…for about two and a half minutes on Monday, anyway.
After putting my new vehicle (Name TBD) to the test through Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon, I made it Portland! I am lucky enough to be friends with Tom (henceforth known as the Eclipse Maestro) who scoped out a spot to watch the eclipse and a campsite nearby. We were in the Table Rock Wilderness which is south of Portland. By the time Jamie and I rolled up to the campsite on Sunday there were quite a few other cars driving up to the trailhead to find an eclipse viewing spot. Apparently we (and by we I mean Eclipse Maestro Tom) snagged the only campsite on the road leading up to the trailhead, although there were a couple rebels that set up tents in a field near Chicken Rock.
Eclipse chasers on Chicken Rock.
The hike up to Chicken Rock took about an hour and it was a lot of uphill for this slightly out of shape midwestern girl, but the 360 view of the sky during the eclipse made it so worth it! There were seven people in our group and about twenty fellow eclipse chasers sharing Chicken Rock, so it was cozy but not terribly crowded. I was happy to be in a crowd of people for this event as there’s nothing quite like group anticipation. The air had a buzzy quality and everyone was chatty and excited to share their celestial knowledge.
Inside the Pinhole Viewer. That little dot is the sun! 
Once the partial eclipse started I was psyched to see that the pinhole viewer that my mom and I made was a hit! I was even more excited to get a bunch of pictures of people with a box on their head. Solar eclipses are probably the only time the dude wearing a tinfoil hat feels part of a crowd. Quite a few people also had solar glasses and were kind enough to pass them around to those of us that didn’t. Looking directly at the sun, solar glasses or no, will always feel just a little bit scandalous. I’ve no vision problems, other than my usual terrible eyesight, so they seem to have worked.
The sky opposite the eclipse.
The total eclipse lasted about two and half minutes. It felt like 30 seconds. It was so hard to figure out what exactly to focus on. There was the moon with a beautiful ring of sun around it, there was an awed crowd of wonderful people, stars in the sky above, and the sky opposite the sun and moon looked as though someone accidentally dropped a sunset in the wrong place and time. In movies and books when a moment is dramatic and world changing the wind picks up and the mood gets dark. I think that must have started with the eclipse. Before totality even started we could feel the temperature drop but during totality it was windy, dark, and spooky. I loved it. I was downright giddy.
Photo by Eclipse Maestro Tom Jeanne!
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