Eclipse Day

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The local tourist literature in North Platte says that the city is the home of the worlds largest rail yard, over 2500 acres. This morning Barb and I drove out to see it from an observation tower and it is massive. In one area there are over 100 sets of tracks side by side.
We made a Walmart trip and there was a dozen or so campers boondocking over night in the parking lot, for the eclipse. We settled in to watch from our campsite around noon and we had clear skies and a very cool viewing experience. When the full eclipse happened people around the campground clapped and cheered. It got pretty dark. Crickets were chirping, the doves were cooing, and the mosquitoes started biting. Pretty awesome.
We packed up and got on the road again in the afternoon but only traveled 150 miles and crossed into Colorado. We are on Mountain Time now, so two hours behind home. The terrain has changed again, to rolling grassland and sagebrush. There are some irrigated corn fields but its mostly cattle grazing.
We stopped for the night at a dusty campground in Sterling, Colorado, in the northeast corner of the state.
On a very negative note, when we got ready to move this afternoon our leveling jacks would not retract, the same problem that we had in Alaska. Arghh! After all the work and expense to get this fixed. It worked fine on our earlier camping trips this year. Well, at least this time I came prepared with the proper tools to retract them manually, so we did that and got our way.

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Photos

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North Platte rail yards

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North Platte rail yards

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Using our eclipse glasses

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Note the crescents. The leaves on the trees acted as a bunch of pinhole cameras, creating images of the partially eclipsed sun.

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Darkness at total eclipse.

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Darkness at total eclipse.

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Northeastern Colorado.