Solar Eclipse!

Our pack stopped everything to watch the partial solar eclipse this afternoon. As you know, it's not safe to look at the sun without eye protection. R was ready!

Shyla kept cheating, peaking out from the glasses with one eye.

My camera was ready too. I had a solar filter from back in 2012 when we saw the annular solar eclipse on K's last trip to the desert.

We saw the second half of the eclipse today. Here, the moon was taking a large bite out of the sun. You can see that there were sun spots - several of them - visible through our funky glasses and my special lens filter.

The sun was fairly high in the sky for when the eclipse was maximum but some clouds drifted across the sun at times.

The next one looks like a Halloween decoration! Spooky dark clouds gathered at the bottom of the sun. You can also see the shadow of the moon "rolling" to the left compared to previous photos.

As the eclipse was winding down, the sun was also setting. So, the sun took on a honey-like beautiful color and thin clouds added a touch of mystique.

As the sun dropped in the sky, the clouds over the Divide started changing colors.

At the very end of the eclipse, there were no clouds obscuring the sun, and the sun sat just barely above the Divide. You can see the tiny bit of shadow of the moon in the upper left of the sun.

Finally, about 3 minutes before the sun dropped below the mountains, the whole orb blazed again! The entire sequence of photos was over about an hour.

And patient Shyla sat glowing in the setting sun's light after the eclipse was over.

It was a fun and relaxing afternoon, seeing something that is so rare. In the next decade, there will be only three solar eclipses visible from anywhere near our perch in the mountains so I'm glad we took the time to sit out on K's rock (where the banner photo was taken) and watch this eclipse.

Amazing...

Thanks to all of you who have been checking in with us. We're doing fine. And, our amazing K is still joyfully romping through life. In the photo below, she stood in a red rock desert at sunset about two weeks ago.

After much debate, we decided to take a trip during our blogging break. Honestly, I initially was terrified of taking a camping trip because of the possibility of something bad happening to K when we weren't near our trusted vets. Then, even our own vet said that she thought that now was the time to go do fun things so we did! She sent us with a van full of supplies for every conceivable complication. Happily, we didn't need any of the emergency veterinary supplies.

We headed west and south, visiting deserts and high mountains. I'll tell you more about it in the coming days but let me show you a highlight today. We made it to the zone of the country where the solar eclipse was "annular", meaning that the moon blocked all but a ring of the sun. We sat in the rocky desert watching this amazing phenomenon.

In the photo below, the bright ring is the sun and the black circle is the moon. Because the moon was very far from the Earth, it didn't totally block the sun.

As the sun fell lower in the sky, the moon glided across its surface, leaving a crescent of sun showing. Then, the sun crescent set behind a rocky desert hillside. The rocks appear as silhouettes on the bottom of the sun in the photo below (yes, the orange orb is the sun!). The special camera filter that I used to photograph the solar eclipse only allowed light as intense as the sun to go through it. The rest of the world was black as viewed through the filter.

I was so happy that we made the trip. The solar eclipse was amazing. But, the best part was spending happy time with our K having fun in the deserts and mountains of our area. She's still loving life and so are we.