Entranced. Yes, I'm one of those people who are going to write about the eclipse. No matter where you were in the United States you would have been able to see at least a partial eclipse (as long as you didn't have cloud cover), and if you were some of the thousands of people who flocked to the path of totality then you witnessed something incredibly, but you already know that. Torrey and I had just begun our 2017 Rocky Mountain Adventure, arriving at Rocky Mountain National Park Visitors Center on the west side of the park just in time to catch the beginning of the eclipse.
We grabbed our backpacking permits from the wilderness office there, then stuck around, hanging out with other visitors who were also viewing the eclipse, taking turns to peek through a neat solar telescope provided by rangers. We also had our own solar sunglasses, courtesy of Torrey's mom, that we could view the eclipse with safely. I've heard the horror stories of people who did not correctly protect their eyes during an eclipse, even a total eclipse, and I was not going to be one of them.
Light and shadows changed as the eclipse grew towards maximum coverage, which was 94% where we were in Rocky Mountain National Park, and we began noticing the eclipse reflected in the tree leaf shadows cast upon the pavement, or how you could see how far the moon had progressed if you laced your fingers together to make a checkerboard pattern on the ground. I remember viewing partial eclipses with my dad when I was younger, and though I didn't get to see a total eclipse this time around it was still something I won't forget.
At the peak of the eclipse the light dimmed, casting a glow that resembled what you get at dawn or dusk, but the shadows had a fuzzy quality to them, and instead of elongating they remained where they would be at almost noon. It just felt all wrong in the best way possible. The world returned to normal just as slowly as it had slipped out of sync, brightening the trees around us and casting deeper shadows with every passing minute.
And then we heard a shout from a few other visitors: a moose had snuck in to the parking lot while we were all staring up, and she was happily munching away on some leaves without a care that the world had just dimmed and brightened again. We scrambled over to take a look at her as she continued her grazing, and Torrey and I took her presence as a good sign for our blossoming adventures. We got to see an eclipse and a moose, all within the first hour of being in the park! We knew it was going to be a fantastic trip. We had no idea what we were in for.
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