Seriously the only thing that could fit in the jack was this ridiculously short thingamabob:

Now if you remember, Archimedes said if you gave him a long enough lever he could move the world, but I challenge him to move this damn jack with this pitiful little thing. I wrapped my shirt around it and with plenty of grunting and swearing under my breath I did get the car up. Just in time for it to roll backwards off the jack (we were on a decent incline). So we roll the car back down the hill a bit to a flat spot and I set the jack up again and get back to work.

Just about when I was ready to take a break from twisting my tiny little torture device in the jack, another car came down the (narrow) road that we were blocking - driven by an extremely friendly couple down all the way from Vancouver BC for the eclipse. Mr. Canadian quickly became my new best friend as he had both a wrench that worked as a handle for the jack and a powertool for the lug nuts. PPPHHHoooom PPPhhhoooom PPPPHhhoooom he had the old tire off and the donut on in a minute flat. Three cheers for Canada! I hope they found the perfect spot to take the pictures of their dreams.

With our donut safely on we made it to our camping spot and the fun commenced. We were camping off of Forest Service Road 1149 on top of Green Ridge just west of Lake Billy Chinook in Oregon - I put the marker on the map exactly where we camped:

Green Ridge is beautiful, a very steep and narrow north-south ridge above a faultline - the unique geology gives the ridge a surprisingly flat top. Looking west you have views of Mount Jefferson and east you are looking out over the basin to the high desert plateau.

Looking west from the top of Green Ridge at Mount Jefferson

Our campsite was sheltered by a stand of old ponderosa pine trees that survived a forest fire that must have swept up the valley from the east sometime in the last two decades, judging by the regrowth in the burn zone.

Our campsite - this is from our earlier July camping trip when we scouted out the region and found this spot with the intention of returning for the eclipse

You may not be aware of this, but ponderosa pine cones are a fiendish trap set by @beelzebub to torment you if you are foolish enough to pick one up or step on it. Each scale of the pine cone has an outward pointing barb with a wicked angle that puts a fishhook to shame. They will make you bleed. First order of business is kicking the pine cones out of the way.

Observe @beelzebub's infernal design

The next morning I set up a tarp as a shade, stringing it up between four trees so we could make a kid zone underneath for our 8 month old.

Looking back through my pictures, I took more photos of my campfire cooking than anything else. Well that may be for good reason, as I love campfire cooking and pride myself on it. I baked a spiral-cut bone-in ham in the campfire the first night, which was a first for me! I brought an oven bag (turkey bag) to place the ham in, then wrapped that in a couple layers of tinfoil and set it at the side of the fire, turning it regularly throughout the night as we kept a small fire going. Per my usual I also baked potatoes in tinfoil in the fire. Our first morning in the campsite I made homefries with ham and eggs for breakfast - it was DELICIOUS :)

potatoes and ham cooking in the camp fire

Campfire homefries with ham and scrambled eggs

We had a blast for four days of camping. Going in we were a little worried about how Thing One and Thing Two would handle it but they loved it. This was our longest family camping trip so far and we will have no reservations about planning more extended camping trips in the future.

Thing Two rocking out in the kid zone under the tarp shade

Two Things doing their best to make you melt with cuteness

Thing One LOVED the hammocks we set up

Yeti the Dog - the day of the eclipse was actually Yeti's fourth birthday! Happy Birthday you magnificent beast you!

OH YEAH! AND WE SAW A TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE!!!

It was amazing. Absolutely breath taking. You have no idea how fundamentally strange it is to see a black hole sun in the sky. Your mind just squirms sideways under the weight of it all. The light was surprising to me - more of a blue white light from the corona, which I assumed for some reason would be more of a golden hue like normal sunlight. But the biggest thing that surprised me was the difference between 99.9% and TOTALITY. You can see it in the video clip - how quickly it goes from light outside (albeit a slightly hollow light, like a two-dimensional overcast day) to the totality in just seconds.

We are already planning our trip to Texas to see the eclipse in 2024 :)

Cheers - Carl