Eclipse

I'm going to jump back and forth in time for a few posts, I think. I haven't been keeping up with blogging, but I'm still doing things.

When my dad first had his accident, I immediately flew to the US, where I met my Mom and brother and nephew. After a week, things were looking hopeful, so we all decided it seemed okay for me to return to Spain, where a bunch of US friends were convening for a long-anticipated eclipse viewing. Planned mostly by my super-organized friend E, it was a group of about 25 people, more than half of which were physics grad school friends and their families. We stayed in Salamanca, a lovely university town that was two hours away from where we were going to watch the eclipse. (Staying outside of totality was a cost-cutting measure, and definitely worth it.)

E-Day, as we might call it, was a group effort. Four cars of people, driving two hours and the arriving in a hot, barren field to wait for six hours in 40C / 105F heat. I should explain at this point that people were not allowed to watch the eclipse from the side of roads, only from designated viewing areas, because of the risk of fires. Huge numbers of police had been mobilized to organize this, and it was probably a wise idea - in spite of this, we still saw a fairly serious wild fire on from our vantage point that afternoon. And we arrived so early because we were concerned about traffic; rural central Spain is not really set up for the number of visitors it was receiving.

To survive, we had purchased a HUGE tarp, which we stretched across the cars. We sat on the dry stubble in the shade in between the cars, eating snacks, ham, olives, and watermelon, and drinking vast quantities of ice water, all of which we had brought with us. 

Six hours in a baking field is a lot, but it helps to bring friends.

When it was close to the actual celestial show, the sun was quite low in the sky and the temperatures were bearable, so we dragged the tarp out as a picnic blanket to with with hundres of our new Spanish friends. It was my very first total eclipse and definitely as amazing as I had imagined.